
» 


| LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. jj 
I (Sfyap. % 

3 v M £- 
^ 10 . < 1 






































' \ 



































































































































t 























. 

♦ •• • 

























































































































) 
































. 


















- 











































































>(■ * 

# 

1i 















* n 
























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































' 














. 













• 














































/ 




ilSCTEJl.iLiA'N 









7/ 7///V 












y 








'■/?. 
/ <- . 


\ 

! 






LOB D O N -. 

LONGMANS BROWN, GREEN AND LONGMANS 



L J A TERNO 8T E R LIC W 












the 


MISCELLANEOUS WORKS 


THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 

l/' 

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 


COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. 



LONDON: 

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 
1851 . 







ADVERTISEMENT 


BY THE EDITOR. 


[Prefixed to the Edition of Three Volumes, published in 1846 .] 


These Volumes contain whatever (with the exception of his History of 
England) is believed to be of the most value in the writings of Sir 
James Mackintosh. Something of method, it will be observed, has been 
affected in their arrangement by commencing with what is more purely 
Philosophical, and proceeding through Literature to Politics; each of 
those heads being generally, though not quite precisely, referable to each 
volume respectively. The Dissertation on Ethical Science, which wa3 
originally published in the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica, is included in this collection by virtue of an arrangement with the 
proprietors of that work. With such selection would naturally have 
terminated his responsibility; but in committing again to the press 
matter originally, for the most part, hastily printed, the Editor has 
assumed — as the lesser of two evils — a larger exercise of discretion in 
the revision of the text than he could have wished to have felt had been 
imposed upon him. Instead, therefore, of continually arresting the eye 
of the reader by a notification of almost mechanical alterations, he has to 
premise here that where inaccuracies and redundancies of expression 
were obvious, these have been throughout corrected and retrenched. A 
few transpositions of the text have also been made ; — as where, by the 
detachment of the eleventh chapter of what the present Editor on its 
original publication allowed to be called, perhaps too largely, the “ His¬ 
tory of the Revolution of 1688,” a stricter chronological order has been 
observed, at the same time that the residue — losing thereby much of 
its fragmentary character — may now, it is hoped, fairly claim to be all 








vi 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


that is assumed in its new designation. Of the contributions to peri¬ 
odical publications, such portions only find place here as partake most 
largely of the character of completeness. Some extended quotations, 
appearing for the most part as notes on former occasions, have been 
omitted, with a view to brevity, on the present; while, in addition to a 
general verification of the Author’s references, a few explanatory notes 
have been appended, wherever apparently needful, by the Editor. 

R. J. Mackintosh. 












/ 


CONTENTS. 


\ 


Page 

Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Phi- „ 
losophy, chiefly during the Seventeenth 
and Eighteenth Centuries - 1 

Introduction ----- 1 

Sect. I. Preliminary Observations - - 4 

ll f Retrospect of Ancient Ethics - - 8 

III. Retrospect of Scholastic Ethics - 16 

IV. Modern Ethics - - - - 25 

Grotius - - - - - 25 

Hobbes - - - - 2G 

Remarks - - - - 29 

V. Controversies concerning the Moral 

Faculties and the Social Affections 33 
Cumberland - - - *33 

Cudworth - - * - 34 

Clarke - - - - - 37 

Remarks « - - 38 

Shaftesbury - - - - 42 

Fenelon — Bossuet - - - 45 

Leibnitz - - - - 48 

Remarks - - •• 48 

Malebranche - - - 50 

Edwards - - - - 51 

Buffier - - - - 52 

VI. Foundations of a more just Theory of 

Ethics - - - - 53 

Butler - - - - - 53 

Remarks - - - 56 

Hutcheson - - - - 59 

Berkeley - - - - 61 

Hume - - - - - 63 

Smith - - - - - 69 

Remarks - - - - 71 

Price - - - - - 73 

Hartley - - - - - 74 

Tucker ----- 83 

Paley - - - - - 85 

Bent ham - - - - 89 

Stewart - - - - 100 

Brown - - - - - 108 

VII. General Remarks - - - 115 

Notes and Illustrations - - 132 

On the Philosophical Genius of Lord Bacon 
and Mr. Locke - - - - - 147 

A Discourse on the Law of Nature and , 
Nations ------- 161 

Life of Sir Thomas More - - - - 184' 

Appendix to Life of Sir T. More - - - 237 


Page 

A Refutation of the Claim on behalf of 
King Charles I. to the Authorship of the 
EIKfiN BA2IAIKH ----- 239 
Memoir of the Affairs of Holland, 1667—1686 255 
Review of the Causes of the Revolution of 
1688 . 275 

Chap. I. — General State of Affairs at Home — 
Abroad—Characters of the Ministry.—Sunder¬ 
land. — Rochester, — Halifax. — Godolphin. — 
Jeffreys. — Feversham — His Conduct after the 
Victory of Sedgemoor. — Kirke. — Judicial 
Proceedings in the West. — Trial of Mrs. 

Lisle.—Behaviour of the King. — Trial of Mrs. 

Gaunt and others. — Case of Hampden. — Pri- 
deaux.— Lord Brandon.—Delamere. - 275 

Chap. II. — Dismissal of Halifax _ Meeting of 

Parliament_Debates on the Address. — Pro¬ 

rogation of Parliament. — Habeas Corpus Act. 

— State of the Catholic Party_Character of 

the Queen — of Catherine Sedley. — Attempt 
to support the Dispensing Power by a Judg¬ 
ment of a Court of Law.— Godden v. Hales. 

— Consideration of the Arguments.— Attack 
on the Church.— Establishment of the Court 
of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes.— 
Advancement of Catholics to Offices. — Inter¬ 
course with Rome - - - - 294 

Chap. III. — State of the Army _ Attempts of 

the King to convert it—The Princess Anne. 

— Dryden. — Lord Middleton and others. — 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. — Attempt 
to convert Rochester— Conduct of the Queen. 

— Religious Conference. — Failure of the At¬ 
tempt. — His Dismissal - - - 314 

Chap. IV. — Scotland. — Administration of Queens- 
berry.—Conversion of Perth. — Measures con¬ 
templated by the King—Debates in Parlia¬ 
ment on th*e King’s Letter. —Proposed Bill of 
Toleration — unsatisfactory to James_Ad¬ 

journment of Parliament—Exercise of Pre¬ 
rogative.—Ireland. — Character of Tyrconnel. 

— Review of the State of Ireland_Arrival of 

Tyrconnel.—His appointment as Lord Deputy. 

— Advancement of Catholics to Offices. — Tyr¬ 
connel aims at the Sovereign Power in Ireland. 

— Intrigues with France - 326 

Ch ap. V.— Rupture with the Protestant Tories. 

— Increased Decision of the King’s Designs 











CONTENTS. 


viii 


Page 

— Encroachments on the Church Establish¬ 
ment. — Charter House — Oxford University 

College. — Christ Church_Exeter College, 

Cambridge.— Oxford, Magdalen College_ 

Declaration of Liberty of Conscience_Similar 

Attempts of Charles— Proclamation at Edin¬ 
burgh— Resistance of the Church_Attempt 

to conciliate the Nonconformists. — Review of 
their Sufferings. — Baxter. — Bunyan. — Pres¬ 
byterians— Independents Baptists.— Qua¬ 
kers. — Addresses of Thanks for the Declara¬ 
tion - 342 

Chap. VI.— D’Adda publicly received as the Nun¬ 
cio. — Dissolution of Parliament. — Final 
Breach. — Preparations for a new Parliament. 

— New Charters_Removal of Lord Lieu¬ 

tenants.— Patronage of the Crown. — Mode¬ 
rate Views of Sunderland. — House of Lords. 

— Royal Progress. — Pregnancy of the Queen. 

— London has the Appearance of a Catholic 

City.368 

Chap. VII_Remarkable Quiet—Its peculiar 

Causes. — Coalition of Nottingham and Hali¬ 
fax.— Fluctuating Counsels of the Court_ 

“ Pariiamentum Pacificum.”—Bill for Liberty 
of Conscience. — Conduct of Sunderland— 
Jesuits. ------ 386 

Chap. VIII. — Declaration of Indulgence re¬ 
newed. — Order that it should be read in 
Churches. — Deliberations of the Clergy. — 
Petition of the Bishops to the King. — Their 
Examination before the Privy Council.—Com¬ 
mittal, Trial, and Acquittal— Reflections— 
Conversion of Sunderland. — Birth of the 
Prince of Wales.—State of Affairs - - 399 

Chap. IX_Doctrine of Obedience. — Right of 

Resistance.— Comparison of Foreign and Civil 
War.—Right of calling auxiliaries. — Relations 
of the People of England and of Holland - 428 

An Account of the Partition of Poland - 434 
Sketch of the Administration and Fall of 
Struensee - - - - - -4G1 

Statement of the Case of Donna Maria da 
Gloria, as a Claimant to the Crown of Por¬ 
tugal ------- 472 

Character of Charles, First Marquis Corn¬ 
wallis ------- 486 

Character of the Right Honourable George 
Canning ------ 490 

Preface to a Reprint of the Edinburgh Re¬ 
view of 1755 ------ 495 

On the Writings of Machiavel - - - 500 

Review of Mr. Godwin’s Lives of Edward 
and John Philips, &c. - 505 

Review of Rogers’s Poems - - - - 512 

Review of Madame do Stael’s “ De l’Alle- 
magne ” ------ 521 

Discourse read at the Opening of the Lite¬ 
rary Society of Bombay; Nov. 26. 1804 535 

Vindieue Gallicte:—A Defence of the French 
Revolution and its English Admirers, 


Page 

against the Accusations of the Right Hon. 
Edmund Burke, including some Strictures 


on the late Production of Mons. deCalonne 513 

Introduction ----- 543 

Sect. I. The General Expediency and Necessity 

of a Revolution in France - - 547 

II. Of the Composition and Character of the 

National Assembly - - - 572 

III. Popular Excesses which attended the 

Revolution - 580 

IV. New Constitution of France - - 588 

V. English Admirers vindicated - - 605 

VI. Speculations on the probable Conse¬ 
quences of the French Revolution in 
Europe ----- 619 

Reasons against the French War of 1793 - 624 

On the State of France in 1815 - - - 630 

On the Right of Parliamentary Suffrage - 639 j 


UA Speech in Defence of Jean Peltier, accused 
of a Libel on the First Consul of France ; 
delivered in the Court of King’s Bench, 
February 21. 1803 - 656 

A Charge delivered to the Grand Jury of the 
Island of Bombay, July 20. 1811 - - 685 

Speech on the Annexation of Genoa to the 
Kingdom of Sardinia; delivered in the 
House of Commons, April 27. 1815 - - 689 

Speech on moving for a Committee to in¬ 
quire into the State of the Criminal Law; 
delivered in the House of Commons, March 
2. 1819. - - - - - - 713 

Speech on Mr. Brougham’s Motion for an 
Address to the Crown, with reference to 
the Trial and Condemnation of the Rev. 

John Smith, of Demerara; delivered in the 
House of Commons, June 1. 1824 - - 726 

Speech on presenting a Petition from the 
Merchants of London for the Recognition 
of the Independent States, established in 
the Countries of America, formerly subject 
to Spain; delivered in the House of Com¬ 
mons, June 15. 1824 - 747 

Speech on the Civil Government of Canada; 
delivered in the House of Commons, May 

2 . 1828 ------ 7 68 

Speech on moving for Papers relative to the 
Affairs of Portugal ; delivered in the 
House of Commons, June 1. 1829 - - 775 

Speech on the second Reading of the Bill to 
amend the Representation of the People of 
England and Wales; delivered in the 
House of Commons, July 4. 1831 - - 791 

Appendix to Speech on the Reform Bill - 836 

Index ------- 812 














THE 


MISCELLANEOUS WORKS 

OF 

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 


DISSERTATION 

ON 

THE PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 

CHIEFLY DURING 

THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 
(originally prefixed to the seventh edition of the encyclopedia britannica.) 


INTRODUCTION. 

The inadequacy of the words of ordinary 
language for the purposes of Philosophy, is 
an ancient and frequent complaint; of which 
the justness will he felt by all who consider 
the state to which seme of the most im¬ 
portant arts would be reduced, if the coarse 
tools of the common labourer were the only 
instruments to be employed in the most de¬ 
licate operations of manual expertness. The 
watchmaker, the optician, and the surgeon, 
are provided with instruments which are 
fitted, by careful ingenuity, to second their 
skill; the philosopher alone is doomed to 
use the rudest tools for the most refined 
purposes. He must reason in words of which 
the looseness and vagueness are suitable, 
and even agreeable, in the usual intercourse 
of life, but which are almost as remote from 
the extreme exactness and precision re¬ 
quired, not only in the conveyance, but in 


the search of truth, as the hammer and the 
axe would be unfit for the finest exertions 
of skilful handiwork: for it is not to be for¬ 
gotten, that he must himself think in these 
gross words as unavoidably as he uses them 
in speaking to others. He is in this respect 
in a worse condition than an astronomer who 
looked at the heavens only with the naked 
eye, whose limited and partial observation, 
however it might lead to error, might not 
directly, and would not necessarily, deceive. 
He might be more justly compared to an 
arithmetician compelled to employ numerals 
not only cumbrous, but used so irregularly 
to denote different quantities, that they not 
only often deceive others, but himself. 

The natural philosopher and mathema¬ 
tician have in some degree the privilege of 
framing their own terms of art; though that 
liberty is daily narrowed by the happy diffu¬ 
sion of these great branches of knowledge, 
which daily mixes their language with the 


B 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


2 


general vocabulary of educated men. The 
cultivator of mental and moral philosophy 
can seldom do more than mend the faults of 
his words by definition; — a necessary, but 
very inadequate expedient, and one in a 
great measure defeated in practice by the 
unavoidably more frequent recurrence of 
the terms in their vague, than in their de¬ 
finite acceptation. The mind, to which such 
definition is faintly, and but occasionally, 
present, naturally suffers, in the ordinary 
state of attention, the scientific meaning to 
disappear from remembrance, and insensibly 
ascribes to the word a great part, if not the 
whole, of that popular sense which is so very 
much more familiar even to the most veteran 
speculator. The obstacles which stood in 
the way of Lucretius and Cicero, when they 
began to translate the subtile philosophy of 
Greece into their narrow and barren tongue, 
are always felt by the philosopher when he 
struggles to express, with the necessary dis¬ 
crimination, his abstruse reasonings in words 
which, though those of his own language, he 
must take from the mouths of those to whom 
his distinctions would be without meaning. 

The moral philosopher is in this respect 
subject to peculiar difficulties. His state¬ 
ments ' and reasonings often call for nicer 
discriminations of language than those which 
are necessary in describing or discussing the 
purely intellectual part of human nature; 
but his freedom in the choice of words is 
more circumscribed. As he treats of mat¬ 
ters on which all men are disposed to form 
a judgment, he can as rarely hazard glaring 
innovations in diction, — at least in an adult 
and mature language like ours,—as the orator 
or the poet. If he deviates from common use, 
he must atone for his deviation by hiding it, 
and can only give a new sense to an old 
word by so skilful a position of it as to 
render the new meaning so quickly under¬ 
stood that its novelty is scarcely perceived. 
Add to this, that in those most difficult 
inquiries for which the utmost coolness is 
not more than sufficient, he is often forced 
to use terms commonly connected with warm 
feeling, with high praise, with severe re¬ 
proach ; — which excite the passions of his 


readers when he most needs their calm at¬ 
tention and the undisturbed exercise of their 
impartial judgment. There is scarcely a 
neutral term left in Ethics; so quickly are 
such expressions enlisted on the side of 
Praise or Blame, by the address of con¬ 
tending passions. A true philosopher must 
not even desire that men should less love 
Virtue, or hate Vice, in order to fit them 
for a more unprejudiced judgment on his 
speculations. 

There are, perhaps, not many occasions 
where the penury and laxity of language 
are more felt than in entering on the history 
of sciences where the first measure must be 
to mark out the boundary of the whole sub¬ 
ject with some distinctness. But no exact¬ 
ness in these important operations can be 
approached without a new division of human 
knowledge,.adapted to the present stage of 
its progress, and a reformation of all those 
barbarous, pedantic, unmeaning, and (what 
is worse) wrongmeaning names which con¬ 
tinue to be applied to the greater part of 
its branches. Instances are needless where 
nearly all the appellations are faulty. The 
term “Metaphysics” affords a specimen of 
all the faults which the name of a science 
can combine. To those who know only 
their own language, it must, at their en¬ 
trance on the study, convey no meaning: it 
^points their attention to nothing. If they 
examine the language in which its parts are 
significant, they will be misled into the per¬ 
nicious error of believing that it seeks 
something more than the interpretation of 
nature. It is only by examining the history 
of ancient philosophy that the probable 
origin of this name will be found, in its 
application, as the running title of several 
essays of Aristotle, placed in a collection of 
the manuscripts of that great philosopher, 
after his treatise on Physics. It has the 
greater fault of an unsteady and fluctuating 
signification;—denoting one class of objects 
in the seventeenth century, and another in 
the eighteenth; — even in the nineteenth 
not quite of the same import in the mouth 
of a German, as in that of a French or 
English philosopher; to say nothing of the 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 3 


farther objection that it continues to be a 
badge of undue pretension among some of 
the followers of the science, while it has 
become a name of reproach and derision 
among those who altogether decry it. The 
modern name of the very modern science 
called “Political Economy,” though deli¬ 
berately bestowed on it by its most eminent 
teachers, is perhaps a still more notable 
sample of the like faults. It might lead the 
ignorant to confine it to retrenchment in 
national expenditure; and a consideration 
of its etymology alone would lead us into 
the more mischievous error of believing: it 
to teach, that national wealth is best pro¬ 
moted by the contrivance and interference 
of lawgivers, in opposition to its surest doc¬ 
trine, and the one which it most justly 
boasts of having discovered and enforced. 

It is easy to conceive an exhaustive ana¬ 
lysis of human knowledge, and a consequent 
division of it into parts corresponding to all 
the classes of objects to which it relates: — 
a representation of that vast edifice, con¬ 
taining a picture of what is finished, a sketch 
of what is building, and even a conjectural 
outline of what, though required by com¬ 
pleteness and convenience, as well as sym¬ 
metry, is yet altogether untouched. A system 
of names might also be imagined derived 
from a few roots, indicating the objects of 
each part, and -showing the relation of the 
parts to each other. An order and a lan¬ 
guage somewhat resembling those by which 
the objects of the sciences of Botany and 
Chemistry have, in the eighteenth century, 
been arranged and denoted, are doubtless 
capable of application to the sciences gene¬ 
rally, when considered as parts of the system 
of knowledge. The attempts, however, which 
have hitherto been made to accomplish that 
analytical division of knowledge which must 
necessarily precede a new nomenclature of 
the sciences, have required so prodigious a 
superiority of genius in the single instance 
of approach to success by Bacon, as to dis¬ 
courage rivalship nearly as much as the fre¬ 
quent examples of failure in subsequent 
times could do. The nomenclature itself is 
attended with great difficulties, not indeed 


in its conception, but in its adoption and 
usefulness. In the Continental languages 
to the south of the Rhine, the practice of 
deriving the names of science from the 
Greek must be continued; which would 
render the new names for a while unintelli¬ 
gible to the majority of men. Even if suc¬ 
cessful in Germany, where a flexible and 
fertile language affords unbounded liberty 
of derivation and composition from native 
roots or elements, and where the newly de¬ 
rived and compounded words would thus be 
as clear to the mind, and almost as little 
startling to the ear of every man, as the 
oldest terms in the language, yet the whole 
nomenclature would be unintelligible to 
other nations. But, the intercommunity of 
the technical terms of science in Europe 
having been so far broken down by the 
Germans, the influence of their literature 
and philosophy is so rapidly increasing in 
the greater part of the Continent, that 
though a revolution in scientific nomen¬ 
clature be probably yet far distant, the 
foundation of it may be considered as already 
prepared. 

Although so great an undertaking must 
be reserved for a second Bacon and a future 
generation, it is necessary for the historian 
of any branch of knowledge to introduce his 
work by some account of the limits and con¬ 
tents of the sciences of which he is about to 
trace the progress; and though it will be 
found impossible to trace throughout this 
treatise a distinct line of demarcation, yet a 
general and imperfect sketch of the bounda¬ 
ries of the whole, and of the parts of our 
present subject, may be a considerable help 
to the reader, as it has been a useful guide 
to the writer. 

There is no distribution of the parts of 
knowledge more ancient than that of them 
into the physical and moral sciences, which 
seems liable to no other objection than that 
it does not exhaust the subject. Even this 
division, however, cannot be safely employed 
without warning the reader that no science 
is entirely insulated, and that the principles 
of one are often only the conclusions and 
results of another. Every branch of know- 







4 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


ledge has its root in the theory of the under¬ 
standing, from which even the mathematician 
must learn what can be known of his magni¬ 
tude and his numbers; moral science is 
founded on that other, —hitherto unnamed, 
— part of the philosophy of human nature 
(to be constantly and vigilantly distinguished 
from intellectual philosophy), which contem¬ 
plates the laws of sensibility, of emotion, of 
desire and aversion, of pleasure and pain, of 
happiness and misery; and on which arise 
the august and sacred landmarks that stand 
conspicuous along the frontier between Right 
and Wrong. 

But however multiplied the connections 
of the moral and physical sciences are, it is 
not difficult to draw a general distinction 
between them. The purpose of the physical 
sciences throughout all their provinces, is to 
answer the question What is ? They con¬ 
sist only of facts arranged according to their 
likeness, and expressed by general names 
given to every class of similar facts. The 
purpose of the moral sciences is to answer 
the question What ought to he ? They aim 
at ascertaining the rules which ought to 
govern voluntary action, and to which those 
habitual dispositions of mind which are the 
source of voluntary actions ought to be 
adapted. 

It is obvious that “ will,” “ action,” 
“habit,” “ disposition,” are terms denoting 
facts in human nature, and that an explana¬ 
tion of them must be sought in mental phi¬ 
losophy, which, if knowledge be divided 
into physical and moral, must be placed 
among physical sciences, though it essentially 
differs from them all in having for its chief 
object those laws of thought which alone 
render any other sort of knowledge possible. 
But it is equally certain that the word 
“ ought ” introduces the mind into a new 
region, to which nothing physical corre¬ 
sponds. However philosophers may deal 
with this most important of words, it is in¬ 
stantly understood by all who do not attempt 
to define it. No civilised speech, perhaps no 
human language, is without correspondent 
terms. It would be as reasonable to deny 
that “space” and “greenness” are signifi¬ 


cant words, as to affirm that “ ought,” 
“ right,” “ duty,” “ virtue,” are sounds with¬ 
out meaning. It would be fatal to an ethi¬ 
cal theory that it did not explain them, and 
that it did not comprehend all the concep¬ 
tions and emotions which they call up. 
There never yet was a theory which did not 
attempt such an explanation. 


SECTION I. 

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

There is no man who, in a case where he 
was a calm bystander, would not look with 
more satisfaction on acts of kindness than on 
acts of cruelty. No man, after the first ex¬ 
citement of his mind has subsided, ever 
whispered to himself with self-approbation 
and secret joy that he had been guilty of 
cruelty or baseness. Every criminal is 
strongly impelled to hide these qualities of 
his actions from himself, as he would do 
from others, by clothing his conduct in some 
disguise of duty, or of necessity. There is 
no tribe so rude as to be without a faint 
perception of a difference between Right 
and Wrong. There is no subject on which 
men of all ages and nations coincide in so 
many points as in the general rules of con¬ 
duct, and in the qualities of the human cha¬ 
racter which deserve esteem. Even the 
grossest deviations from the general consent 
will appear, on close examination, to be not 
so much corruptions of moral feeling, as 
ignorance of facts; or errors with respect to 
the consequences of action; or cases in 
which the dissentient party is inconsistent 
with other parts of his own principles, which 
destroys the value of his dissent; or where 
each dissident is condemned by all the other 
dissidents, which immeasurably augments 
the majority against him. In the first three 
cases he may be convinced by argument 
that his moral judgment should be changed 
on principles which he recognises as just; 
and he can seldom, if ever, be condemned at 
the same time by the body of mankind who 
agree in their moral systems, and by those 








PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


who on some other points dissent from that 
general code, without being also convicted 
of error by inconsistency with himself. The 
tribes who expose new-born infants, con¬ 
demn those who abandon their decrepit 
parents to destruction: those who betray 
and murder strangers, are condemned by 
the rules of faith and humanity which they 
acknowledge in their intercourse with their 
countrymen. Mr. Hume, in a dialogue in 
which he ingeniously magnifies the moral 
heresies of two nations so polished as the 
Athenians and the French, has very satis¬ 
factorily ’resolved his own difficulties : — 
“ In how many circumstances would an 
Athenian and a Frenchman of merit cer¬ 
tainly resemble each other : — Humanity, 
fidelity, truth, justice, courage, temperance, 
constancy, dignity of mind.” “ The princi¬ 
ples upon which men reason in Morals are 
always the same, though the conclusions 
which they draw are often very different.” * 
He might have added, that almost every 
deviation which he imputes to each nation 
is at variance with some of the virtues 
justly esteemed by both, and that the re¬ 
ciprocal condemnation of each other’s errors 
which appears in his statement entitles us, 
on these points, to strike out the suffrages 
of both when collecting the general judg¬ 
ment of mankind. If we bear in mind that 
the question relates to the coincidence of 
all men in considering the same qualities as 
virtues, and not to the preference of one 
class of virtues by some, and of a different 
class by others, the exceptions from the 
agreement of mankind, in their system of 
practical morality, will be reduced to abso¬ 
lute insignificance; and we shall learn to 
view them as no more affecting the harmony 
of our moral faculties, than the resemblance 
of our limbs and features is affected by 
monstrous conformations, or by the unfor¬ 
tunate effects of accident and disease in a 
very few individuals.^ 


* Philosophical Works (Edinb. 1826), vol. iv. 
pp. 420. 422. 

f “ On convient le plus souvent de ces instincts 
de la conscience. La plus grande et la plus saine 


5 

It is very remarkable, however, that 
though all men agree that there are acts 
which ought to be done, and acts which 
ought not to be done; though the far greater 
part of mankind agree in their list of virtues 
and duties, of vices and crimes ; and though 
the whole race, as it advances in other im¬ 
provements, is as evidently tending towards 
the moral system of the most civilised nations, 
as children in their growth tend to the 
opinions, as much as to the experience and 
strength, of adults ; yet there are no ques¬ 
tions in the circle of inquiry to which 
answers more various have been given than 
— How men have thus come to agree in the 
“ Rule of Life ?” Whence arises their ge¬ 
neral reverence for it ? and What is meant 
by affirming that it ought to be inviolably 
observed ? It is singular, that where we are 
most nearly agreed respecting rules, we 
should, perhaps, most widely differ as to the 
causes of our agreement, and as to the rea¬ 
sons which justify us for adhering to it. 
The discussion of these subjects composes 
what is usually called the “ Theory of 
Morals ” in a sense not in all respects co¬ 
incident with what is usually considered as 
theory in other sciences. When we investi¬ 
gate the causes of our moral agreement, the 
term “ theory ” retains its ordinary scientific 
sense ; but when we endeavour to ascertain 
the reasons of it, we rather employ the term 

partie du genre humain leur rend temoignage. Les 
Orientaux, et les Grecs, et les Romains conviennent 
en cela; et il faudroit etre aussi abruti que les sau- 
vages Americains pour approuver leurs coutumes, 
pleines d’une cruaute qui passe meme celle des 
betes. Cependant ces memes sauvages sentent bien ce 
que e'est que la justice en d'autres occasions; et quoi- 
que il n’y ait point de mauvaise pratique peut-etre 
qui ne soit autorisee quelque part, il y en a peu 
pourtant qui ne soient condamnees le plus souvent, 
et par la plus grande partie des hommes.” — Leib¬ 
nitz, CEuvres Philosophiques (Amst. et Leipz. 1765, 
4to.), p. 49. There are some admirable observations 
on this subject in Hartley, especially in the deve¬ 
lopment of the 49th Proposition: — “ The rule of 
life drawn from the practice and opinions of man¬ 
kind corrects and improves itself perpetually, till 
at last it determines entirely for virtue, and ex¬ 
cludes all kinds and degrees of vice.”—Observations 
on Man, vol. ii. p. 214. 









6 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


as importing tlie theory of the rules of an 
art. In the first case, “ theory ” denotes, as 
usual, the most general laws to which cer¬ 
tain facts can be reduced; whereas in the 
second, it points out the efficacy of the ob¬ 
servance, in practice, of certain rules, for 
producing the effects intended to be pro¬ 
duced in the art. These reasons also may 
be reduced under the general sense by 
stating the question relating to them thus: 
— IV 7 hat are the causes why the observance 
of certain rules enables us to execute certain 
purposes ? An account of the various 
answers attempted to be made to these in¬ 
quiries, properly forms the history of Ethics. 

The attentive reader may already per¬ 
ceive, that these momentous inquiries relate 
to at least two perfectly distinct subjects : — 

1. The nature of the distinction between 
Right and Wrong in human conduct, and 

2 . The nature of those feelings with which 
Right and Wrong are contemplated by human 
beings. The latter constitutes what has been 
called the “ Theory of Moral Sentiments; ” 
the former consists in an investigation into 
the criterion of Morality in action. Other 
most important questions arise in this pro¬ 
vince : but the two problems which have 
been just stated, and the essential distinc¬ 
tion between them, must be clearly appre¬ 
hended by all who are desirous of under¬ 
standing the controversies which have 
prevailed on ethical subjects. The dis¬ 
crimination has seldom been made by moral 
philosophers; the difference between the 
two problems has never been uniformly ob¬ 
served by any of them; and it will appear, 
in the sequel, that they have been not rarely 
altogether confounded by very eminent men, 
to the destruction of all just conception and 
of all correct reasoning in this most im¬ 
portant, and, perhaps, most difficult, of 
sciences. 

It may therefore be allowable to deviate 
so far from historical order, as to illustrate 
the nature, and to prove the importance, of 
the distinction, by an example of the effects 
of neglecting it, taken from the recent works 
of justly celebrated writers ; in which they 
discuss questions much agitated in the pre¬ 


sent age, and therefore probably now familiar 
to most readers of this Dissertation. 

Dr. Paley represents the principle of a 
Moral Sense as being opposed to that of 
Utility.* Now, it is evident that this re¬ 
presentation is founded on a confusion of 
the two questions which have been stated 
above. That we are endued with a Moral 
Sense, or, in other words, a faculty which 
immediately approves what is right, and 
condemns what is wrong, is only a statement 
of the feelings with which we contemplate 
actions. But to affirm that right actions are 
those which conduce to the well-beim; of 
mankind, is a proposition concerning the 
outward effects by which right actions them¬ 
selves may be recognised. As these affirm¬ 
ations relate to different subjects, they can¬ 
not be opposed to each other, any more than 
the solidity of earth is inconsistent with the 
fluidity of water ; and a very little reflection 
will show it to be easily conceivable that 
they may be both true. Man may be so con¬ 
stituted as instantaneously to approve cer¬ 
tain actions without any reference to their 
consequences; and yet Reason may never¬ 
theless discover, that a tendency to produce 
general happiness is the essential charac¬ 
teristic of such actions. Mr. Bentham also 
contrasts the principle of Utility with that of 
Sympathy, of which he considers the Moral 
Sense as being one of the forms.f It is 
needless to repeat, that propositions which 
affirm, or deny, anything of different sub¬ 
jects, cannot contradict each other. As 
these celebrated persons have thus inferred 
or implied the non-existence of a Moral 
Sense, from their opinion that the morality 
of actions depends upon their usefulness, so 
other philosophers of equal name have con¬ 
cluded that the utility of actions cannot be 
the criterion of their morality, because a 
perception of that utility appears to them 
to form a faint and inconsiderable part of 
our Moral Sentiments, — if, indeed, it be at 


* Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. 
Compare book i. chap. v. with hook ii. chap. vi. 

f Introduction to the Principles of Morality and 
Legislation, chap. ii. 











PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 7 


nil discoverable in them.* These errors are 
the more remarkable, because the like con¬ 
fusion of perceptions with their objects, of 
emotions with their causes, or even the omis¬ 
sion to mark the distinctions, would in every 
other subject be felt to be a most serious 
fault in philosophising. If, for instance, an 
element were discovered to be common to 
all bodies which our taste perceives to be 
sweet, and to be found in no other bodies, it 
is apparent that this discovery, perhaps im¬ 
portant in other respects, would neither 
affect our perception of sweetness, nor the 
pleasure which attends it: Both would con¬ 
tinue to be what they have been since the 
existence of mankind. Every proposition 
concerning that element would relate to 
sweet bodies, and belong to the science of 
Chemistry ; while every proposition respect¬ 
ing the perception or pleasure of sweetness 
would relate either to the body or mind of 
man, and accordingly belong either to the 
science of Physiology, or to that of mental 
philosophy. During the many ages which 
passed before the analysis of the sun’s beams 
had proved them to be compounded of dif¬ 
ferent colours, white objects were seen, and 
their whiteness was sometimes felt to be 
beautiful, in the very same manner as since 
that discovery. The qualities of light are 
the object of Optics; the nature of beauty 
can be ascertained only by each man’s ob¬ 
servation of his own mind; the changes in 
the living frame which succeed the refrac¬ 
tion of light in the eye, and precede mental 
operation, will, if they are ever to be known 
by man, constitute a part of Physiology. 
But no proposition relating to one of these 
orders of phenomena can contradict or sup¬ 
port a proposition concerning another order. 

The analogy of this latter case will justify 
another preliminary observation. In the 
case of the pleasure derived from beauty, the 
question whether that pleasure be original, 

* Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, part iv. 
Even Ilume, in the third book of his Treatise of 
Human Nature, the most precise, perhaps, of his 
philosophical writings, uses the following as the 
title of one of the sections: “ Moral Distinctions , 
derived from a Moral Sense .” 


or derived, is of secondary importance. It 
has been often observed that the same pro¬ 
perties which are admired as beautiful in the 
horse, contribute also to his safety and speed; 
and they who infer that the admiration of 
beauty was originally founded on the con¬ 
venience of fleetness and firmness, if they 
at the same time hold that the idea of use¬ 
fulness is gradually effaced, and that the 
admiration of a certain shape at length rises 
instantaneously without reference to any 
purpose, may, with perfect consistency, re¬ 
gard a sense of beauty as an independent 
and universal principle of human nature. 
The laws of such a feeling of beauty are 
discoverable only by self-observation : those 
of the qualities which call it forth are ascer¬ 
tained by examination of the outward things 
which are called beautiful. But it is of the 
utmost importance to bear in mind, that he 
who contemplates the beautiful proportions 
of a horse, as the signs and proofs of se¬ 
curity or quickness, and has in view these 
convenient qualities, is properly said to pre¬ 
fer the horse for his usefulness, not for his 
beauty; though he may choose him from the 
same outward appearance which pleases the 
admirer of the beautiful animal. lie alone 
who derives immediate pleasure from the 
appearance itself, without reflection on any 
advantages which it may promise, is truly 
said to feel the beauty. The distinction, 
however, manifestly depends, not on the 
origin of the emotion, but on its object and 
nature when completely formed. . Many of 
our most important perceptions through the 
eye are universally acknowledged to be ac¬ 
quired : but they are as general as the ori¬ 
ginal perceptions of that organ ; they arise 
as independently of our will, and human 
nature would be quite as imperfect without 
them. The case of an adult who did not 
immediately see the different distances of 
objects from his eye, would be thought by 
every one to be as great a deviation from the 
ordinary state of man, as if he were inca¬ 
pable of distinguishing the brightest sun¬ 
shine from the darkest midnight. Acquired 
perceptions and sentiments may therefore be 
termed natural, as much as those which are 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


8 

more commonly so called, if they be as 
rarely found wanting. Ethical theories can 
never be satisfactorily discussed by those 
who do not constantly bear in mind, that the 
question concerning the existence of a moral 
faculty in man which immediately approves 
or disapproves without reference to any far¬ 
ther object, is perfectly distinct, on the one 
hand, from that which inquires into the 
qualities of actions, thus approved or disap¬ 
proved ; and on the other, from an inquiry 
whether that faculty be derived from other 
parts of our mental frame, or be itself one of 
the ultimate constituent principles of human 
nature. 


SECTION II. 

RETROSPECT OF ANCIENT ETHICS. 

Inquiries concerning the nature of Mind, 
the first principles of Knowledge, the origin 
and government of the world, appear to have 
been among the earliest objects which em¬ 
ployed the understanding of civilised men. 
Fragments of such speculation are handed 
down from the legendary age of Greek phi¬ 
losophy. In the remaining monuments of 
that more ancient form of civilisation which 
sprung up in Asia, we see clearly that the 
Braminical philosophers, in times perhaps 
before the dawn of Western history, had run 
round that dark and little circle of systems 
which an unquenchable thirst of knowledge 
has since urged both the speculators of an¬ 
cient Greece and those of Christendom to 
retrace. The wall of adamant which bounds 
human inquiry in that direction has scarcely 
ever been discovered by any adventurer, 
until he has been roused by the shock which 
drove him back. It is otherwise with the 
theory of Morals. No controversy seems to 
have arisen regarding it in Greece, till the 
rise and conflict of the Stoical and Epi¬ 
curean schools; and the ethical disputes of 
the modern world originated with the writ¬ 
ings of Hobbes about the middle of the 
seventeenth century. Perhaps the longer 
abstinence from debate on this subject may 
have sprung from reverence for Morality. 
Perhaps also, where the world were un¬ 


animous in their practical opinions, little 
need was felt of exact theory. The teachers 
of Morals were content with partial or se¬ 
condary principles, — with the combination 
of principles not always reconcilable, — 
even with vague but specious phrases which 
in any degree explained or seemed to ex¬ 
plain the Rules of the Art of Life, appear¬ 
ing, as these last did, at once too evident to 
need investigation, and too venerable to be 
approached by controversy. 

Perhaps the subtile genius of Greece was 
in part withheld from indulging itself in 
ethical controversy by the influence of So¬ 
crates, who was much more a teacher of 
virtue than even a searcher after Truth — 

Whom, well inspired, the oracle pronounced 

Wisest of men. 

It was doubtless because he chose that better 
part that he was thus spoken of by the man 
whose commendation is glory, and who, from 
the loftiest eminence of moral genius ever 
reached by a mortal, was perhaps alone 
worthy to place a new crown on the brow of 
the martyr of Virtue. 

Aristippus indeed, a wit and a worldling, 
borrowed nothing from the conversations of 
Socrates but a few maxims for husbanding 
the enjoyments of sense. Antisthenes also, 
a hearer but not a follower, founded a school 
of parade and exaggeration, which caused 
his master to disown him by the ingenious 
rebuke, — “I see your vanity through your 
threadbare cloak.” * The modest doubts of 
the most sober of moralists, and his indis¬ 
position to fruitless abstractions, were in 
process of time employed as the foundation 
of systematic scepticism;—the most pre¬ 
sumptuous, inapplicable, and inconsistent of 
all the results of human meditation. But 
though his lessons were thus distorted by 
the perverse ingenuity of some who heard 
him, the authority of his practical sense may 
be traced in the moral writings of those most 
celebrated philosophers who were directly or 
indirectly his disciples. 

Plato, the most famous of his scholars, the 


* Diog. Laert. lib. vi. iElian, lib. ix. cap. 35. 








PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 9 

most eloquent of Grecian writers, and the 
earliest moral philosopher whose writings 
have come down to us, employed his genius 
in the composition of dialogues, in which his 
master performed the principal part. These 
beautiful conversations would have lost their 
charm of verisimilitude, of dramatic vivacity, 
and of picturesque representation of cha¬ 
racter, if they had been subjected to the 
constraint of method. They necessarily pre¬ 
suppose much oral instruction. They fre¬ 
quently quote, and doubtless oftener allude 
to, the opinions of predecessors and contem¬ 
poraries whose works have perished, and of 
whose doctrines only some fragments are 
preserved. In these circumstances, it must 
be difficult for the most learned and philo¬ 
sophical of his commentators to give a just 
representation of his doctrines, even if he 
really framed or adopted a system. The 
moral part of his works is more accessible.* 
The vein of thought which runs through 
them is always visible. The object is to in¬ 
spire the love of Truth, of Wisdom, of 
Beauty, especially of Goodness — the highest 
Beauty, and of that Supreme and Eternal 
Mind, which contains all Truth and Wisdom, 
all Beauty and Goodness. By the love or 
delightful contemplation and pursuit of 
these transcendent aims for then' own sake 
only, he represented the mind of man as 
raised from low and perishable objects, and 
prepared for those high destinies which are 
appointed for all those who are capable of 
enjoying them. The application to moral 
qualities of terms which denote outward 
beauty, though by him perhaps carried to 
excess, is an illustrative metaphor, as well 
warranted by the poverty of language as 
any other employed to signify the acts or 
attributes of Mind.f The “beautiful” in 

his language denoted all that of which the 
mere contemplation is in itself delightful, 
without any admixture of organic pleasure, 
and without being regarded as the means of 
attaining any farther end. The feeling which 
belongs to it he called “ love; ” a word which, 
as comprehending complacency, benevolence, 
and affection, and reaching from the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the senses to the most sublime 
of human thoughts, is foreign to the colder 
and more exact language of our philosophy; 
but which, perhaps, then happily served to 
lure both the lovers of Poetry, and the 
votaries of Superstition, to the school of 
Truth and Goodness in the groves of the 
Academy. He enforced these lessons by an 
inexhaustible variety of just and beautiful 
illustrations,—sometimes striking from their 
familiarity, sometimes subduing by their 
grandeur; and his works are the storehouse 
from which moralists have from age to age 
borrowed the means of rendering moral in¬ 
struction easier and more delightful. Virtue 
he represented as the harmony of the whole 
soul; — as a peace between all its principles 
and desires, assigning to each as much space 
as they can occupy, without encroaching on 
each other; — as a state of perfect health, in 
which every function was performed with 
ease, pleasure, and vigour; — as a well- 
ordered commonwealth, where the obedient 
passions executed with energy the laws and 
commands of Reason. The vicious mind 
presented the odious character, sometimes 
of discord, of war; — sometimes of disease; — 
always of passions warring with each other 
in eternal anarchy. Consistent with himself, 
and at peace with his fellows, the good man 
felt in the quiet of his conscience a foretaste 
of the approbation of God. “ Oh, what 
ardent love would virtue inspire if she could 

* Heyse, Init. Phil. Plat. 1827;—a hitherto in¬ 
complete work of great perspicuity and elegance, 
in which we must excuse the partiality which 
belongs to a labour of love. 

f The most probable etymology of “ x»\o; ” seems 
to be from to burn. What bums commonly 

shines. “ Schon,” in German, which means beau¬ 
tiful, is derived from “ seheinen,” to shine. The word 
xa\6( was used for right, so early as the Homeric 

Poems. Ia. xvii. 19. In the philosophical age it 
became a technical term, with little other remains 
of the metaphorical sense than what the genius 
and art of a fine writer might sometimes rekindle. 

“ Honestum,” the term by which Cicero translates 
the “ xctXov," being derived from outward honours, 
is a less happy metaphor. In our language, the 
terms, being from foreign roots, contribute nothing j 
to illustrate the progress of thought. 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


10 

be seen.” “ If the heart of a tyrant could 
be laid bare, we should see how it was cut 
and torn by its own evil passions and by an 
avenging conscience.” * 

Perhaps in every one of these illustrations, 
an eye trained in the history of Ethics may 
discover the germ of the whole or of a part 
of some subsequent theory. But to examine 
it thus would not be to look at it with the 
eye of Plato. His aim was as practical as 
that of Socrates. He employed every topic, 
Avithout regard to its place in a system, or 
even always to its argumentative force, which 
could attract the small portion of the com¬ 
munity then accessible to cultivation; who, 
it should not be forgotten, had no moral in¬ 
structor but the Philosopher, unaided, if not 
tliAvarted, by the reigning superstition: for 
Religion had not then, besides her own dis¬ 
coveries, brought down the most awful and 
the most beautiful forms of Moral Truth to 
the humblest station in human society.f 

Ethics retained her sober spirit in the 
hands of his great scholar and rival Aristotle, 
who, though he certainly surpassed all men 
in acute distinction, in subtile argument, in 
severe method, in the power of analyzing 

* Let it not be forgotten, that for this terrible 
description, Socrates, to Avhom it is ascribed by 
Plato I.) is called “ Praestantissimus sapien¬ 
tial,” by a Avriter of the most masculine understand¬ 
ing, the least subject to be transported by enthu¬ 
siasm. (Tac. Ann. lib. vi. cap. 6.) “ Quae vulnera! ” 
says Cicero, in alluding to the same passage. (De 
Off. lib. iii. cap. 21.) 

f There can hardly be a finer example of Plato’s 
practical morals than his observations on the treat¬ 
ment of slaves. “ Genuine humanity and real pro¬ 
bity,” says he, “are brought to the test, by the 
behaviour of a man to slaves, Avhom he may wrong 
with impunity.” Xos yctg o tpvo-ti xoii pty x-Xctrrus 

erlSuv T5jv bixyv, uurojv Se ovrovf to othixov, tv tovtois rav 
otv^urra/v tv oh oo/tm potdiov othixuv .— No,«*. lib. vi. Cap. 19. 
That Plato Avas considered as the fountain of an¬ 
cient morals, Avould be sufficiently evident from 
Cicero alone: “ Ex hoc igitur Platonis, quasi quo- 
dam sancto augustoque fonte, nostra omnis mana- 
bit oratio.”—Tusc. Quaest. lib. v. cap. 12. Perhaps 
the sober Quintilian meant to mingle some censure 
Avith the highest praise: “ Plato, qui eloquendi 
facultate divina quadam et Homerica, multum su¬ 
pra prosam orationem surgit.” — De Inst. Orat. 
lib. x. cap. 1. 


Avhat is most compounded, and of reducing 
to simple principles the most various and 
unlike appearances, yet appears to be still 
more raised above his fellows by the prodi¬ 
gious faculty of laying aside these extraor¬ 
dinary endowments Avhenever his present 
purpose required it; — as in his History of 
Animals, in his treatises on philosophical 
criticism, and in his practical writings, poli¬ 
tical as Avell as moral. Contrasted as his 
genius was to that of Plato, not only by its 
logical and metaphysical attributes, but by 
the regard to experience and observation 
of Nature which, in him perhaps alone, ac¬ 
companied them; (though the tAVO may be 
considered as the original representatives of 
the tAVO antagonist tendencies of philosophy 
— that which would ennoble man, and that 
Avhich seeks rather to explain nature;) yet 
opposite as they are in other respects, the 
master and the scholar combine to guard the 
Rule of Life against the licentious irruptions 
of the Sophists. 

In Ethics alone their systems differed 
more in words than in things.* That hap¬ 
piness consisted in virtuous pleasure, chiefly 
dependent on the state of mind, but not un¬ 
affected by outward agents, was the doctrine 
of both. Both would Avith Socrates have 
called happiness “ unrepented pleasure.” 
Neither distinguished the two elements 
Avhich they represented as constituting the 
Supreme Good from each other; partly, 
perhaps, from a fear of appearing to sepa¬ 
rate them. Plato more habitually consi¬ 
dered happiness as the natural fruit of 
Virtue ; Aristotle oftener viewed Virtue as 
the means of attaining happiness. The cele¬ 
brated doctrine of the Peripatetics, Avhich 
placed all virtues in a medium between op¬ 
posite vices, was probably suggested by the 
Platonic representation of its necessity to 
keep up harmony between the different parts 

* “Una et consentiens duobus vocabulis philo¬ 
sophise forma instituta est, Academicorum et Peri- 
pateticorum; qui rebus congruentes nominibus 
differebant.” — Cic. Acad. Quaest. lib. i. cap. 4. 

BooXtrxi A^tffTOTiX/qg) S/ttov tTvxi rov xotrot (piXo/roQtatv 
Xoyov ’ tov ptiv rr^otx tixov, rov Ss 3-tov$Y)Tixov. xot) tov re^ot- 
xrixov, tov rt r,0txbv xot) oroXiTtxov' tov hi ^iov^tixov, tov t£ 
Qv<rixov, xoti Xoyixbv. —Diog. Laert. lib. A r . § 28. 











PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 11 


of our nature. The perfection of a com¬ 
pound machine is attained where all its parts 
have the fullest scope for action. Where 
one is so far exerted as to repress others, 
there is a vice of excess : where any one has 
less activity than it might exert without dis¬ 
turbing others, there is a vice of defect. 
The point which all reach without collision 
with each other, is the mediocrity in which 
the Peripatetics placed Virtue. 

It was not till near a century after the 
death of Plato that Ethics became the scene 
of philosophical contest between the adverse 
schools of Epicurus and Zeno; whose errors 
afford an instructive example, that in the 
formation of a theory, partial truth is equi¬ 
valent to absolute falsehood. As the astro¬ 
nomer who left either the centripetal or the 
centrifugal force of the planets out of his 
view, would err as completely as he who ex¬ 
cluded both, so the Epicureans and Stoics, 
who each confined themselves to real but 
not exclusive principles in Morals, departed 
as widely from the truth as if they had 
adopted no part of it. Every partial theory 
is indeed directly false, inasmuch as it as¬ 
cribes to one or few causes what is produced 
by more. As the extreme opinions of one, 
if not of both, of these schools have been 
often revived with variations and refinements 
in modern times, and are still not without 
influence on ethical systems, it may be allow¬ 
able to make some observations on this ear¬ 
liest of moral controversies. 

“ All other virtues,” said Epicurus, 
“ grow from prudence, which teaches that 
we cannot live pleasurably without living 
justly and virtuously, nor live justly and 
virtuously without living pleasurably.” * The 
illustration of this sentence formed the whole 
moral discipline of Epicurus. To him we 
owe the general concurrence of reflecting 
men in succeeding times, in the important 
truth that men cannot be happy without a 
virtuous frame of mind and course of life ; 
a truth of inestimable value, not peculiar to 
the Epicureans, but placed by their exag¬ 
gerations in a stronger light; — a truth, it 


* Diog. Lacrt. lib. x. § 132. 


must be added, of less importance as a mo¬ 
tive to right conduct than as completing 
Moral Theory, which, however, it is very 
far from solely constituting. With that 
truth the Epicureans blended another posi¬ 
tion, which indeed is contained in the first 
words of the above statement; namely, that 
because Virtue promotes happiness, every 
act of virtue must be done in order to pro¬ 
mote the happiness of the agent. They and 
their modern followers tacitly assume, that 
the latter position is th?consequence of the 
former; as if it were an inference from the 
necessity of food to life, that the fear of 
death should be substituted for the appetite 
of hunger as a motive for eating. “ Friend¬ 
ship,” says Epicurus, “ is to be pursued by 
the wise man only for its usefulness, but he 
will begin ; as he sows the field in order to 
reap.” * It is obvious, that if these words 
be confined to outward benefits, they may 
be sometimes true, but never can be perti¬ 
nent ; for outward acts sometimes show 
kindness, but never compose it. If they be 
applied to kind feeling, they would indeed 
be pertinent, but they would be evidently 
and totally false ; for it is most certain that 
no man acquires an affection merely from 
his belief that it would be agreeable or ad¬ 
vantageous to feel it. Kindness cannot in¬ 
deed be pursued on account of the pleasure 
which belongs to it; for man can no more 
know the pleasure till he has felt the affec¬ 
tion, than he can form an idea of colour 
without the sense of sight. The moral cha¬ 
racter of Epicurus was excellent; no man 
more enjoyed the pleasure, or better per¬ 
formed the duties of friendship. The letter 
of his system was no more indulgent to vice 
than that of any other moralist.j* Although, 

* T»jv (piXtotv hta, tvs —Diog. Laert. lib. x. 

§ 120. “ Hie est locus,” Gassendi confesses, “ ob 
quem Epicurus non parum vexatur, quando nemo 
non reprehendit, parari amicitiam non sui, sed utili- 
tatis gratia.” 

f It is due to him to observe, that he treated 
humanity towards slaves, as one of the character¬ 
istics of a wise man. Ovn xoXouniv oixtrois, ’iXtvtruv 
fjt.iv t»i, zoc .1 trv'yyvojfjt.riv nv) rSiv inrovtixim - Diog. 

Laert. lib. x. § 118. It is not unworthy of remark, 
that neither Plato nor Epicurus thought it ncces- 










12 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


therefore, he has the merit of having more 
strongly inculcated the connection of Virtue 
with happiness, perhaps by the faulty excess 
of treating it as an exclusive principle ; yet 
his doctrine was justly charged with indis¬ 
posing the mind to those exalted and gener¬ 
ous sentiments, without which no pure, 
elevated, bold, generous, or tender virtues 
can exist.* * 

As Epicurus represented the tendency of 
Virtue, which is a most important truth in 
ethical theory, as tnc sole inducement to 
virtuous practice; so Zeno, in his disposition 
towards the opposite extreme, was inclined 
to consider the moral sentiments, which are 
the motives of right conduct, as being the 
sole principles of moral science. The con¬ 
fusion was equally great in a philosophical 
view, but that of Epicurus was more fatal to 
interests of higher importance than those 
of Philosophy. Had the Stoics been content 
with affirming that Virtue is the source of 
all that part of our happiness which depends 
on ourselves, they would have taken a posi¬ 
tion from which it would have been impos¬ 
sible to drive them; they would have laid 
down a principle of as great comprehension 
in practice as their wider pretensions; a 
simple and incontrovertible truth, beyond 
which every thing is an object of mere 
curiosity to man. Our information, how¬ 
ever, about the opinions of the more cele¬ 
brated Stoics is very scanty. None of their 
own writings are preserved. We know little 
of them but from Cicero, the translator of 
Grecian philosophy, and from the Greek 
compilers of a later age; authorities which 
would be imperfect in the history of facts, 
but which are of far less value in the history 
of opinions, where a right conception often 
depends upon the minutest distinctions be¬ 
tween words. We know that Zeno was more 
simple, and that Chrysippus, who was ac¬ 
counted the prop of the Stoic Porch, 
abounded more in subtile distinction and 

sary to abstain from these topics in a city full of 
slaves, many of whom were men not destitute of 
knowledge. 

* “ Nil generosum, nil magnificum sapit.” — De 
Fin. lib. i. cap. 7. 


systematic spirit.* His power was attested 
as much by the antagonists whom he called 
forth, as by the scholars whom he formed. 
“ Had there been no Chrysippus, there 
would have been no Carneades,” was the 
saying of the latter philosopher himself; as 
it might have been said in the eighteenth 
century, “ Had there been no Hume, there 
would have been no Kant and no Reid.” 
Cleanthes, when one of his followers would 
pay court to him by laying vices to the 
charge of his most formidable opponent, 
Arcesilaus, the academic, answered with a 
justice and candour unhappily too rare, 
“ Silence,—do not malign him; — though 
he attacks Virtue by his arguments, he con¬ 
firms its authority by his life.” Arcesilaus, 
whether modestly or churlishly, replied, “ I 
do not choose to be flattered.” Cleanthes, 
with a superiority of repartee, as well as 
charity, replied, “ Is it flattery to say that 
you speak one thing and do another ? ” It 
would be vain to expect that the fragments 
of the professors who lectured in the Stoic 
School for five hundred years, should be 
capable of being moulded into one consistent 
system; and we see that in Epictetus at 
least, the exaggeration of the sect was low¬ 
ered to the level of Reason, by confining 
the sufficiency of Virtue to those cases only 
where happiness is attainable by our volun¬ 
tary acts. It ought to be added in extenua¬ 
tion of a noble error, that the power of 
habit and character to struggle against out¬ 
ward evils has been proved by experience to 
be in some instances so prodigious, that no 
man can presume to fix the utmost limit of 
its possible increase. 

The attempt, however, of the Stoics to 
stretch the bounds of their system beyond 
the limits of nature, doomed them to fluc¬ 
tuate between a wild fanaticism on the one 
hand, and, on the other, concessions which 

* “ Chrysippus, qui fulciro putatur porticum 
Stoicorum.”—Acad. Quaest. lib. ii. cap. 24. Else¬ 
where (De Orat. lib. i. cap. 12. ; De Fin. lib. iv. 
cap. 8.): “ Acutissimus, sed in scribendo exilis et 
jejunus, scripsit rhetoricam seu potiiis obmutescendi 
artem;”—nearly as we should speak of a School¬ 
man. 













PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 13 


left their differences from other philosophers 
purely verbal. Many of their doctrines ap¬ 
pear to be modifications of their original 
opinions, introduced as opposition became 
formidable. In this manner they were driven 
to the necessity of admitting that the objects 
of our desires and appetites are worthy of 
preference, though they are denied to be 
constituents of happiness. It was thus that 
they were obliged to invent a double mo¬ 
rality ; one for mankind at large, from whom 
was expected no more than the kciQi]kov , — 
which seems principally to have denoted 
acts of duty done from inferior or mixed 
motives ; and the other (which they appear 
to have hoped from their ideal wise man) 
KarofjOojfia, or perfect observance of recti¬ 
tude, — which consisted only in moral acts 
done from mere reverence of morality, un¬ 
aided by any feelings; all which (without 
the exception of pity) they classed among 
the enemies of Reason and the disturbers of 
the human soul. Thus did they shrink from 
their proudest paradoxes into verbal eva¬ 
sions. It is remarkable that men so acute 
did not perceive and acknowledge, that if 
pain were not an evil, cruelty would not be 
a vice ; and that, if patience were of power 
to render torture indifferent, Virtue must 
expire in the moment of victory. There 
can be no more triumph, when there is no 
enemy left to conquer.* 

The influence of men’s opinions on the 
conduct of their lives is checked and modi¬ 
fied by so many causes ; it so much depends 
on the strength of conviction, on its habitual 
combination with feelings, on the concur¬ 
rence or resistance of interest, passion, ex¬ 
ample, and sympathy, — that a wise man is 
not the most forward in attempting to deter¬ 
mine the power of its single operation over 
human actions. In the case of an individual 
it becomes altogether uncertain. But when 
the experiment is made on a large scale, 
when it is long continued and varied in its 


* “ Patience, sovereign o’er transmuted ill.” But 
as soon as the ill was really “transmuted” into 
good, it is evident that there was no longer any 
scope left for the exercise of patience. 


circumstances, and especially when great 
bodies of men are for ages the subject of it, 
we cannot reasonably reject the consideration 
of the inferences to which it appears to lead. 
The Roman Patriciate, trained in the con¬ 
quest and government of the civilised world, 
in spite of the tyrannical vices which sprung 
from that training, were raised by the great¬ 
ness of their objects to an elevation of genius 
and character unmatched by any other aris¬ 
tocracy, ere the period when, after preserv¬ 
ing their power by a long course of wise 
compromise with the people, they were be¬ 
trayed by the army and the populace into 
the hands of a single tyrant of their own 
order — the most accomplished of usurpers, 
and, if Humanity and Justice could for a 
moment be silenced, one of the most illustri¬ 
ous of menf There is no scene in history so 
memorable as that in which Caesar mastered 
a nobility of which Lucullus and Horten- 
sius, Sulpicius and Catulus, Pompey and 
Cicero, Brutus and Cato were members. 
This renowned body had from the time of 
Scipio sought the Greek philosophy as an 
amusement or an ornament. Some few “ in 
thought more elevate,” caught the love of 
Truth, and were ambitious of discovering a 
solid foundation for the Rule of Life. The 
influence of the Grecian systems was tried, 
during the five centuries between Carneades 
and Constantine, by their effect on a body 
of men of the utmost originality, energy, 
and variety of character, in their successive 
positions of rulers of the world, and of slaves 
under the best and under the worst of un¬ 
controlled masters. If we had found this 
influence perfectly uniform, we should have 
justly suspected our own love of system of 
having in part bestowed that appearance on 
it. Had there been no trace of such an in¬ 
fluence discoverable in so'great an experi¬ 
ment, we must have acquiesced in the 
paradox, that opinion does not at all affect 
conduct. The result is the more satisfactory, 
because it appears to illustrate general ten¬ 
dency without excluding very remarkable 
exceptions. Though Cassius was an Epi¬ 
curean, the true representative of that school 
was the accomplished, prudent, friendly, 








14 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


good-natured time-server Atticus, the pliant 
slave of every tyrant, who could kiss the 
hand of Antony, imbrued as it was in the 
blood of Cicero. The pure school of Plato 
sent forth Marcus Brutus, the signal hu¬ 
manity of whose life was both necessary and 
sufficient to prove that his daring breach of 
venerable rules flowed only from that dire 
necessity which left no other means of up¬ 
holding the most sacred principles. The 
Roman orator, though in speculative ques¬ 
tions he embraced that mitigated doubt 
which allowed most ease and freedom to his 
genius, yet in those moral writings where his 
heart was most deeply interested, followed 
the severest sect of Philosophy, and became 
almost a Stoic. If any conclusion may be 
hazarded from this trial of systems, — the 
greatest which History has recorded, we must 
not refuse our decided, though not undis¬ 
tinguishing, preference to that noble school 
which preserved great souls untainted at the 
court of dissolute and ferocious tyrants; 
which exalted the slave of one of Nero’s 
courtiers to be a moral teacher of aftertimes; 
— which for the first, and hitherto for the 
only time, breathed philosophy and justice 
into, those rules of law which govern the 
ordinary concerns of every man ; and which, 
above all, has contributed, by the examples 
of Marcus Portius Cato and of Marcus Au¬ 
relius Antoninus, to raise the dignity of our 
species, to keep alive a more ardent love of 
Virtue, and a more awful sense of duty 
throughout all generations.* 

The result of this short review of the 
practical philosophy of Greece seems to be, 
that though it was rich in rules for the con¬ 
duct of life, and in exhibitions of the beauty 
of Virtue, and though it contains glimpses 


* Of all testimonies to the character of the Stoics, 
perhaps the most decisive is the speech of the vile 
sycophant Capito, in the mock impeachment of 
Tlirasea Paetiis, before a senate of slaves: “ Ut 
quondam C. Caesarem et M. Catonem, ita nunc te, 
Nero, et Thraseam, avida discordiarum civitas 

loquitur.Ista secta Tuberones et Favonios, 

veteri quoque reipublicae ingrata nomina, genuit.” 
— Tacit. Ann. lib. xvi. cap. 22. See Appendix, 
Note A. 


of just theory and fragments of perhaps 
every moral truth, yet it did not leave be¬ 
hind any precise and coherent system; un¬ 
less we except that of Epicurus, who pur¬ 
chased consistency, method, and perspicuity 
too dearly by sacrificing Truth, and by nar¬ 
rowing and lowering his views of human 
nature, so as to enfeeble, if not extinguish, 
all the vigorous motives to arduous virtue. 
It is remarkable, that while of the eight 
professors who taught in the Porch, from 
Zeno to Posidonius, every one either softened 
or exaggerated the doctrines of his pre¬ 
decessor ; and while the beautiful and 
reverend philosophy of Plato had, in his own 
Academy, degenerated into a scepticism 
which did not spare Morality itself, the sys¬ 
tem of Epicurus remained without change; 
and his disciples continued for ages to show 
personal honours to his memory, in a manner 
which may seem unaccountable among those 
who were taught to measure propriety by a 
calculation of palpable and outward useful¬ 
ness. This steady adherence is in part 
doubtless attributable to the portion of truth 
which the doctrine contains ; in some degree 
perhaps to the amiable and unboastful cha¬ 
racter of Epicurus ; not a little, it may be, 
to the dishonour of deserting an unpopular 
cause; but probably most of all to that 
mental indolence which disposes the mind to 
rest in a simple system, comprehended at a 
glance, and easily falling in, both with or¬ 
dinary maxims of discretion, and with the 
vulgar commonplaces of satire on human 
nature.* When all instruction was con¬ 
veyed by lectures, and when one master 
taught the whole circle of the sciences in one 
school, it was natural that the attachment of 
pupils to a professor should be more devoted 
than when, as in our times, he can teach only 


* The progress of commonplace satire on sexes 
or professions, and (he might have added) on na¬ 
tions, has been exquisitely touched by Gray in his 
Remarks on Lydgate; a fragment containing pas¬ 
sages as finely thought and written as any in 
English prose. General satire on mankind is still 
more absurd; for no invective can be so unreason¬ 
able as that which is founded on falling short of an 
ideal standard. 












PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


a small portion of a Knowledge spreading 
towards infinity, and even in his own little 
province finds a rival in every good writer 
who has treated the same subject. The 
superior attachment of the Epicureans to 
their master is not without some parallel 
among the followers of similar principles in 
our own age, who have also revived some 
part of that indifference to eloquence and 
poetry which may be imputed to the habit 
of contemplating all things in relation to 
happiness, and to (what seems its uniform 
effect) the egregious miscalculation which 
leaves a multitude of mental pleasures out 
of the account. It may be said, indeed, that 
the Epicurean doctrine has continued with 
little change to the present day; at least it 
is certain that no other ancient doctrine has 
proved so capable of being restored in the 
same form among the moderns : and it may 
be added, that Hobbes and Gassendi, as well 
as some of our own contemporaries, are as 
confident in their opinions, and as intolerant 
of scepticism, as the old Epicureans. The 
resemblance of modern to ancient opinions, 
concerning some of those questions upon 
which ethical controversy must always hinge, 
may be a sufficient excuse for a retrospect 
of the Greek morals, which, it is hoped, will 
simplify and shorten subsequent observation 
on those more recent disputes which form the 
proper subject of this discourse. 

The genius of Greece fell with Liberty. 
The Grecian philosophy received its mortal 
wound in the contests between scepticism 
and dogmatism which occupied the Schools 
in the age of Cicero. The Sceptics could 
only perplex, and confute, and destroy. 
Their occupation was gone as soon as they 
succeeded. They had nothing to substitute 
for what they overthrew ; and they rendered 
their own art of no further use. They 
were no more than venomous animals, who 
stung their victims to death, but also 
breathed their last into the wound. 

A third age of Grecian literature indeed 
arose at Alexandria, under the Macedonian 
kings of Egypt; laudably distinguished by 
exposition, criticism, and imitation (some¬ 
times abused for the purposes of literary 


15 

forgery), and still more honoured by some 
learned and highly-cultivated poets, as well 
as by diligent cultivators of History and 
Science; among whom a few began, about 
the first preaching of Christianity, to turn 
their minds once more to that high Philo¬ 
sophy which seeks for the fundamental 
principles of human knowledge. Philo, a 
learned and philosophical Hebrew, one of 
the flourishing colony of his nation esta¬ 
blished in that city, endeavoured to reconcile 
the Platonic philosophy with the Mosaic 
Law and the Sacred Books of the Old 
Testament. About the end of the second 
century, when the Christians, Hebrews, 
Pagans, and various other sects of semi- or 
pseudo-Christian Gnostics appear to have 
studied in the same schools, the almost in¬ 
evitable tendency of doctrines, however dis¬ 
cordant, in such circumstances to amalga¬ 
mate, produced its full effect under Ammo- 
nius Saccas, a celebrated professor, who, 
by selection from the Greek systems, the 
Hebrew books, and the Oriental religions, 
and by some concession to the rising spirit 
of Christianity, of which the Gnostics had 
set the example, composed a very mixed 
system, commonly designated as the Eclectic 
philosophy. The controversies between his 
contemporaries and followers, especially those 
of Clement and Origen, the victorious 
champions of Christianity, with Plotinus and 
Porphyry, who endeavoured to preserve Pa¬ 
ganism by clothing it in a disguise of philo¬ 
sophical Theism, are, from the effects towards 
which they contributed, the most memorable 
in the history of human opinion.* But their 


* The change attempted by Julian, Porphyry, 
and their friends, by which Theism would have 
become the popular Religion, may be estimated by 
the memorable passage of Tacitus on the Theism 
of the Jews. In the midst of all the obloquy and 
opprobrium with which he loads that people, his 
tone suddenly rises, when he comes to contemplate 
them as the only nation who paid religious honours 
to the Supreme and Eternal Mind alone, and his 
style swells at the sight of so sublime and won¬ 
derful a scene. “ Summurn illud et seternum, 
neque mutabile, neque interiturum.’'—Hist. lib. v. 
cap. 5. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


16 


connection with modern Ethics is too faint 
to warrant any observation in this place, on 
the imperfect and partial memorials of them 
which have reached us. The death of Boe¬ 
thius in the West, and the closing of the 
Athenian Schools by Justinian, may be con¬ 
sidered as the last events in the history of 
ancient philosophy.* 


SECTION HI. 

RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS. 

An interval of a thousand years elapsed 
between the close of ancient and the rise of 
modern philosophy; the most unexplored, 
yet not the least instructive portion of the 
history of European opinion. In that period 
the sources of the institutions, the manners, 
and the characteristic distinctions of modern 
nations, have been traced by a series of 
philosophical inquirers from Montesquieu to 
Hallam; and there also, it may be added, 
more than among the Ancients, are the 
well-springs of our speculative doctrines and 
controversies. Far from being inactive, the 
human mind, during that period of exagge¬ 
rated darkness, produced discoveries in 
Science, inventions in Art, and contrivances 
in Government, some of which, perhaps, 
were rather favoured than hindered by the 
disorders of society, and by the twilight in 
which men and things were seen. Had 
Boethius, the last of the ancients, foreseen, 
that within four centuries of his death, in 
the province of Britain, then a prey to all 
the horrors of barbaric invasion, a chief of 
one of the fiercest tribes of barbarians f 
should translate into the jargon of his free- 

* The punishment of death was inflicted on Pa¬ 
gans by a law of Constantius. “ Volumus cunctos 
saeriflciis abstinere: si aliquid hujusmodi perpe- 
traverint, gladio ultore sternantur.”—Cod. Just, 
lib. i. tit. xi. * de Paganis.’ From the authorities 
cited by Gibbon (note, chap, xi.), as well as from 
some research, it should seem that the edict for the 
suppression of the Athenian schools was not ad¬ 
mitted into the vast collection of laws enacted or 
systematized by Justinian. 

f King Alfred. 


booters the work on The Consolations of 
Philosophy, of which the composition had 
soothed the cruel imprisonment of the philo¬ 
sophic Roman himself, he must, even amidst 
his sufferings, have derived some gratifica¬ 
tion from such an assurance of the recovery 
of mankind from ferocity and ignorance. 
But had he been allowed to revisit the earth 
in the middle of the sixteenth century, with 
what wonder and delight might he have 
contemplated the new and fairer order which 
was beginning to disclose its beauty, and to 
promise more than it revealed. He would 
have seen personal slavery nearly extin¬ 
guished, and women, first released from 
Oriental imprisonment by the Greeks, and 
raised to a higher dignity among the Ro¬ 
mans*,' at length fast approaching to due 
equality ; — two revolutions the most signal 
and beneficial since the dawn of civilisa¬ 
tion. He would have seen the discovery of 
gunpowder, which for ever guarded civilised 
society against barbarians, while it trans¬ 
ferred military strength from the few to the 
many; of paper and printing, which ren¬ 
dered a second destruction of the reposi¬ 
tories of knowledge impossible, as well as 
opened a way by which it was to be finally 
accessible to all mankind; of the compass, 
by means of which navigation had ascer¬ 
tained the form of the planet, and laid open 
a new continent, more extensive than his 
world. If he had turned to civil institu¬ 
tions, he might have learned that some na¬ 
tions had preserved an ancient, simple, and 
seemingly rude mode of legal proceeding, 
which threw into the hands of the majority 
of men a far larger share of judicial power, 
than was enjoyed by them in any ancient 
democracy. He would have seen every- 

* The steps of this important progress, as far as 
relates to Athens and Home, are well remarked 
upon by one of the finest of the Roman writei*s. 
“ Quern enim Romanorum pudet uxorem ducere in 
convivium? aut cujus materfamilias non primum 
locum tenet aedium, atque in celebritate versatur ? 
quod multo fit aliter in Graecia: nam neque in 
convivium adhibetur, nisi propinquorum; neque 
sedet nisi in interiore parte aedium, quae Gyncs- 
conitis appellatur, quo nemo accedit, nisi propinqua 
cognatione conjunctus.”—Corn. Nep. in Praefat. 














PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


where the remains of that principle of re¬ 
presentation, the glory of the Teutonic race, 
by which popular government, anciently 
imprisoned in cities, became capable of being 
strengthened by its extension over vast 
countries, to which experience cannot even 
now assign any limits ; and which, in times 
still distant, was to exhibit, in the newly- 
discovered Continent, a republican confe¬ 
deracy, likely to surpass the Macedonian 
and Roman empires in extent, greatness, 
and duration, but gloriously founded on the 
equal rights, not like them on the universal 
subjection, of mankind. In one respect, 
indeed, he might have lamented that the 
race of man had made a really retrograde 
movement; that they had lost the liberty of 
philosophizing; that the open exercise of 
their highest faculties was interdicted. But 
he might also have perceived that this giant 
evil had received a mortal wound from 
Luther, who in his warfare against Rome 
had struck a blow against all human autho¬ 
rity, and unconsciously disclosed to man¬ 
kind that they were entitled, or rather 
bound, to form and utter their own opinions, 
and that most certainly on whatever sub¬ 
jects are the most deeply interesting : for 
although this most fruitful of moral truths 
was not yet so released from its combination 
with the wars and passions of the age as to 
assume a distinct and visible form, its action 
was already discoverable in the divisions 
among the Reformers, and in the fears and 
struggles of civil and ecclesiastical oppres¬ 
sors. The Council of Trent, and the Courts 
of Paris, Madrid, and Rome, had before 
that time foreboded the emancipation of 
Reason. 

Though the Middle Age be chiefly memo¬ 
rable as that in which the foundations of a 
new order of society were laid, uniting the 
stability of the Oriental system, without its 
inflexibility, to the activity of the Hellenic 
civilisation, without its disorder and incon¬ 
stancy ; yet it is not unworthy of notice by 
us here, on account of the subterranean cur¬ 
rent which flows through it, from the specu¬ 
lations of ancient to those of modern times. 
That dark stream must be uncovered before 


17 

the history of the European Understanding 
can be thoroughly comprehended. It was 
lawful for the emancipators of Reason in 
their first struggles to carry on mortal war 
against the Schoolmen. The necessity has 
long ceased ; they are no longer dangerous ; 
and it is now felt by philosophers that it is 
time to explore and estimate that vast por¬ 
tion of the history of Philosophy from which 
we have scornfully turned our eyes.* A 
few sentences only can be allotted to the 
subject in this place. In the very depths of 
the Middle Age, the darkness of Christendom 
was faintly broken by a few thinly-scattered 
lights. Even then, Moses Ben Maimon 
taught philosophy among the persecuted 
Hebrews, whose ancient schools had never 
perhaps been wholly interrupted; and a 
series of distinguished Mahometans, among 
whom two are known to us by the names of 
Avicenna and Averroes, translated the Peri¬ 
patetic writings into their own language, 
expounded their doctrines in no servile spirit 
to their followers, and enabled the European 
Christians to make those versions of them 
from Arabic into Latin, which in the ele¬ 
venth and twelfth centuries gave birth to the 
scholastic philosophy. 

The Schoolmen were properly theologians, 
who employed philosophy only to define and 
support that system of Christian belief which 
they and their contemporaries had embraced. 
The founder of that theological system was 


* Tennemann, Geschiclite der Philosophic. Cou¬ 
sin, Cours de Philosophic, Paris, 1828. My esteem 
for this last admirable writer encourages me to 
say, that the beauty of his diction has sometimes 
the same effect on his thoughts that a sunny haze 
produces on outward objects; and to submit to his 
serious consideration, whether the allurements of 
Schelling’s system have not betrayed him into a 
too frequent forgetfulness that principles, equally 
adapted to all phenomena, furnish in speculation 
no possible test of their truth, and lead, in practice, 
to total indifference and inactivity respecting hu¬ 
man affairs. I quote with pleasure an excellent 
observation from this work: “ Le moyen age n’est 
pas autre chose que la formation penible, lente et 
sanglante, de tous les elemens de la civilisation 
moderne; je dis la formation, et non leur de- 
veloppement.” (2nd Lecture, p. 27.) 


C 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


18 

Aurelius Augustinus * (called by us Augus¬ 
tin), bishop of Hippo, in the province of 
Africa; a man of great genius and ardent 
character, who adopted, at different periods 
of his life, the most various, but at all times 
the most decisive and systematic, as well as 
daring and extreme opinions. This extra¬ 
ordinary man became, after some struggles, 
the chief Doctor, and for ages almost the 
sole oracle, of the Latin church. It hap¬ 
pened, by a singular accident, that the School¬ 
men of the twelfth century, who adopted his 
theology, instead of borrowing their defen¬ 
sive weapons from Plato, the favourite of 
their master, had recourse, for the exposition 
and maintenance of their doctrines, to the 
writings of Aristotle, the least pious of phi¬ 
losophical theists. The Augustinian doc¬ 
trines of original sin, predestination, and 
grace, little known to the earlier Christian 
writers, who appear indeed to have adopted 
opposite and milder opinions, were espoused 
by Augustin himself in his old age; when, 
by a violent swing from his youthful Mani- 
cheism, which divided the sovereignty of the 
world between two adverse beings, he did 
not shrink, in his pious solicitude for tracing 
the power of God in all events, from pre¬ 
senting the most mysterious parts of the 
moral government of the Universe, in their 
darkest colours and their sternest shape, as 
articles of faith, the objects of the habitual 
meditation and practical assent of mankind. 
The principles of his rigorous system, though 
not with all their legitimate consequences, 
were taught in the schools; respectfully 
promulgated rather than much inculcated 
by the Western Church (for in the East 
these opinions seem to have been unknown) ; 
scarcely perhaps distinctly assented to by 
the majority of the clergy; and seldom heard 
of by laymen till the systematic genius and 
fervid eloquence of Calvin rendered them a 
popular creed in the most devout and moral 
portion of the Christian world. Anselm f, 
the Piedmontese Archbishop of Canterbury, 
was the earliest reviver of the Augustinian 


* See Note B. 
f Born, 1033; died, 1109. 


opinions. Aquinas* * * § was their most re¬ 
doubted champion. To them, however, the 
latter joined others of a different spirit. 
Faith, according to him, was a virtue, not in 
the sense in which it denotes the things be¬ 
lieved, but in that in which it signifies the 
state of mind which leads to right Belief. 
Goodness he regarded as the moving princi¬ 
ple of the Divine Government; Justice, as a 
modification of Goodness ; and, with all his 
zeal to magnify the Sovereignty of God, he 
yet taught, that though God always wills 
what is just, nothing is just solely because 
He wills it. Scotusf, the most subtile of 
doctors, recoils from the Augustinian rigour, 
though he rather intimates than avows his 
doubts. He was assailed for his tendency 
towards the Pelagian or Anti-Augustinian 
doctrines by many opponents, of whom the 
most famous in his own time was Thomas 
Bradwardine J, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
formerly confessor of Edward III., whose 
defence of Predestination was among the 
most noted works of that age. He revived 
the principles of the ancient philosophers, 
who, from Plato to Marcus Aurelius, taught 
that error of judgment, being involuntary, is 
not the proper subject of moral disappro¬ 
bation ; which indeed is implied in Aqui¬ 
nas’s account of Faith.§ But he appears to 
have been the first whose language inclined 
towards that most pernicious of moral liere- 

* Born, 1224; died, 1274. See Note C. 

f Born about 1265; died at Cologne (where his 
grave is still shown) in 1308. Whether he was a 
native of Dunston in Northumberland, or of Dunse 
in Berwickshire, or of Down in Ireland, was a 
questiou long and warmly contested, but which 
seems to be settled by his biographer, Luke Wad¬ 
ding, who quotes a passage of Scotus’s Commentary 
on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, where he illustrates 
his author thus: “ As in the definition of St. Fran¬ 
cis, or St. Patrick, man is necessarily presupposed.” 
Scot. Op. i. 3. As Scotus was a Franciscan, the 
mention of St. Patrick seems to show that he was 
an Irishman. See Note D. 

| Born about 1290; died in 1349; the contem¬ 
porary of Chaucer, and probably a fellow-student 
of Wicliffe and Roger Bacon. His principal work 
was entitled, ‘De Causa Dei contra Pelagium, et de 
Yirtute Causarum, Libri tres.’ 

§ See note E. 










PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 19 

sies, which represents Morality to be founded 
on Will.* 

William of Ockham, the most justly cele¬ 
brated of English Schoolmen, went so far 
beyond this inclination of his master, as to 
affirm, that “ if God had commanded his 
creatures to hate Himself, the hatred of God 
would ever be the duty of man —a mon¬ 
strous hyberbole, into which he was perhaps 
betrayed by his denial of the doctrine of 
general ideas, the pre-existence of which in 
the Eternal Intellect was commonly regarded 
as the foundation of the immutable nature of 
Morality. This doctrine of Ockham, which 
by necessary implication refuses moral attri¬ 
butes to the Deity, and contradicts the ex¬ 
istence of a moral government, is practically 
equivalent to atheism.f As all devotional 
feelings have moral qualities for their sole 
object; as no being can inspire love or re¬ 
verence otherwise than by those qualities 
which are naturally amiable or venerable, 
this doctrine would, if men were consistent, 
extinguish piety, or, in other words, anni¬ 
hilate Religion. Yet so astonishing are the 
contradictions of human nature, that this 
most impious of all opinions probably ori¬ 
ginated in a pious solicitude to magnify the 
Sovereignty of God, and to exalt His au¬ 
thority even above His own goodness. 
Hence we may understand its adoption by 
John Gerson, the oracle of the Council of 
Constance, and the great opponent of the 
spiritual monarchy of the Pope, — a pious 
mystic, who placed religion in devout feel¬ 
ing. 1 In further explanation, it may be 
added, that Gerson was of the sect of the 
Nominalists, of which Ockham was the 
founder, and that he was the more ready to 
follow his master, because they both cou¬ 
rageously maintained the independence of 

the State on the Church, and the authority 
of the Church over the Pope. The general 
opinion of the schools was, however, that of 
Aquinas, who, from the native soundness of 
his own understanding, as well as from the 
excellent example of Aristotle, was averse 
from all rash and extreme dogmas on ques¬ 
tions which had any relation, however dis¬ 
tant, to the duties of life. 

It is very remarkable, though hitherto 
unobserved, that Aquinas anticipated those 
controversies respecting perfect disinterest¬ 
edness in the religious affections which oc¬ 
cupied the most illustrious members of his 
communion* four hundred years after his 
death ; and that he discussed the like ques¬ 
tion respecting the other affections of human 
nature with a fulness and clearness, an ex¬ 
actness of distinction, and a justness of de¬ 
termination, scarcely surpassed by the most 
acute of modern philosophers.^* It ought to 
be added, that, according to the most natural 
and reasonable construction of his words, he 
allowed to the Church a control only over 
spiritual concerns, and recognised the su¬ 
premacy of the civil powers in all temporal 
affairs.j 

It has already been stated that the scho¬ 
lastic system was a collection of dialectical 
subtilties, contrived for the support of the 
corrupted Christianity of that age, by a 
succession of divines, whose extraordinary 
powers of distinction and reasoning were 
morbidly enlarged in the long meditation of 
the Cloister, by the exclusion of every other 
pursuit, and the consequent palsy of every : 
other faculty ; — who were cut off from all 
the materials on which the mind can operate, 
and doomed for ever to toil in defence of 
what they must never dare to examine; — 
to whom their age and their condition denied 

* See Note F. 

f A passage to this effect, from Ockham, with 
nearly the same remark, has, since the text was 
written, been discovered on a reperusal of Cud- 
worth’s Immutable Morality, p. 10. 

X “ Remitto ad quod Occam de hac materia in 
Lib. Sentent. dicit, in qua explicatione si rudis ju- 
dicetur, nescio quid appellabitur subtilitas. De 
Vita Spirit. Op. iii. 14. 

* Bossuet and Fenelon. 

f See Aquinas. — “ Utrum Deus sit super omnia 
diligendus ex caritate.”—“ Utrum in dilectione Dei 
possit haberi respectus ad aliquam mercedem.” 
Opera, ix. 322, 325. Some illustrations of this 
memorable anticipation, which has escaped the re¬ 
search even of the industrious Tenneman, will be 
found in the Note G. 

X See Note II. 


C 2 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


20 


the means of acquiring literature, of observ¬ 
ing Nature, or of studying mankind. The 
few in whom any portion of imagination and 
sensibility survived this discipline, retired 
from the noise of debate, to the contem¬ 
plation of pure and beautiful visions. They 
were called Mystics. The greater part, driven 
back on themselves, had no better employ¬ 
ment than to weave cobwebs out of the terms 
of art which they had vainly, though in¬ 
geniously, multiplied. The institution of 
clerical celibacy, originating in an enthu¬ 
siastic pursuit of Purity, promoted by a 
mistake in moral prudence, which aimed at 
raising religious teachers in the esteem of 
their fellows, and at concentrating their 
whole minds on professional duties, at last 
encouraged by the ambitious policy of the 
See of Rome, which was desirous of detach¬ 
ing them from all ties but her own, had the 
effect of shutting up all the avenues which 
Providence has opened for the entrance of 
social affection and virtuous feeling into the 
human heart. Though this institution per¬ 
haps prevented Knowledge from becoming 
once more the exclusive inheritance of a 
sacerdotal caste; though the rise of innu¬ 
merable laymen, of the lowest condition, to 
the highest dignities of the Church, was the 
grand democratical principle of the Middle 
Age, and one of the most powerful agents in 
impelling mankind towards a better order; 
yet celibacy must be considered as one of 
the peculiar infelicities of these secluded 
philosophers; not only as it abridged their 
happiness, nor even solely, though chiefly, 
as it excluded them from the school in which 
the heart is humanized, but also (an inferior 
consideration, but more pertinent to our 
present purpose,) because the extinction of 
these moral feelings was as much a subtrac¬ 
tion from the moralist’s store of facts and 
means of knowledge, as the loss of sight 
or of touch could prove to those of the na¬ 
turalist. 

Neither let it be thought that to have 
been destitute of Letters was to them no 
more than a want of an ornament and a 
curtailment of gratification. Every poem, 
every history, every oration, every picture, 


every statue, is an experiment on human 
feeling, — the grand object of investigation 
by the moralist. Every work of genius in 
every department of ingenious Art and polite 
Literature, in proportion to the extent and 
duration of its sway over the Spirits of men, 
is a repository of ethical facts, of which the 
moral philosopher nannot be deprived by his 
own insensibility, or by the iniquity of the 
times, without being robbed of the most 
precious instruments and invaluable ma¬ 
terials of his science. Moreover, Letters, 
which are closer to human feeling than 
Science can ever be, have another influence 
on the sentiments with which the sciences 
are viewed, on the activity with which they 
are pursued, on the safety with which they 
are preserved, and even on the mode and 
spirit in which they are cultivated : they are 
the channels by which ethical science has a 
constant intercourse with general feeling. 
As the arts called useful maintain the popu¬ 
lar honour of physical knowledge, so polite 
Letters allure the world into the neighbour¬ 
hood of the sciences of Mind and of Morals. 
Whenever the agreeable vehicles of Litera¬ 
ture do not convey their doctrines to the 
public, they are liable to be interrupted by 
the dispersion of a handful of recluse doc¬ 
tors, and the overthrow of their barren and 
unlamented seminaries. Nor is this all: 
these sciences themselves suffer as much 
when they are thus released from the curb 
of common sense and natural feeling, as the 
public loses by the want of those aids to 
right practice which moral knowledge in its 
sound state is qualified to afford. The ne¬ 
cessity of being intelligible, at least to all 
persons who join superior understanding to 
habits of reflection, and who are themselves 
in constant communication with the far 
wider circle of intelligent and judicious men, 
which slowly but surely forms general opi¬ 
nion, is the only effectual check on the na¬ 
tural proneness of metaphysical speculations 
to degenerate into gaudy dreams, or a mere 
war of words. The disputants who are set 
free from the wholesome check of sense and 
feeling, generally carry their dogmatism so 
far as to rouse the sceptic, who from time to 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


21 


time is provoked to look into the flimsiness 
of their cobwebs, and rushes in with his 
besom to sweep them, and their systems, 
into oblivion. It is true that Literature, 
which thus draws forth Moral Science from 
the schools into the world, and recals her 
from thorny distinctions to her natural alli¬ 
ance with the intellect and sentiments of 
mankind, may, in ages and nations otherwise 
situated, produce the contrary evil of ren¬ 
dering Ethics shallow, declamatory, and in¬ 
consistent. Europe at this moment affords, 
in different countries, specimens of these 
opposite and alike-mischievous extremes. 
But we are' now concerned only with the 
temptations and errors of the Scholastic Age. 

We ought not so much to wonder at the 
mistakes of men so situated, as that they, 
without the restraints of the general under¬ 
standing, and with the clogs of system and 
establishment, should in so many instances 
have opened questions untouched by the 
more unfettered Ancients, and veins of spe¬ 
culation since mistakenly supposed to have 
been first explored in more modern times. 
Scarcely any metaphysical controversy agi¬ 
tated among recent philosophers was un¬ 
known to the Schoolmen, unless we except 
that which relates to Liberty and Necessity, 
and this would be an exception of doubtful 
propriety; for the disposition to it is clearly 
discoverable in the disputes of the Thomists 
and Scotists respecting the Augustinian and 
Pelagian doctrines *, although they were re¬ 
strained from the avowal of legitimate con¬ 
sequences on either side by the theological 
authority which both parties acknowledged. 
The Scotists steadily affirmed the blameless¬ 
ness of erroneous opinion; a principle which 
is the only effectual security for conscien¬ 
tious inquiry, for mutual kindness, and for 
public quiet. The controversy between the 
Nominalists and Realists, treated by some 
modern writers as an example of barbarous 
wrangling, was in truth an anticipation of 
that modern dispute which still divides me¬ 
taphysicians,—Whether the human mind 
can form general ideas, or Whether the 

* See Note I. 


words which are supposed to convey such 
ideas be not terms, representing only a 
number of particular perceptions ?—ques¬ 
tions so far from frivolous, that they deeply 
concern both the nature of reasoning and 
the structure of language; on which Hobbes, 
Berkeley, Hume, Stewart, and Tooke have 
followed the Nominalists; and Descartes, 
Locke, Reid, and Kant have, with various 
modifications and some inconsistencies, 
adopted the doctrine of the Realists.* AVith 
the Schoolmen appears to have originated 
the form, though not the substance, of the 
celebrated maxim, which, whether true or 
false, is pregnant with systems, — “ There is 
nothing in the Understanding which was 
not before in the Senses.” Ockham f, the 
Nominalist, first denied the Peripatetic doc¬ 
trine of the existence of certain species 
(since the time of Descartes called “ ideas ”) 
as the direct objects of perception and 
thought, interposed between the mind and 
outward objects ; the modern opposition to 
which by Dr. Reid has been supposed to 
justify the allotment of so high a station to 
that respectable philosopher. He taught 
also that we know nothing of Mind but its 
acts, of which we are conscious. More in¬ 
clination towards an independent philosophy 
is to be traced among the Schoolmen than 
might be expected from their circumstances. 
Those who follow two guides will sometimes 
choose for themselves, and may prefer the 
subordinate one on some occasions. Aris¬ 
totle rivalled the Church ; and the Church 
herself safely allowed considerable latitude 


* Locke speaks on this subject inconsistently; 
Reid calls himself a conceptualist; Kant uses 
terms so different, that he ought perhaps to be 
considered as of neither party. Leibnitz, varying 
in some measure from the general spirit of his 
speculations, warmly panegyrizes the Nominalists: 
“ Secta Nominalium, omnium inter scholasticos 
profundissima, et hodiernre reform at a; philoso- 
phandi rationi congruentissima.” Op. iv. 59. 

f “ Maximi vir ingenii, et eruditionis pro illo 
ssyo summse, Wilhelmus Occam, Anglus. Ib. 60. 
The writings of Ockham, which are very rare, I 
have never seen. I owe my knowledge of them to 
Tennemann, who however quotes the words of 
Ockham, and of his disciple Biel. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


22 


to the philosophical reasonings of those who 
were only heard or read in colleges or clois¬ 
ters, on condition that they neither im¬ 
pugned her authority, nor dissented from 
her worship, nor departed from the language 
of her creeds. The Nominalists were a free- 
thinking sect, who, notwithstanding their 
defence of kings against the Court of Rome, 
were persecuted by the civil power. It 
should not be forgotten that Luther was a 
Nominalist.* 

If not more remarkable, it is more perti¬ 
nent to our purpose, that the ethical system 
of the Schoolmen, or, to speak more pro¬ 
perly, of Aquinas, as the Moral Master of 
Christendom for three centuries, was in its 
practical part so excellent as to leave little 
need of extensive change, with the inevit¬ 
able exception of the connection of his reli¬ 
gious opinions with his precepts and coun¬ 
sels. His Rule of Life is neither lax nor 
impracticable. His grounds of duty are 
solely laid in the nature of man and in the 
well-being of society. Such an intruder as 
Subtilty seldom strays into his moral in¬ 
structions. With a most imperfect know¬ 
ledge of the Peripatetic writings, he came 
near the Great Master, by abstaining, in 
practical philosophy, from the unsuitable 
exercise of that faculty of distinction, in 
which he would probably have shown that 
he was little inferior to Aristotle, if he had 
been equally unrestrained. His very fre¬ 
quent coincidence with modern moralists is 
doubtless to be ascribed chiefly to the 
nature of the subject; but in part also to 
that unbroken succession of teachers and 
writers, which preserved the observations 
contained in what had been long the text 
book of the European schools, after the 
books themselves had been for ages ba¬ 
nished and forgotten. The praises bestowed 
on Aquinas by every one of the few great 
men who appear to have examined his writ¬ 
ings since the downfal of his power, among 
whom may be mentioned Erasmus, Grotius, 

* “ In Martini Lutheri scriptis prioribus amor 
Nominalium satis elucet, donee procedente tempore 
erga omnes monackos sequaliter affectus esse coepit.” 

I Op. iv. 60. 


and Leibnitz, are chiefly, though not solely, 
referable to his ethical works.* 

Though the Schoolmen had thus antici¬ 
pated many modern controversies of a pro¬ 
perly metaphysical sort, they left untouched 
most of those questions of ethical theory 
which were unknown to, or neglected by, 
the Ancients. They do not appear to have 
discriminated between the nature of moral 
sentiments, and the criterion of moral acts ; 
to have considered to what faculty of our 
mind moral approbation is referable; or to 
have inquired whether our Moral Faculty, 
whatever it may be, is implanted or ac¬ 
quired. Those who measure only by palpa¬ 
ble results, have very consistently regarded 
the metaphysical and theological controver¬ 
sies of the Schools as a mere waste of intel¬ 
lectual power. But the contemplation of 
the athletic vigour and versatile skill mani¬ 
fested by the European understanding, at 
the moment when it emerged from this tedi¬ 
ous and rugged discipline, leads, if not to 
approbation, yet to more qualified censure. 
What might have been the result of a differ¬ 
ent combination of circumstances, is an in¬ 
quiry, which, on a large scale, is beyond 
human power. We may, however, venture 
to say that no abstract science, unconnected 
with Religion, was likely to be respected in 
a barbarous age; and we may be allowed to 
doubt whether any knowledge dependent 
directly on experience and applicable to 
immediate practice, would have so trained 
the European mind as to qualify it for that 
series of inventions, and discoveries, and in¬ 
stitutions which begins with the sixteenth 
century, and of which no end can now be fore¬ 
seen but the extinction of the race of man. 

/The fifteenth century was occupied by 
the disputes of the Realists with the Nomi¬ 
nalists, in which the scholastic doctrine ex¬ 
pired. After its close no Schoolman of note 
appeared. The sixteenth may be considered 
as the age of transition from the scholastic 
to the modern philosophy. The former, in¬ 
deed, retained possession of the Universities, 


* See especially the excellent preface of Leibnitz 
to Nizolius, § 87. ib. 59. 











PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 23 


and was long after distinguished by all the 
ensigns of authority. But the mines were 
already prepared : the revolution in Opinion 
had commenced. The moral writings of the 
preceding times had generally been com¬ 
mentaries on that part of the Summa Theo- 
logiae of Aquinas which relates to Ethics. 
Though these still continued to be pub¬ 
lished, yet the most remarkable moralists of 
the sixteenth century indicated the approach 
of other modes of thinking, by the adoption 
of the more independent titles of “ Treatises 
on Justice” and “ Law.” These titles were 
suggested, and the spirit, contents, and style 
of the writiftgs themselves were materially 
affected, by the improved cultivation of the 
Roman law, by the renewed study of an¬ 
cient literature, and by the revival of various 
systems of Greek philosophy, now studied 
in the original, which at once mitigated and 
rivalled the scholastic doctors, and while 
they rendered Philosophy more free, re¬ 
opened its communications with society and 
affairs. The speculative theology which had 
arisen under the French governments of 
Paris and London in the twelfth century, 
which flourished in the thirteenth in Italy 
in the hands of Aquinas, which was ad¬ 
vanced in the British Islands by Scotus and 
Ockham in the fourteenth, was, in the six¬ 
teenth, with unabated acuteness, but with a 
clearness and elegance unknown before the 
restoration of Letters, cultivated by Spain, 
in that age the most powerful and magni¬ 
ficent of the European nations. 

Many of these writers treated the law of 
war and the practice of hostilities in a juri¬ 
dical form.* * Francis Victoria, who began 

* Many of the separate dissertations, on points 
of this nature, are contained in the immense col¬ 
lection entitled “ Tractatus Tractatuum,” published 
at Venice in 1584, under the patronage of the Roman 
see. There are three De Bello; one by Lupus of 
Segovia when Francis I. was prisoner in Spain; 
another, more celebrated, by Francis Arias, who, 
on the 11th June, 1532, discussed before the 
College of Cardinals the legitimacy of a war by 
the Emperor against the Pope. There are two De 
Pace; and others De Potestate Regid, De Poena 
Mortis, &c. The most ancient and scholastic is 
that of J. de Lignano of Milan De Bello. The 


to teach at Valladolid in 1525, is said to 
have first expounded the doctrines of the 
Schools in the language of the age of Leo 
the Tenth. Dominic Soto*, a Dominican, 
the confessor of Charles V., and the oracle 
of the Council of Trent, to whom that 
assembly were indebted for much of the 
precision and even elegance for which their 
doctrinal decrees are not unjustly com¬ 
mended, dedicated his Treatise on Justice 
and Law to Don Carlos, in terms of praise 
which, used by a writer who is said to have 
declined the high dignities of the Church, 
lead us to hope that he was unacquainted 
with the brutish vices of that wretched 
prince. It is a concise and not inelegant 
compound of the Scholastic Ethics, which 
continued to be of considerable authority 
for more than a century .j* Both he and his 
master Victoria deserve to be had in ever¬ 
lasting remembrance, for the part which 
they took on behalf of the natives of Ame¬ 
rica and of Africa, against the rapacity and 
cruelty of the Spaniards. Victoria pro¬ 
nounced war against the Americans, for their 
vices or for their paganism, to be unjust, j 
Soto was the authority chiefly consulted by 
Charles V., on occasion of the conference 
held before him at Valladolid, in 1542, be¬ 
tween Sepulveda, an advocate of the Spanish 
colonists, and Las Casas, the champion of the 
unhappy Americans, of which the result was 
a very imperfect edict of reformation in 
1543. This, though it contained little more 
than a recognition of the principle of justice, 
almost excited a rebellion in Mexico. Sepul¬ 
veda, a scholar and a reasoner, advanced 


above writers are mentioned in the prolegomena to 
Grotius, De Jure Belli. Pietro Belloni, Counsellor 
of the Duke of Savoy (De Re Militari), treats his 
subject with the minuteness of a Judge-Advocate, 
and has more modern examples, chiefly Italian, 
than Grotius. 

* Born, 1494; died, 1560. Antonii Bib. Ilisp. 
Nov. The opinion of the extent of Soto’s know¬ 
ledge entertained by his contemporaries is ex¬ 
pressed in a jingle, Qui scit Sotum scit totum. 

f See Note K. 

j “ Indis non debere auferri imperium, ideo quia 
sunt p.eccatores, vcl ideo quia non sunt Christiani,” 
were the words of Victoria. 








24 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


many maxims which were specious and in 
themselves reasonable, but wliich practically 
tended to defeat even the scanty and almost 
illusive reform which ensued. Las Casas 
was a passionate missionary, whose zeal, kin¬ 
dled by the long and near contemplation of 
cruelty, prompted him to exaggerations of 
fact and argument* * * § ; yet, with all its errors, 
it afforded the only hope of preserving the 
natives of America from extirpation. The 
opinion of Soto could not fail to be conform¬ 
able to his excellent principle, that “ there 
can be no difference between Christians and 
pagans, for the law of nations is equal to all 
nations.” f To Soto belongs the signal 
honour of being the first writer who con¬ 
demned the African slave-trade. “ It is 
affirmed,” says he, “ that the unhappy Ethi¬ 
opians are by fraud or force carried away 
and sold as slaves. If this is true, neither 
those who have taken them, nor those who 
purchased them, nor those who hold them in 
bondage, can ever have a quiet conscience 
till they emancipate them, even if no com¬ 
pensation should be obtained.” J As the 
work which contains this memorable con¬ 
demnation of man-stealing and slavery was 
the substance of lectures for many years de¬ 
livered at Salamanca, Philosophy and Reli¬ 
gion appear, by the hand of their faithful 
minister, to have thus smitten the monsters 
in their earliest infancy. It is hard for any 
man of the present age to conceive the praise 
which is due to the excellent monks who 
courageously asserted the rights of those 
whom they never saw, against the prejudices 
of their order, the supposed interest of their 
religion, the ambition of their government, 
the avarice and pride of their countrymen, 
and the prevalent opinions of their time. 

Francis Suarez §, a Jesuit, whose volu¬ 
minous works amount to twenty-four vo¬ 
lumes in folio, closes the list of writers of his 
class. His work on Laws and on God the 

* See Note L. 

f “Neque discrepantia (ut reor) est inter Cliris- 
tianos et infideles, quoniam jus gentium cunctis 
gentibus asquale est.” 

X De Just, et Jure, liv. iv. qusest. ii. art. 2. 

§ Born, 1538; died, 1G17. 


Lawgiver, may be added to the above trea¬ 
tise of Soto, as exhibiting the most acces¬ 
sible and perspicuous abridgment of the 
theological philosophy in its latest form. 
Grotius, who, though he was the most up¬ 
right and candid of men, could not have 
praised a Spanish Jesuit beyond his deserts, 
calls Suarez the most acute of philosophers 
and divines.* On a practical matter, which 
may be naturally mentioned here, though 
in strict method it belongs to another sub¬ 
ject, the merit of Suarez is conspicuous. He 
first saw that international law was composed 
not only of the simple principles of justice 
applied to the intercourse between states, 
but of those usages, long observed in that 
intercourse by the European race, which 
have since been more exactly distinguished 
as the consuetudinary law acknowledged by 
the Christian nations of Europe and Ame¬ 
rica.! On this important point his views 
are more clear than those of his contempo¬ 
rary, Alberieo Gentili.J It must even be 
owned, that the succeeding intimation of the 
same general doctrine by Grotius is some¬ 
what more dark, — perhaps from his exces¬ 
sive pursuit of concise diction.§ 


* “ Tantae subtilitatis philosophum et theologum, 
ut vix quemquam habeat parem.” Grotii Epist. 
apud Anton. Bib. Ilisp. Nov. 

f “Nunquam enim civitates sunt sibi tam suf- 
ficientes quin indigeant mutuo juvamine et socie- 
tate, interdum ad majorem utilitatem, interdum ob 
necessitatem moralem. Ilac igitur ratione indigent 
aliquo jure quo dirigantur et recte ordinentur in 
hoc genere societatis. Et quamvis magna ex parte 
hoc fiat per rationem naturalem, non tamen suf- 
ficienter et immediate quoad omnia, ideoque sj)e- 
cialiajura poterant usu earundemgentium introduci.” 
De Leg., lib. ii. cap. ii. 

X Bom in the March of Ancona, 1550; died at 
London, 1G08. 

§ De Jur. Bell., lib. i. cap. i. § 14. 










PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


25 


SECTION IY. 

MODERN ETHICS. 

GROTIUS — HOBBES. 

The introduction to the great work of Gro- 
tius *, composed in the first years of his 
exile, and published at Paris in 1625, con¬ 
tains the most clear and authentic statement 
of the general principles of Morals prevalent 
in Christendom after the close of the Schools, 
and before the writings of Hobbes had 
given rise to those ethical controversies 
which more peculiarly belong to modern 
times. That he may lay down the funda¬ 
mental principles of Ethics, he introduces 
Carneades on the stage as denying altogether 
the reality of moral distinctions; teaching 
that law and morality are contrived by 
powerful men for their own interest; that 
they vary in different countries, and change 
in successive ages; that there can be no 
natural law, since Nature leads men as well 
as other animals to prefer their own interest 
to every other object; that, therefore, there 
is either no justice, or if there be, it is 
another name for the height of folly, inas¬ 
much as it is a fond attempt to persuade a 
human being to injure himself for the unna¬ 
tural purpose of benefiting his fellow-men.f 
To this Grotius answered, that even inferior 
animals, under the powerful, though tran¬ 
sient, impulse of parental love, prefer their 
young to their own safety or life; that 
gleams of compassion, and, he might have 
added, of gratitude and indignation, appear 
in the human infant long before the age of 
moral discipline ; that man at the period of 
maturity is a social animal, who delights in 
the society of his fellow-creatures for his 
own sake, independently of the help and 


* Prolegomena. His letter to Yossius, of 1st 
August 1625, determines the exact period of the 
publication of this famous work. Epist. 74. 

f The same commonplace paradoxes were re¬ 
tailed by the Sophists, whom Socrates is introduced 
as chastising in the Dialogues of Plato. They 
were common enough to be put by the Historian 
into the mouth of an ambassador in a public speech. 

’AySgi rvguvvu ») tro\u oc%xt v *Z°v (r YI ovhlv ciXoyov o ti 

Ivfiupizov. Thucyd. lib. vi. cap. 85. 


accommodation which it yields ; that he is a 
reasonable being, capable of framing and 
pursuing general rules of conduct, of which 
he discerns that the observance contributes 
to a regular, quiet, and happy intercourse 
between all the members of the community; 
and that from these considerations all the 
precepts of Morality, and all the commands 
and prohibitions of just Law, may be de¬ 
rived by impartial Reason. “ And these 
principles,” says the pious philosopher, 
“ would have their weight, even if it were 
to be granted (which could not be conceded 
without the highest impiety) that there is no 
God, or that He exercises no moral govern¬ 
ment over human affairs.” * “ Natural law 

is the dictate of right Reason, pronouncing 
that there is in some actions a moral obliga¬ 
tion, and in other actions a moral deformity, 
arising from their respective suitableness or 
repugnance to the reasonable and social na¬ 
ture; and that consequently such acts are 
either forbidden or enjoined by God, the 
Author of Nature. Actions which are the 
subject of this exertion of Reason, are in 
themselves lawful or unlawful, and are 
therefore, as such, necessarily commanded 
or prohibited by God.” 

Such was the state of opinion respecting 
the first principles of the moral sciences, 
when, after an imprisonment of a thousand 
years in the Cloister, they began once more 
to hold intercourse with the general under¬ 
standing of mankind. It will be seen in the 
laxity and confusion, as well as in the pru¬ 
dence and purity of this exposition, that 
some part of the method and. precision of 
the Schools was lost with their endless sub- 


* “Et haec quidem locum aliquem haberent, 
etiamsi daretur (quod sine summo scelere dari ne- 
quit) non esse Deum, aut non curari ab eo negotia 
humana.” Proleg. 11. And in another place, “ Jus 
naturale est dictatum rectae rationis, indicans actui 
alicui, ex ejus convenientia aut disconvenientia 
cum ipsa natura rationali et sociali, inesse moralem 
turpi tudinem aut necessitatem moralem, ac con- 
sequenter ab auctore naturae Deo talem actum aut 
vetari aut praecipi.” “Actus de quibus tale exstat 
dictatum, debiti sunt aut illicit! per se, atque ideo 
a Deo necessario praecepti aut vetiti intelliguntur.” 
— De Jur. Bell. lib. i. cap. i. § 10. 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


26 

tilties and tlieir barbarous language. It is 
manifest that the latter paragraph is a pro¬ 
position,—not, what it affects to be, a de¬ 
finition; that as a proposition it contains 
too many terms very necessary to be de¬ 
fined; that the purpose of the excellent 
writer is not so much to lay down a first 
principle of Morals, as to exert his un¬ 
matched power of saying much in few words, 
in order to assemble within the smallest 
compass the most weighty inducements, 
and the most effectual persuasions to well¬ 
doing. 

This was the condition in which ethical 
theory was found by Hobbes, with whom 
the present Dissertation should have com¬ 
menced, if it had been possible to state mo¬ 
dern controversies in a satisfactory manner, 
without a retrospect of the revolutions in 
Opinion from which they in some measure 
flowed. 

HOBBES.* 

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury may be 
numbered among those eminent persons 
born in the latter half of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, who gave a new character to Euro¬ 
pean philosophy in the succeeding age.f 
He was one of the late writers and late 
learners. It was not till he was nearly 
thirty that he supplied the defects of his 
early education, by classical studies so suc¬ 
cessfully prosecuted, that he wrote well in 
the Latin then used by his scientific con¬ 
temporaries ; and made such proficiency in 
Greek, as, in his earliest work, the Trans¬ 
lation of Thucydides, published when he 
was forty, to afford a specimen of a version 
still valued for its remarkable fidelity, 


* Born, 1588; died, 1679. 
f Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Grotius. The 
•writings of the first are still as delightful and won¬ 
derful as they ever were, and his authority will 
have no end. Descartes forms an era in the history 
of Metaphysics, of Physics, of Mathematics. The 
controversies excited by Grotius have long ceased, 
but the powerful influence of his works will be 
doubted by those only who are unacquainted with 
the disputes of the seventeenth century. 


though written with a stiffness and con¬ 
straint very opposite to the masterly facility 
of his original compositions. It was after 
forty that he learned the first rudiments of 
Geometry (so miserably defective was his 
education) ; but yielding to the paradoxical 
disposition apt to infect those who begin to 
learn after the natural age of commence¬ 
ment, he exposed himself, by absurd con¬ 
troversies with the masters of a Science 
which looks down with scorn on the sophist. 
A considerable portion of his mature age 
was passed on the Continent, where he 
travelled as tutor to two successive Earls of 
Devonshire; — a family with whom he seems 
to have passed near half a century of his 
long life. In France his reputation, founded 
at that time solely on personal intercourse, 
became so great, that his observations on 
the meditations of Descartes were published 
in the works of that philosopher, together 
with those of Gassendi and Arnauld.* It 
was about his sixtieth year that he began 
to publish those philosophical writings which 
contain his peculiar opinions;—which set 
the understanding of Europe into general 
motion, and stirred up controversies among 
metaphysicians and moralists, not even yet 
determined. At the age of eighty-seven he 
had the boldness to publish metrical ver¬ 
sions of the Iliad and Odyssey, which the 
greatness of his name, and the singularity 
of the undertaking, still render objects of 
curiosity, if not of criticism. 

He owed his influence to various causes; 
at the head of which may be placed that 
genius for system, which, though it cramps 
the growth of Knowledge f, perhaps finally 

* The prevalence of freetliinking under Louis 
XIII., to a far greater degree than it was avowed, 
appears not only from the complaints of Mersenne 
and of Grotius, but from the disclosures of Guy 
Batin; who, in his Letters, describes his own con¬ 
versations with Gassendi and Naude, so as to leave 
no doubt of their opinions. 

t “Another error,” says the Master of Wisdom, 
“is the over-early and peremptory reduction of 
knowledge into arts and methods, from which time 
commonly receives small augmentation.” — Ad¬ 
vancement of Learning, book i. “ Method,” says 
he, “ carrying a show of total and perfect know- 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


atones for that mischief, by the zeal and 
activity which it rouses among followers 
and opponents, who discover truth by acci¬ 
dent, when in pursuit of weapons for their 
w r arfare. A system which attempts a task 
so hard as that of subjecting vast provinces 
of human knowledge to one or two prin¬ 
ciples, if it presents some striking instances 
of conformity to superficial appearances, is 
sure to delight the framer, and, for a time, to 
subdue and captivate the student too en¬ 
tirely for sober reflection and rigorous ex¬ 
amination. The evil does not, indeed, very 
frequently recur. Perhaps Aristotle, 
Hobbes, and* Kant, are the only persons 
who united in the highest degree the great 
faculties of comprehension and discrimina¬ 
tion which compose the Genius of System. 
Of the three, Aristotle alone could throw it 
off where it was glaringly unsuitable ; and it 
is deserving of observation, that the reign of 
system seems, from these examples, progres¬ 
sively to shorten in proportion as Reason is 
cultivated and Knowledge advances. But, 
in the first instance, consistency passes for 
Truth. When principles in some instances 
have proved sufficient to give an unexpected 
explanation of facts, the delighted reader is 
content to accept as true all other deduc¬ 
tions from the principles. Specious premises 
being assumed to be true, nothing more can 
be required than logical inference. Mathe¬ 
matical forms pass current as the equivalent 
of mathematical certainty. The imwary 
admirer is satisfied with the completeness 
and symmetry of the plan of his house, — 
unmindful of the need of examining the 
firmness of the foundation and the soundness 
of the materials. The system-maker, like 
the conqueror, long dazzles and overawes 
the world ; but when their sway is past, the 
vulgar herd, unable to measure their asto¬ 
nishing faculties, take revenge by trampling 
on fallen greatness. 

The dogmatism of Hobbes was, however 
unjustly, one of the sources of his fame. The 
founders of systems deliver their novelties 


ledge, has a tendency to generate acquiescence.” 
What pregnant words! 


27 

with the undoubting spirit of discoverers; 
and their followers are apt to be dogmatical, 
because they can see nothing beyond their 
own ground. It might seem incredible, if 
it were not established by the experience of 
all ages, that those who differ most from the 
opinions of their fellow-men are most con¬ 
fident of the truth of their own. But it 
commonly requires an overweening conceit 
of the superiority of a man’s own judgment, 
to make him espouse very singular notions ; 
and when he has once embraced them, they 
are endeared to him by the hostility of those 
whom he contemns as the prejudiced vulgar. 
The temper of Hobbes must have been 
originally haughty. The advanced age at 
which he published his obnoxious opinions, 
rendered him more impatient of the acrimo¬ 
nious opposition which they necessarily pro¬ 
voked ; until at length a strong sense of the 
injustice of the punishment impending over 
his head, for the publication of what he be¬ 
lieved to be truth, co-operated with the 
peevishness and timidity of his years, to 
render him the most imperious and morose 
of dogmatists. His dogmatism has indeed 
one quality more offensive than that of most 
others. Propositions the most adverse to 
the opinions of mankind, and the most ab¬ 
horrent from their feelings, are introduced 
into the course of his argument with mathe¬ 
matical coldness. He presents them as 
demonstrated conclusions, without deigning 
to explain to his fellow-creatures how they 
all happened to believe the opposite absurdi¬ 
ties, and without even the compliment of 
once observing how widely his discoveries 
were at variance with the most ancient and 
universal judgments of the human under¬ 
standing. The same quality in Spinosa in¬ 
dicates a recluse’s ignorance of the world. 
In Hobbes it is the arrogance of a man who 
knows mankind and despises them. 

A permanent foundation of his fame re¬ 
mains in his admirable style, which seems to 
be the very perfection of didactic language. 
Short, clear, precise, pithy, his language 
never has more than one meaning, which it 
never requires a second thought to find. By 
the help of his exact method, it takes so 








28 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


firm a hold on the mind, that it will not 
allow attention to slacken. His little tract 
on Human Nature has scarcely an ambigu¬ 
ous or a needless word. He has so great a 
power of always choosing the most signifi¬ 
cant term, that he never is reduced to the 
poor expedient of using many in its stead. 



the language, and knew so well how to steer 
between pedantry and vulgarity, that two 
centuries have not superannuated probably 
more than a dozen of his words. His ex¬ 
pressions are so luminous, that he is clear 
without the help of illustration. Perhaps 
no writer of any age or nation, on subjects 
so abstruse, has manifested an equal power 
of engraving his thoughts on the mind of 
his readers. He seems never to have taken 
a word for ornament or pleasure ; and he 
deals with eloquence and poetry as the 
natural philosopher who explains the me¬ 
chanism of children’s toys, or deigns to 
contrive them. Yet his style so stimulates 
attention, that it never tires; and, to those 
who are acquainted with the subject, ap¬ 
pears to have as much spirit as can be safely 
blended with Reason. He compresses his 
thoughts so unaffectedly, and yet so tersely, 
as to produce occasionally maxims which 
excite the same agreeable surprise with wit, 
and have become a sort of philosophical 
proverbs ; — the success of which he partly 
owed to the suitableness of such forms of 
expression to his dictatorial nature. His 
words have such an appearance of springing 
from his thoughts, as to impress on the 
reader a strong opinion of his originality, 
and indeed to prove that he was not consci¬ 
ous of borrowing : though conversation with 
Gassendi must have influenced his mind; and 
it is hard to believe that his coincidence with 
Ockham should have been purely accidental, 
on points so important as the denial of gene¬ 
ral ideas, the reference of moral distinctions 
to superior power, and the absolute thraldom 
of Religion under the civil power, which he 
seems to have thought necessary, to main¬ 
tain that independence of the State on the 
Church with which Ockham had been con¬ 
tented. 


Ilis philosophical writings might be read 
•without reminding any one that the author 
was more than an intellectual machine. 
They never betray a feeling except that 
insupportable arrogance which looks down 
on his fellow-men as a lower species of 
beings; whose almost unanimous hostility is 
so far from shaking the firmness of his con¬ 
viction, or even ruffling the calmness of his 
contempt, that it appears too petty a circum¬ 
stance to require explanation, or even to 
merit notice. Let it not be forgotten, that 
part of his renown depends on the applica¬ 
tion of his admirable powers to expound 
Truth when he meets it. This great merit 
is conspicuous in that part of his treatise of 
Human Nature which relates to the per¬ 
cipient and reasoning faculties. It is also 
very remarkable in many of his secondary 
principles'on the subject of Government and 
Law, which, while the Jirst principles are 
false and dangerous, are as admirable for 
truth as for his accustomed and unrivalled 
propriety of expression.* In many of these 
observations he even shows a disposition to 
soften his paradoxes, and to conform to the 
common sense of mankind, j* 

It was with perfect truth observed by my 
excellent friend Mr. Stewart, that “ the ethi¬ 
cal principles of Hobbes are completely in¬ 
terwoven with his political system.” j He 
might have said, that the whole of Hobbes’s 
system, moral, religious, and in part philo¬ 
sophical, depended on his political scheme; 


* See De Corpore Politico, Part i. chap. ii. iii. iv. 
and Leviathan, Part i. chap. xiv. xv. for remarks of 
this sort, full of sagacity. 

f “ The laws of Nature are immutable and eternal; 
for injustice, ingratitude, arrogance, pride, iniquity, 
acception of persons, and the rest, can never be 
made lawful. For it can never he that war shall 
preserve life, and peace destroy it.” Leviathan, 
Part i. chap. xv. See also Part ii. chap. xxvi. xxviii. 
on Laws, and on Punishments. 

t See Encyc. Brit. i. 42. The political state of 
England is indeed said by himself to have occa¬ 
sioned his first philosophical publication. 

Nascitur interea scelus execrabile belli. 

.Horreo spectans, 

Meque ad dilectam confero Lutetiam, 

Postque duos annos edo De Cive Libellum. 


















PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


not indeed logically, as conclusions depend 
upon premises, but (if the word may be ex¬ 
cused) psychologically , as the formation of 
one opinion may be influenced by a disposi¬ 
tion to adapt it to others previously che¬ 
rished. The Translation of Thucydides, as 
he himself boasts, was published to show the 
evils of popular government.* Men he re¬ 
presented as being originally equal, and 
having an equal right to all things, but as 
being taught by Reason to sacrifice this right 
for the advantages of peace, and to submit 
to a common authority, which can preserve 
quiet, only by being the sole depositary of 
force, and must therefore be absolute and 
unlimited. The supreme authority cannot 
be sufficient for its purpose, unless it be 
wielded by a single hand; nor even then, 
unless his absolute power extends over Re¬ 
ligion, which may prompt men to discord by 
the fear of an evil greater than death. The 
perfect state of a community, according to 
him, is where Law prescribes the religion 
and morality of the people, and where the 
will of an absolute sovereign is the sole foun¬ 
tain of law. Hooker had inculcated the 
simple truth, that “ to live by one man’s 
will is the cause of many men’s misery— 
Hobbes embraced the daring paradox, that 
to live by one man’s will is the only means 
of all men’s happiness. Having thus ren¬ 
dered Religion the slave of every human 
tyrant, it was an unavoidable consequence, 
that he should be disposed to lower her cha¬ 
racter, and lessen her power over men ; that 
he should regard atheism as the most effec¬ 
tual instrument of preventing rebellion,— 
at least that species of rebellion which pre¬ 
vailed in his time, and had excited his alarms. 
The formidable alliance of Religion with 
Liberty haunted his mind, and urged him 
to the bold attempt of rooting out both these 


* The conference between the ministers from 
Athens and the Melean chiefs, in the 5th book, and 
the speech of Euphemus in the 6tli book of that 
historian, exhibit an undisguised Hobbism, which 
was vevy dramatically put into the mouth of Athe¬ 
nian statesmen at a time when, as we learn from 
Plato and Aristophanes, it was preached by the 
Sophists. 


29 

mighty principles ; which, when combined 
with interests and passions, when debased 
by impure support, and provoked by unjust 
resistance, have indeed the power of fear¬ 
fully agitating society ; but which are, never¬ 
theless, in their own nature, and as far as 
they are unmixed and undisturbed, the 
parents of Justice, of Order, of Peace, as 
well as the sources of those hopes, and of 
those glorious aspirations after higher excel¬ 
lence, which encourage and exalt the Soul 
in its passage through misery and depravity. 
A Hobbist is the only consistent persecutor; 
for he alone considers himself as bound, by 
whatever conscience he has remaining, to 
conform to the religion of the sovereign. He 
claims from others no more than he is him¬ 
self ready to yield to any master *; while 
the religionist who persecutes a member of 
another communion, exacts the sacrifice of 
conscience and sincerity, though professing 
that rather than make it himself, he is pre¬ 
pared to die. 

REMARKS. 

The fundamental errors on which the 
ethical system of Hobbes is built are not 
peculiar to him : though he has stated them 
with a bolder precision, and placed them in 
a more conspicuous station in the van of his 


* Spinoza adopted precisely the same first prin¬ 
ciple with Hobbes, that all men have a natural 
right to all things. Tract. Theol. Pol. cap. ii. § 3. 
He even avows the absurd and detestable maxim, 
that states are not bound to observe their treaties 
longer than the interest or danger which first 
formed the treaties continues. But on the internal 
constitution of states he embraces opposite opinions. 
Servitutis enim, non pads, interest omnem potestatem 
ad unum transferre. (Ibid. cap. vi. § 4.) Limited 
monarchy he considers as the only tolerable ex¬ 
ample of that species of government. An aristo¬ 
cracy nearly approaching to the Dutch system 
during the suspension of the Stadtholdership, he 
seems to prefer. He speaks favourably of demo¬ 
cracy, but the chapter on that subject is left un¬ 
finished. “ Nulla plane templa urbium suraptibus 
sedificanda, nec jura de opinionibus statuenda.” 
He was the first republican atheist of modern times, 
and probably the earliest irreligious opponent of an 
ecclesiastical establishment. 
















30 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


main force, than any other of those who 
have either frankly avowed, or tacitly as¬ 
sumed, them, from the beginning of specu¬ 
lation to the present moment. They may be 
shortly stated as follows. 

1. The first and most inveterate of these 
errors is, that he does not distinguish thought 
from feeling , or rather that he in express 
words confounds them. The mere perception 
of an object, according to him, differs from 
the pleasure or pain which that perception may 
occasion, no otherwise than as they affect 
different organs of the bodily frame. The 
action of the mind in perceiving or conceiv¬ 
ing an object is precisely the same with that 
of feeling the agreeable or disagreeable.* 
The necessary result of this original confu¬ 
sion is, to extend the laws of the intellectual 
part of our nature over that other part of 
it (hitherto without any adequate name), 
which feels, and desires, and loves, and 
hopes, and wills. In consequence of this 
long confusion or want of distinction, it 
has happened that, while the simplest act of 
the merely intellectual part has many names 
(such as “ sensation,” “ perception,” “ im¬ 
pression,” &c.), the correspondent act of the 
other not less important portion of man is 
not denoted by a technical term in philoso¬ 
phical systems ; nor by a convenient word in 
common language. “ Sensation” has another 
more common sense; “ Emotion ” is too 
warm for a generic term; “Feeling” has 


* This doctrine is explained in his tract on 
Human Nature, c. vii. “ Conception is a motion in 
some internal substance of the head, which pro¬ 
ceeding to the heart, when it helpeth the motion 
there, is called pleasure; when it wealceneth or 
hindereth the motion, it is called pain.” The same 
matter is handled more cursorily, agreeably to the 
practical purpose of the work, in Leviathan, part i. 
chap. vi. These passages are here referred to as 
proofs of the statement in the text. With the 
materialism of it we have here no concern. If the 
multiplied suppositions were granted, we should not 
advance one step towards understanding what they 
profess to explain. The first four words are as un¬ 
meaning as if one were to say that greenness is 
very loud. It is obvious that many motions which 
promote the motion of. the heart are extremely 
painful. 


some degree of the same fault, besides its 
liability to confusion with the sense of 
touch; “Pleasure” and “Pain” represent 
only two properties of this act, which ren¬ 
der its repetition the object of desire or 
aversion ;—which last states of mind presup¬ 
pose the act. Of these words, “Emotion” 
seems to be the least objectionable, since it 
has no absolute double meaning, and does 
not require so much vigilance in the choice 
of the accompanying words as would be 
necessary if we were to prefer “Feeling;” 
which, however, being a more familiar word, 
may, with due caution, be also sometimes 
employed. Every man who attends to the 
state of his own mind will acknowledge, that 
these words, “Emotion” and “Feeling,” 
thus used, are perfectly simple, and as inca¬ 
pable of. further explanation by words as 
sight or hearing; which may, indeed, be 
rendered into synonymous words, but never 
can be defined by any more simple or more 
clear. Reflection will in like manner teach 
that perception, reasoning, and judgment 
may be conceived to exist without being fol¬ 
lowed by emotion. Some men hear music 
without gratification: one may distinguish 
a taste without being pleased or displeased 
by it; or at least the relish or disrelish is 
often so slight, without lessening the dis¬ 
tinctness of the sapid qualities, that the 
distinction of it from the perception cannot 
be doubted. 

The multiplicity of errors which have 
flowed into moral science from this original 
confusion is very great. They have spread 
over many schools of philosophy ; and many 
of them are prevalent to this day. Hence 
the laws of the Understanding have been 
applied to the Affections; virtuous feelings 
have been considered as just reasonings; 
evil passions have been represented as mis¬ 
taken judgments ; and it has been laid down 
as a principle, that the Will always follows 
the last decision of the Practical Intellect.* 

2. By this great error, Hobbes was led to 


* “ Voluntas semper sequitur ultimum judicium 
intellectus practici.” [See Spinozaj Cog. Met. 
pars ii. cap. 12. Ed.] 










PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


31 


represent all the variety of the desires of 
men, as being only so many instances of ob¬ 
jects deliberately and solely pursued; be¬ 
cause they were the means, and at the time 
perceived to be so, of directly or indirectly 
procuring organic gratification to the indivi¬ 
dual. 5 " The human passions are described 
as if they reasoned accurately, deliberated 
coolly, and calculated exactly. It is assumed 
that, in performing these operations, there is 
and can be no act of life in which a man 
does not bring distinctly before his eyes the 
pleasure which is to accrue to himself from 
the act. From this single and simple prin¬ 
ciple, all human conduct may, according to 
him, be explained and even foretold. The 
true laws of this part of our nature (so to¬ 
tally different from those of the percipient 
part) were, by this grand mistake, entirely 
withdrawn from notice. Simple as the ob¬ 
servation is, it seems to have escaped not 
only Hobbes, but many, perhaps most, phi¬ 
losophers, that our desires seek a great diver¬ 
sity of objects; that the attainment of these 
objects is indeed followed by, or rather 
called “ Pleasure ; ” but that it could not be 
so, if the objects had not been previously 
desired. Many besides him have really re¬ 
presented self as the ultimate object of every 
action ; but none ever so hardily thrust for¬ 
ward the selfish system in its harshest and 
coarsest shape. The mastery which he shows 
over other metaphysical subjects, forsakes 
him on this. He does not scruple, for the 
sake of this system, to distort facts of which 
all men are conscious, and to do violence to 
the language in which the result of their 
uniform experience is conveyed. “ Acknow¬ 
ledgment of power is called Honour.” f His 
explanations are frequently sufficient confu¬ 
tations of the doctrine which required them. 
“ Pity is the imagination of future calamity 
to ourselves, proceeding from the sense 
(observation) of another man’s calamity.” 

* See the passages before quoted. 

f Human Nature, chap. viii. The ridiculous 
explanation of the admiration of personal beauty, 
“ as a sign of power generative,” shows the diffi¬ 
culties to which this extraordinary man was re¬ 
duced by a false system. 


“ Laughter is occasioned by sudden glory in 
our eminence, or in comparison with the in¬ 
firmity of others.” Every man who ever 
wept or laughed, may determine whether 
this be a true account of the state of his 
mind on either occasion. “ Love is a con¬ 
ception of his need of the one person de¬ 
sired ; ” — a definition of Love, which, as it 
excludes kindness, might perfectly well com¬ 
prehend the hunger of a cannibal, provided 
that it were not too ravenous to exclude 
choice. “ Good-will, or charity, which con- 
taineth the natural affection of parents to 
their children, consists in a man’s conception 
that he is able not only to accomplish his own 
desires, but to assist other men in theirs: ” 
from which it follows, as the pride of power 
is felt in destroying as well as in saving men, 
that cruelty and kindness are the same pas¬ 
sion. * Such were the expedients to which 
a man of the highest class of understanding 
was driven, in order to evade the admission 
of the simple and evident truth, that there 
are in our nature perfectly disinterested 
passions, which seek the well-being of others 
as their object and end, without looking 
beyond it to self, or pleasure, or happiness. 
A proposition, from which such a man could 
attempt to escape only by such means, may 
be strongly presumed to be true. 

3. Hobbes having thus struck the affec¬ 
tions out of his map of human nature, and 
having totally misunderstood (as will ap¬ 
pear in a succeeding part of this Disserta¬ 
tion) the nature even of the appetites, it is 
no wonder that we should find in it not a 
trace of the moral sentiments. Moral Good f 
he considers merely as consisting in the 
signs of a power to produce pleasure; and 
repentance is no more than regret at having 
missed the way: so that, according to this 


* Ibid. chap. ix. I forbear to quote the passage 
on Platonic love, which immediately follows: but, 
considering Hobbes’s blameless and honourable 
character, that passage is perhaps the most re¬ 
markable instance of the shifts to which his selfish 
system reduced him. 

f Which he calls the “ pulchrum,” for Avant, as 
he says, of an English word to express it. Levia¬ 
than, part i. c. vi. 













32 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


system, a disinterested approbation of, and 
reverence for Yiitue, are no more possible 
than disinterested affections towards our 
fellow-creatures. There is no sense of duty, 
no compunction for our own offences, no 
indignation against the crimes of others — 
unless they affect our own safety; — no 
secret cheerfulness shed over the heart by 
the practice of well-doing. From his philo¬ 
sophical writings it would be impossible to 
conclude that there are in man a set of 
emotions, desires, and aversions, of which 
the sole and final objects are the voluntary 
actions and habitual dispositions of himself 
and of all other voluntary agents; which are 
properly called “moral sentiments;” and 
which, though they vary more in degree, 
and depend more on cultivation, than some 
other parts of human nature, are as seldom 
as most of them found to be entirely 
wanting. 

4. A theory of Man which comprehends 
in its explanations neither the social affec¬ 
tions, nor the moral sentiments, must be 
owned to be sufficiently defective. It is a 
consequence, or rather a modification of it, 
that Hobbes should constantly represent the 
deliberate regard to personal advantage, as 
the only possible motive of human action; 
and that he should altogether disdain to 
avail himself of those refinements of the 
selfish scheme which allow the pleasures of 
benevolence and of morality, themselves, to 
be a most important part of that interest 
which reasonable beings pursue. 

5. Lastly, though Hobbes does in effect 
acknowledge the necessity of Morals to so¬ 
ciety, and the general coincidence of indi¬ 
vidual with public interest, — truths so 
palpable that they never have been ex¬ 
cluded from any ethical system, he betrays 
his utter want of moral sensibility by the 
coarse and odious form in which he has pre¬ 
sented the first of these great principles; 
and his view of both leads him most strongly 
to support that common and pernicious 
error of moral reasoners, that a perception 
of the tendency of good actions to preserve 
the being and promote the well-being of 
the community, and a sense of the depend¬ 


ence of our own happiness upon the general 
security, either are essential constituents of 
our moral feelings, or are ordinarily mingled 
with the most effectual motives to right 
conduct. 

The court of Charles II. were equally 
pleased with Hobbes’s poignant brevity, and 
his low estimate of human motives. His 
ethical epigrams became the current coin of 
profligate wits. Sheffield, Duke of Buck¬ 
inghamshire, who represented the class still 
more perfectly in his morals than in his 
faculties, has expressed their opinion in 
verses, of which one line is good enough to 
be quoted: 

“ Fame bears no fruit till the vain planter dies.” 

Dryden speaks of “ the philosopher and poet 
(for such is the condescending term em¬ 
ployed) of Malmesbury,” as resembling Lu¬ 
cretius in haughtiness. But Lucretius, 
though he held many of the opinions of 
Hobbes, had the sensibility as well as genius 
of a poet. His dogmatism is full of en¬ 
thusiasm ; and his philosophical theory of 
society discovers occasionally as much ten¬ 
derness as can be shown without reference 
to individuals. He was a Hobbist in only 
half his nature. 

The moral and political system of Hobbes 
was a palace of ice, transparent, exactly 
proportioned, majestic, admired by the un¬ 
wary as a delightful dwelling ; but gradually 
undermined by the central warmth of 
human feeling, before it was thawed into 
muddy water by the sunshine of true Philo¬ 
sophy. 

When Leibnitz, in the beginning of the 
eighteenth century, reviewed the moral 
writers of modern times, his penetrating eye 
saw only two who were capable of reducing 
Morals and Jurisprudence to a science. 
“ So great an enterprise,” says he, “ might 
have been executed by the deep-searching 
genius of Hobbes, if he had not set out from 
evil principles; or by the judgment and 
learning of the incomparable Grotius, if his 
powers had not been scattered over many 
subjects, and his mind distracted by the 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 33 


cares of an agitated life.” * Perhaps in this 
estimate, admiration of the various and ex¬ 
cellent qualities of Grotius may have over¬ 
rated his purely philosophical powers, great 
as they unquestionably were. Certainly the 
failure of Hobbes was owing to no inferiority 
in strength of intellect. Probably his fun¬ 
damental errors may be imputed, in part, to 
the faintness of his moral sensibilities, in¬ 
sufficient to make him familiar with those 
sentiments and affections which can be 
known only by being felt; — a faintness per¬ 
fectly compatible with his irreproachable 
life, but which obstructed, and at last ob¬ 
literated, the only channel through which 
the most important materials of ethical 
science enter into the mind. 

Against Hobbes, says Warburton, the 
whole Church militant took up arms. The 
answers to the Leviathan would form a 
library. But the far greater part have fol¬ 
lowed the fate of all controversial pamphlets. 
Sir Robert Filmer was jealous of any rival 
theory of servitude : Harrington defended 
Liberty, and Clarendon the Church, against 
a common enemy. His philosophical an¬ 
tagonists were, Cumberland, Cudworth, 
Shaftesbury, Clarke, Butler, and Hutcheson. 
Though the last four writers cannot be con¬ 
sidered as properly polemics, their labours 
were excited, and their doctrines modified, 
by the stroke from a vigorous arm which 
seemed to shake Ethics to its foundation. 
They lead us far into the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury ; and their works, occasioned by the 
doctrines of Hobbes, sowed the seed of the 
ethical writings of Hume, Smith, Price, Kant, 
and Stewart; in a less degree, also, of those 
of Tucker and Paley : — not to mention 
Mandeville, the buffoon and sophister of the 
alehouse, or Helvetius, an ingenious but 
flimsy writer, the low and loose Moralist of 
the vain, the selfish, and the sensual. 


* “ Et tale aliquid potuisset, vel ab incomparabilis 
Grotii judicio et doctrina, vel & profundo Hobbii 
ingenio praestarl; nisi ilium multa distraxissent; 
hie verb prava constituisset principia.” Leib. Op. 
iv. pars iii. 276. 


SECTION Y. 

CONTROVERSIES CONCERNING THE MORAL FA¬ 
CULTIES AND THE SOCIAL AFFECTIONS. 

CUMBERLAND — CUDWORTH—CLARKE—SHAFTES¬ 
BURY—BOSSUET—FENELON—LEIBNITZ—-MALE- 
BRANCHES — EDWARDS — BUFFIER. 

Dr. Richard Cumberland*, raised to the 
see of Peterborough after the Revolution of 
1688, was the only professed answerer of 
Hobbes. His work On the Laws of Nature 
still retains a place on the shelf, though not 
often on the desk. The philosophical epi¬ 
grams of Hobbes form a contrast to the 
verbose, prolix, and languid diction of his 
answerer. The forms of scholastic argu¬ 
ment serve more to encumber his style, than 
to insure his exactness. But he has sub¬ 
stantial merits. He justly observes, that all 
men can only be said to have had originally 
a right to all things, in a sense in which 
“right” has the same meaning with “power.” 
He shows that Hobbes is at variance with 
himself, inasmuch as the dictates of Right 
Reason, which, by his own statement, teach 
men for their own safety to forego the ex¬ 
ercise of that right, and which he calls 
“ laws of Nature,” are coeval with it; and 
that mankind perceive the moral limits of 
their power as clearly and as soon as they 
are conscious of its existence. He enlarges 
the intimations of Grotius on the social feel¬ 
ings, which prompt men to the pleasures of 
pacific intercourse, as certainly as the appre¬ 
hension of danger and of destruction urges 
them to avoid hostility. The fundamental 
principle of his system of Ethics is, that 
“ the greatest benevolence of every rational 
agent to all others is the happiest state of 
each individual, as well as of the whole.” f 
The happiness accruing to each man from 
the observance and cultivation of benevo¬ 
lence, he considers as appended to it by the 
Supreme Ruler; through which he sanctions 
it as His law, and reveals it to the mind of 


* Born, 1632; died, 1718. 
f De Leg. Nat. cap. i. § 12. first published in 
London, 1672, and then so popular as to be re¬ 
printed at Lubeck in 1G83. 


D 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


34 

every reasonable creature. From this prin¬ 
ciple he deduces the rules of Morality, 
which he calls the “ laws of Nature.” The 
surest, or rather the only mark that they are 
the commandments of God, is, that their ob¬ 
servance promotes the happiness of man : 
for that reason alone could they be imposed 
by that Being whose essence is Love. As 
our moral faculties must to us be the measure 
of all moral excellence, he infers that the 
moral attributes of the Divinity must in 
their nature be only a transcendent degree 
of those qualities which we most approve, 
love, and revere, in those moral agents with 
whom we are familiar. * He had a momen¬ 
tary glimpse of the possibility that some 
human actions might be performed with a 
view to the happiness of others, without any 
consideration of the pleasure reflected back 
on ourselves, j* But it is too faint and tran¬ 
sient to be worthy of observation, otherwise 
than as a new proof how often great truths 
must flit before the Understanding, before 
they can be firmly and finally held in its 
grasp. His only attempt to explain the 
nature of the Moral Faculty, is the substi¬ 
tution of Practical Reason (a phrase of the 
Schoolmen, since become celebrated from its 
renewal by Kant) for Right Reason j; and 
his definition of the first, as that which points 
out the ends and means of action. Through¬ 
out his whole reasoning, he adheres to the 
accustomed confusion of the quality which 
renders actions virtuous, with the sentiments 
excited in us by the contemplation of them. 
His language on the identity of general and 

* De Leg. Nat. cap. v. § 19. f Ibid. cap. ii. § 20. 

J “ Whoever determines his Judgment and his 
Will by Right Reason, must agree with all others 
who judge according to Right Reason in the same 
matter.” Ibid. cap. ii. § 8. This is in one sense 
only a particular instance of the identical proposi¬ 
tion, that two things -which agree with a third 
thing must agree with each other in that, in which 
they agree with the third. But the difficulty en¬ 
tirely consists in the particular third thing here 
introduced, namely, “ Right Reason,” the nature of 
which not one step is made to explain. The posi¬ 
tion is curious, as coinciding with “ the universal 
categorical imperative,” adopted as a first principle 
by Kant. 


individual interest is extremely vague; 
though it be, as he says, the foundation-stone 
of the Temple of Concord among men. 

It is little wonderful that Cumberland 
should not have disembroiled this ancient 
and established confusion, since Leibnitz 
himself, in a passage where he reviews the 
theories of Morals which had gone before 
him, has done his utmost to perpetuate it. 
“ It is a question,” says the latter, “ whether 
the preservation of human society be the 
first principle of the law of Nature. This 
our author denies, in opposition to Grotius, 
who laid down sociability to be so; — to 
Hobbes, who ascribed that character to mu¬ 
tual fear; and to Cumberland, who held that 
it was mutual benevolence; which are all 
three only different names for the safety and 
welfare of society.” * Here the great philo¬ 
sopher considered benevolence or fear, two 
feelings of the human mind, to be the first 
principles of the law of Nature, in the same 
sense in which the tendency of certain ac¬ 
tions to the well-being of the community 
may be so regarded. The confusion, how¬ 
ever, was then common to him with many, 
as it even now is with most. The compre¬ 
hensive view was his own. He perceived 
the close resemblance of these various, and 
even conflicting opinions, in that important 
point of view in which they relate to the 
effects of moral and immoral actions on the 
general interest. The tendency of Virtue to 
preserve amicable intercourse was enforced 
by Grotius; its tendency to prevent injury 
was dwelt on by Hobbes ; its tendency to 
promote an interchange of benefits was in¬ 
culcated by Cumberland. 

CUD worth.■{■ 

Cudworth, one of the eminent men edu¬ 
cated or promoted in the English Universi¬ 
ties during the Puritan rule, was one of the 


* Leib. Op. pars iii. 271. The unnamed work 
which occasioned these remarks (perhaps one of 
Thomasius) appeared in 1699. How long after this 
Leibnitz’s Dissertation was written, does not 
appear. 

t Born, 1617; died, 1688. 













PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 35 


most distinguished of the Latitudinarian, or 
Arminian, party who came forth at the Re¬ 
storation, with a love of Liberty imbibed 
from their Calvinistic masters, as well as 
from the writings of antiquity, yet tempered 
by the experience of their own agitated age; 
and with a spirit of religious toleration more 
impartial and mature, though less systematic 
and professedly comprehensive, than that of 
the Independents, the first sect who preached 
that doctrine. Taught by the errors of their 
time, they considered Religion as consisting 
not in vain efforts to explain unsearchable 
mysteries, but in purity of heart exalted by 
pious feelings, and manifested by virtuous 
conduct.* The government of the Church 
was placed in their hands by the Revolu¬ 
tion, and their influence was long felt among 
its rulers and luminaries. The first genera¬ 
tion of their scholars turned their attention 
too much from the cultivation of the heart 
to the mere government of outward action: 
and in succeeding tunes the tolerant spirit, 
not natural to an establishment, was with 
difficulty kept up by a government whose 
existence depended on discouraging intoler¬ 
ant pretensions. No sooner had the first 
sketch of the Hobbian philosophy} - been 
privately circulated at Paris, than Cudworth 
seized the earliest opportunity of sounding 
the alarm against the most justly odious of 
the modes of thinking which it cultivates, or 


* See the beautiful account of them by Burnet, 
(Hist, of His Own Time, i. 321. Oxford, 1823) who 
was himself one of the most distinguished of this 
excellent body; with whom may be classed, not¬ 
withstanding some shades of doctrinal difference, 
his early master, Leighton, Bishop of Dunblane, 
a beautiful writer, and one of the best of men. 
The earliest account of them is in a curious con¬ 
temporary pamphlet, entitled, “ An account of the 
new Sect of Latitude-men at Cambridge,” repub¬ 
lished in the collection of tracts, entitled “ Phoenix 
Britannicus.” Jeremy Taylor deserves the highest, 
and perhaps the earliest place among them: but 
Cudworth’s excellent sermon before the House of 
Commons (31st of March, 1647) in the year of the 
publication of Taylor’s Liberty of Prophesying, 
may be compared even to Taylor in charity, piety, 
and the most liberal toleration, 
f De Cive, 1642. 


forms of expression which it would intro¬ 
duce *; — the prelude to a war which occu¬ 
pied the remaining forty years of his life. 
The Intellectual System, his great produc¬ 
tion, is directed against the atheistical opi¬ 
nions of Hobbes: it touches ethical ques¬ 
tions but occasionally and incidentally. It 
is a work of stupendous erudition, of much 
more acuteness than at first appears, of 
frequent mastery over diction and illustra¬ 
tion on subjects where it is most rare ; and 
it is distinguished, perhaps beyond any 
other volume of controversy, by that best 
proof of the deepest conviction of the truth 
of a man’s principles, a fearless statement of 
the most formidable objections to them; — 
a fairness rarely practised but by him who 
is conscious of his power to answer them. 
In all his writings, it must be owned, that 
his learning obscures his reasonings, and 
seems even to oppress his powerful intellect. 
It is an unfortunate effect of the redundant 
fulness of his mind, that it overflows in end¬ 
less digressions, which break the chain of 
argument, and turn aside the thoughts of 
the reader from the main object. He was 
educated before usage had limited the natu¬ 
ralization of new words from the learned 
languages; before the failure of those great 
men, from Bacon to Milton, who laboured 
to follow a Latin order in their sentences, 
and the success of those men of inferior 
powers, from Cowley to Addison, who were 
content with the order, as well as the words, 
of pure and elegant conversation, had, as it 
were, by a double series of experiments, 
ascertained that the involutions and inver¬ 
sions of the ancient languages are seldom 
reconcilable with the genius of ours; and 
that they are, unless skilfully, as well as 
sparingly introduced, at variance with the 
natural beauties of our prose composition. 
His mind was more that of an ancient than 
of a modern philosopher. He often in- 


* “ Dantur boni et mali rationes setercife et in- 
dispensabiles : ” Thesis for the degree of B. D. at 
Cambridge in 1644. Birch’s Life of Cudworth, 
prefixed to his edition of the Intellectual System, 
(Lond. 1743.) i. 7. 


D 2 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


36 


dulged in that sort of amalgamation of fancy 
with speculation, the delight of the Alexan¬ 
drian doctors, with whom he was most 
familiarly conversant; and the Intellectual 
System, both in thought and expression, has 
an old and foreign air, not unlike a transla¬ 
tion from the work of a later Platonist. 
Large ethical works of this eminent writer 
are extant in Manuscript in the British 
Museum.* * One posthumous volume on 
Morals was published by Dr. Chandler, 
Bishop of Durham, entitled “A Treatise 
concerning Eternal and Immutable Mo¬ 
rality.” f But there is the more reason to 
regret (as far as relates to the history of 
opinion) that the larger treatises are still 
unpublished, because the above volume is 
not so much an ethical treatise as an intro¬ 
duction to one. Protagoras of old, and 
Hobbes then alive, having concluded that 
Bight and Wrong were unreal, because they 
were not perceived by the senses, and be¬ 
cause all human knowledge consists only in 
such perception, Cudworth endeavours to 
refute them, by disproving that part of their 
premises which forms the last-stated propo¬ 
sition. The mind has many conceptions 
(voij/iara) which are not cognizable by the* 
senses; and though they are occasioned by 
sensible objects, yet they cannot be formed 
but by a faculty superior to sense. The 
conceptions of Justice and Duty he places 
among them. The distinction of Bight from 
Wrong is discerned by Reason; and as soon 
as these words are defined, it becomes evi¬ 
dent that it would be a contradiction in 
terms to affirm that any power, human or 
Divine, could change their nature; or, in 
other words, make the same act to be just 
and unjust at the same time. They have 
existed eternally, in the only mode in which 
truths can be said to be eternal, in the Eter¬ 
nal Mind; and they are indestructible and 
unchangeable like that Supreme Intelli¬ 
gence. J Whatever judgment may be formed 

* A curious account of the history of these MSS. 
by Dr. Kippis, is to be found in the Biographia 
Britannica, iv. 549. 

f 8vo. Lond. 1781. 

j “ There are many objects of our mind which 


of this reasoning, it is manifest that it relates 
merely to the philosophy of the Understand¬ 
ing , and does not attempt any explanation 
of what constitutes the very essence of Mo¬ 
rality, — its relation to the Will. That we 
perceive a distinction between Right and 
Wrong, as much as between a triangle and 
a square, is indeed true; and may possibly 
lead to an explanation of the reason why 
men should adhere to the one and avoid the 
other. But it is not that reason. A com¬ 
mand or a precept is not a proposition: it 
cannot be said that either is true or false. 
Cudworth, as well as many who succeeded 
him, confounded the mere apprehension by 
the Understanding that Right is different 
from Wrong, with the practical authority of 
these important conceptions exercised over 
voluntary actions, in a totally distinct pro¬ 
vince of the human soul. 

Though his life was devoted to the asser¬ 
tion of Divine Providence, and though his 
philosophy was imbued with the religious 
spirit of Platonism*, yet he had placed 
Christianity too purely in the love of God 
and Man to be considered as having much 
regard for those controversies about rights 
and opinions with which zealots disturb the 
world. They represented him as having 
fallen into the same heresy with Milton and 
with Clarke f; and some of them even 


we can neither see, hear, feel, smell, nor tast$, and 
which did never enter into it by any sense; and 
therefore we can have no sensible pictures or ideas of 
them, drawn by the pencil of that inward limner, 
or painter, which borrows all his colours from 
sense, which we call ‘Fancy: ’ and if we reflect on 
our own cogitations of these things, we shall sen¬ 
sibly perceive that they are not phantastical , but 
nocmatical: as, for example, justice, equity, duty and 
obligation, cogitation, opinion, intellection, volition, 
memory, verity, falsity, cause, effect, genus, species, 
nullity, contingency, possibility, impossibility, and 
innumerable others.” Ibid. 140. We have here an 
anticipation of Kant. 

* E vreGti, v t exvov, o yu.o ivtr'&m axi^s Xftrrtxvgu. 

(Motto affixed to the sermon above mentioned.) 

f The following doctrine is ascribed to Cudworth 
by Nelson, a man of good understanding and 
great worth : “ Dr. Cudworth maintained that the 
Father, absolutely speaking, is the only supreme 
God; the Son and Spirit being God only by his 










PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 37 


charged him with atheism, for no other 
reason than that he was not afraid to state 
the atheistic difficulties in their fullest force. 
As blind anger heaps inconsistent accu¬ 
sations on each other, they called him at 
least “ an Arian, a Socinian, or a Deist.” * * 
1 he courtiers of Charles II., who were de¬ 
lighted with every part of Hobbes but his 
integrity, did their utmost to decry his an¬ 
tagonist. They turned the railing of the 
bigots into a sarcasm against Religion; as 
we learn from him who represented them 
with unfortunate fidelity. “ He has raised,” 
says Dry den such strong objections against 
the being of God, that many think he has 
not answered them;” — “the common fate,” 
as Lord Shaftesbury tells us, “ of those who 
dare to appear fair authors.” f He had, in¬ 
deed, earned the hatred of some theologians, 
better than they could know from the writ¬ 
ings published during his life; for in his 
posthumous work he classes with the an¬ 
cient atheists those of his contemporaries 
(whom he forbears to name), who held 
“ that God may command what is contrary 
to moral rules; that He has no inclination 
to the good of His creatures; that He may 
justly doom an innocent being to eternal 
torments ; and that whatever God does will, 
for that reason is just, because He wills it.” J 
It is an interesting incident in the life of 
a philosopher, that Cudworth’s daughter, 
Lady Masham, had the honour to nurse the 
infirmities and to watch the last breath of 
Mr. Locke, who was opposed to her father 
in speculative pliilosophy, but who heartily 
agreed with him in the love of Truth, 
Liberty, and Virtue. 

concurrence with them, and their subordination 
and subjection to him.” Life of Bull, 339. 

* Turner’s Discourse on the Messiah, 335. 

f Moralists, part ii. § 3. 

I Etern. and Immut. Mor. 11. He quotes Ock¬ 
ham as having formerly maintained the same 
monstrous positions. To many, if not to most of 
these opinions or expressions, ancient and modern, 
reservations are adjoined, which render them liter¬ 
ally reconcilable with practical Morals. But the 
dangerous abuse to which the incautious language 
of ethical theories is liable, is well illustrated by 
the anecdote related in Plutarch’s Life of Alex- 


CLARKE. 

Connected with Cudworth by principle, 
though separated by some interval of time, 
was Dr. Samuel Clarke, a man eminent at 
once as a divine, a mathematician, a meta¬ 
physical philosopher, and a philologer ; who, 
as the interpreter of Homer and Caesar, the 
scholar of Newton, and the antagonist of 
Leibnitz, approved himself not unworthy of 
correspondence with the highest order of 
human Spirits. Roused by the prevalence 
of the doctrines of Spinoza and Hobbes, he 
endeavoured to demonstrate the Being- and 
Attributes of God, from a few axioms and 
definitions, in the manner of Geometry. In 
this attempt, with all his powers of argu¬ 
ment, it must be owned that he is compelled 
sometimes tacitly to assume what the laws 
of reasoning required him to prove; and 
that, on the whole, his failure may be re¬ 
garded as a proof that such a mode of argu¬ 
ment is beyond the faculties of man.j* 
Justly considering the Moral Attributes of 
the Deity as what alone render him the 
object of Religion, and to us constitutes the 
difference between Theism and atheism, he 
laboured with the utmost zeal to place the 
distinctions of Right and Wrong on a more 
solid foundation, and to explain the con¬ 
formity of Morality to Reason, in a manner 
calculated to give a precise and scientific 
signification to that phraseology which all 
philosophers had, for so many ages, been 
content to employ, without thinking them¬ 
selves obliged to define. 

It is one of the most rarely successful 

ander, of the sycophant Anaxarchas consoling that 
monarch for the murder of Clitus, by assuring him 
that every act of a ruler must be just. UHy to 
xe&xfliv vvo too xgXTOuvros blxaiov. Op. i. 639. 

* Bom, 1675; died, 1729. 

f This admirable person had so much candour as 
in effect to own his failure, and to recur to those 
other arguments in support of this great truth, 
which have in all ages satisfied the most elevated 
minds. In proposition viii. (Being and Attributes 
of God, 47.) which affirms that the first cause must 
be “intelligent” (wherein, as he truly states, “lies 
the main question between us and the atheists ”), 
he owns, that the proposition cannot be demon¬ 
strated strictly and properly a priori. See Note M. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


38 

efforts of the human mind, to place the un¬ 
derstanding at the point from which a philo¬ 
sopher takes the views that compose his 
system, to recollect constantly his purposes, 
to adopt for a moment his previous opinions 
and prepossessions, to think in his words 
and to see with his eyes ; — especially when 
the writer widely dissents from the system 
which he attempts to describe, and after a 
general change in the modes of thinking and 
in the use of terms. Every part of the pre¬ 
sent Dissertation requires such an excuse; 
but perhaps it may be more necessary in a 
case like that of Clarke, where the alter¬ 
ations in both respects have been so in¬ 
sensible, and in some respects appear so 
limited, that they may escape attention, 
than after those total revolutions in doc¬ 
trine, where the necessity of not measuring 
other times by our own standard must be 
apparent to the most undistinguishing. 

The sum of his moral doctrine may be 
stated as follows. Man can conceive no¬ 
thing without at the same time conceiving 
its relations to other things. He must 
ascribe the same law of perception to every 
being to whom he ascribes thought. He 
cannot therefore doubt that all the rela¬ 
tions of all things to all must have always 
been present to the Eternal Mind. The 
relations in this sense are eternal, however 
recent the things may be between whom 
they subsist. The whole of these relations 
constitute Truth: the knowledge of them 
is Omniscience. These eternal different re¬ 
lations of things involve a consequent eternal 
fitness or unfitness in the application of 
things, one to another; with a regard to 
which, the will of God always chooses, and 
which ought likewise to determine the wills 
of all subordinate rational beings. These 
eternal differences make it fit and reason¬ 
able for the creatures so to act; they cause 
it to be their duty, or lay an obligation on 
them so to do, separate from the will of 
God* *, and antecedent to any prospect of 


* “ Those who found all moral obligation on the 
will of God must recur to the same thing, only they 
do not explain how the nature and will of God is 


advantage or reward.* Nay, wilful wicked¬ 
ness is the same absurdity and insolence in 
Morals, as it would be in natural things to 
pretend to alter the relations of numbers, 
or to take away the properties of mathe¬ 
matical figures.f “Morality,” says one of 
his most ingenious scholars, “ is the practice 
of reason.”| 

Clarke, like Cudworth, considered such a 
scheme as the only security against Hobbism, 
and probably also against the Calvinistic 
theology, from which they were almost as 
averse. Not content, with Cumberland, to 
attack Hobbes on ground which was in part 
his own, they thought it necessary to build 
on entirely new foundations. Clarke more 
especially, instead of substituting social and 
generous feeling for the selfish appetites, 
endeavoured to bestow on Morality the 
highest dignity, by thus deriving it from 
Reason. He made it more than disinterested; 
for he placed its seat in a region where in¬ 
terest never enters, and passion never dis¬ 
turbs. By ranking her principles with the 
first truths of Science, he seemed to render 
them pure and impartial, infallible and un¬ 
changeable. It might be excusable to regret 
the failure of so noble an attempt, if the in¬ 
dulgence of such regrets did not betray an 
unworthy apprehension that the same ex¬ 
cellent ends could only be attained by such 
frail means; and that the dictates of the 
most severe reason would not finally prove 
reconcilable with the majesty of Virtue. 

REMARKS. 

The adoption of mathematical forms and 
terms was, in England, a prevalent fashion 
among writers on moral subjects during a 
large part of the eighteenth century. The 
ambition of mathematical certainty, on 
matters concerning which it is not given to 

O O 


good and just.” Being and Attributes of God, 
Proposition xii. 

* Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion, 
p. 4. Lond. 1724. 

t Ibid. p. 42. 

X bowman on the Unity and Perfections of God, 
p. 29. Lond. 1737. 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 89 


man to reach it, is a frailty from which the 
disciple of Newton ought in reason to have 
been withheld, but to which he was naturally 
tempted by the example of his master. No¬ 
thing but the extreme difficulty of detach¬ 
ing assent from forms of expression to which 
it has been long wedded, can explain the 
fact, that the incautious expressions above 
cited, into which Clarke was hurried by his 
moral sensibility, did not awaken him to a 
sense of the error into which he had fallen. 
As soon as he had said that “ a wicked act 
was as absurd as an attempt to take away 
the properties of a figure,” he ought to have 
seen that principles which led logically to 
such a conclusion were untrue. As it is an 
impossibility to make three and three cease 
to be six, it ought, on his principles, to be 
impossible to do a wicked act. To act with¬ 
out regard to the relations of things, — as if 
a man were to choose fire for cooling, or ice 
for heating, — would be the part either of 
a lunatic or an idiot. The murderer who 
poisons by arsenic, acts agreeably to his 
knowledge of the power of that substance to 
kill, which is a relation between two things ; 
as much as the physician who employs an 
emetic after the poison, acts upon his belief 
of the tendency of that remedy to preserve 
life, Avhich is another relation between two 
things All men who seek a good or bad end 
by good or bad means, must alike conform 
their conduct to some relation between their 
actions as means and their object as an end. 
All the relations of inanimate things to each 
other are undoubtedly observed as much by 
the criminal as by the man of virtue. 

It is therefore singular that Dr. Clarke 
suffered himself to be misled into the repre¬ 
sentation, that Virtue is a conformity with 
the relations of things universally, Vice a 
universal disregard of them, by the certain, 
but here insufficient truth, that the former 
necessarily implied a regard to certain par¬ 
ticular relations , which were always dis¬ 
regarded by those who chose the latter. 
The distinction between Right and Wrong 
can, therefore, no longer depend on relations 
as such, but on a particular class of relations. 
And it seems evident that no relations are to 


be considered, except those in which a living, 
intelligent, and voluntary agent is one of the 
beings related. His acts may relate to a 
law, as either observing or infringing it; 
they may relate to his own moral sentiments 
and those of his fellows, as they are the ob¬ 
jects of approbation or disapprobation; they 
may relate to his own welfare, by increasing 
or abating it; they may relate to the well¬ 
being of other sentient beings, by contributing 
to promote or obstruct it: but in all these, 
and in all supposable cases, the inquiry of 
the moral philosopher must be, not whether 
there be a relation, but what the relation is; 
whether it be that of obedience to law, or 
agreeableness to moral feeling, or suitable¬ 
ness to prudence, or coincidence with bene¬ 
volence. The term “ relation ” itself, on 
which Dr. Clarke’s system rests, being com¬ 
mon to Right and Wrong, must be struck 
out of the reasoning. He himself incident¬ 
ally drops intimations which are at variance 
with his system. u The Deity,” he tells us, 
“ acts according to the eternal relations of 
things, in order to the welfare of the whole 
Universe;” and subordinate moral agents 
ought to be governed by the same rules, 
“ for the good of the public.”* No one can 
fail to observe that a new element is here in¬ 
troduced, — the well-being of communities 
of men, and the general happiness of the 
world, — which supersedes the consideration 
of abstract relations and fitnesses. 

There are other views of this system, 
however, of a more general nature, and of 
much more importance, because they extend 
in a considerable degree to all systems which 
found moral distinctions or sentiments, solely 
or ultimately, upon Reason. A little re¬ 
flection will discover an extraordinary va¬ 
cuity in this system. Supposing it were 
allowed that it satisfactorily accounts for 
moral judgments, there is still an important 
part of our moral sentiments which it passes 
by without an attempt to explain them. 
Vhience, on this scheme, the pleasure or 
pain with which we review our own actions 
or survey those of others ? What is the 


* Evid. of Nat. and Rev. Rel. p. 4. 








40 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WOI1KS. 


nature of remorse ? Why do we feel shame ? 
Whence is indignation against injustice ? 
These are surely no exercise of Reason. 
Nor is the assent of Reason to any other 
class of propositions followed or accompanied 
by emotions of this nature, by any approach¬ 
ing them, or indeed necessarily by any 
emotion at all. It is a fatal objection to a 
moral theory that it contains no means of 
explaining the most conspicuous, if not the 
most essential, parts of moral approbation 
and disapprobation. 

But to rise to a more general consider¬ 
ation : Perception and Emotion are states of 
mind perfectly distinct, and an emotion of 
pleasure or pain differs much more from a 
mere perception, than the perceptions of one 
sense do from those of another. The per¬ 
ceptions of all the senses have some qualities 
in common. But an emotion has not neces¬ 
sarily anything in common with a perception, 
but that they are both states of mind. We 
perceive exactly the same qualities in the 
taste of coffee when we may dislLke it, as 
afterwards when we come to like it. In 
other words, the perception remains the same 
when the sensation of pain is changed into 
the opposite sensation of pleasure. The like 
change may occrur in every case where plea¬ 
sure or pain (in such instances called “ sen¬ 
sations”), enter the mind with perceptions 
through the eye or the ear. The prospect 
or the sound which was disagreeable may 
become agreeable, without any alteration in 
our idea of the objects. We can easily im¬ 
agine a percipient and thinking being with¬ 
out a capacity of receiving pleasure or pain. 
Such a being might perceive what we do; 
if we could conceive him to reason, he might 
reason justly; and if he were to judge at all, 
there seems no reason why he should not 
judge truly. But what could induce such a 
being to will or to act ? It seems evident that 
his existence could only be a state of pas¬ 
sive contemplation. Reason, as Reason, can 
never be a motive to action. It is only 
when we superadd to such a being sensi¬ 
bility, or the capacity of emotion or sen¬ 
timent, or (what in corporeal cases is called 
sensation) of desire and aversion, that we j 


introduce him into the world of action. We 
then clearly discern that, when the conclusion 
of a process of reasoning presents to his 
mind an object of desire, or the means of 
obtaining it, a motive of action begins to 
operate, and Reason may then, but not till 
then, have a powerful though indirect in¬ 
fluence on conduct. Let any argument 
to dissuade a man from immorality be em¬ 
ployed, and the issue of it will always ap¬ 
pear to be an appeal to a feeling. You 
prove that drunkenness will probably ruin 
health: no position founded on experience 
is more certain; most persons with whom 
you reason must be as much convinced of it 
as you are. But your hope of success de¬ 
pends on the drunkard’s fear of ill health ; 
and he may always silence your argument by 
telling you that he loves wine more than he 
dreads sickness. You speak in vain of the 
infamy of an act to one who disregards the 
opinion of others, or of its imprudence to a 
man of little feeling for his own future con¬ 
dition. You may truly, but vainly tell of 
the pleasures of friendship to one who has 
little affection. If you display the delights 
of liberality to a miser, he may always shut 
your mouth by answering, “ The spendthrift 
may prefer such pleasures; I love money 
more.” If you even appeal to a man’s con¬ 
science, he may answer you that you have 
clearly proved the immorality of the act, and 
that lie himself knew it before ; but that now 
when you had renewed and freshened his 
conviction, he was obliged to own that his 
love of Virtue, even aided by the fear of dis¬ 
honour, remorse, and punishment, was not so 
powerful as the desire which hurried him 
into vice. 

Nor is it otherwise, however confusion of 
ideas may cause it to be so deemed, with 
that calm regard to the welfare of the agent, 
to which philosophers have so grossly mis¬ 
applied the hardly intelligible appellation of 
“ self-love.” The general tendency of right 
conduct to permanent well-being is indeed 
one of the most evident of all truths. But 
the success of persuasives or dissuasives ad¬ 
dressed to it, must always be direttly pro¬ 
portioned, not to the clearness with which 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 41 


the truth is discerned, but to the strength of 

• • 7 O 

the principle addressed, in the mind of the 
individual, and to the degree in which he 
is accustomed to keep an eye on its dictates. 
A strange prejudice prevails, which ascribes 
to what is called “ self-love” an invariable 
superiority over all the other motives of 
human action. If it were to be called by a 
more fit name, such as “ foresight,” “ pru¬ 
dence,” or, what seems most exactly to de¬ 
scribe its nature, “a sympathy with the 
future feelings of the agent,” it would appear 
to every observer to be one very often too 
languid and"inactive, always of late appear¬ 
ance, and sometimes so faint as to be scarcely 
perceptible. Almost every human passion 
in its turn prevails over self-love. 

It is thus apparent that the influence of 
Reason on the Will is indirect, and arises 
only from its being one of the channels by 
which the objects of desire or aversion are 
brought near to these springs of voluntary 
action. It is only one of these channels. 
There are many other modes of presenting 
to the mind the proper objects of the emo¬ 
tions which it is intended to excite, whether 
of a calmer or of a more active nature; so 
that they may influence conduct more power¬ 
fully than when they reach the Will through 
the channel of conviction. The distinction 
between conviction and persuasion would 
indeed be otherwise without a meaning ; to 
teach the mind would be the same thing as 
to move it; and eloquence would be nothing 
but logic, although the greater part of the 
power of the former is displayed in the direct 
excitement of feeling ; — on condition, in¬ 
deed (for reasons foreign to our present pur¬ 
pose), that the orator shall never appear to 
give counsel inconsistent with the duty or 
the lasting welfare of those whom he would 
persuade. In like manner it is to be ob¬ 
served, that though reasoning be one of the 
instruments of education, yet education is 
not a process of reasoning, but a wise dis¬ 
posal of all the circumstances which influence 
character, and of the means of producing 
those habitual dispositions which insure well¬ 
doing, of which reasoning is but one. Very 
similar observations are applicable to the 


great arts of legislation and government; 
which are here only alluded to as forming 
a strong illustration of the present argument. 

The abused extension of the term “ Rea¬ 
son” to the moral faculties, one of the pre¬ 
dominant errors of ancient and modern times, 
has arisen from causes which it is not diffi¬ 
cult to discover. Reason does in truth per¬ 
form a great part in every case of moral 
sentiment. To Reason often belong the pre¬ 
liminaries of the act; to Reason altogether 
belongs the choice of the means of execution. 
The operations of Reason, in both cases, are 
comparatively slow and lasting; they are 
capable of being distinctly recalled by me¬ 
mory. The emotion which intervenes be¬ 
tween the previous and the succeeding exer¬ 
tions of Reason is often faint, generally 
transient, and scarcely ever capable of being 
reproduced by an effort of the mind. Hence 
the name of Reason is applied to this mixed 
state of mind; more especially when the 
feeling, being of a cold and general nature, 
and scarcely ruffling the surface of the soul, 
— such as that of prudence and of ordinary 
kindness and propriety, — almost passes 
unnoticed, and is irretrievably forgotten. 
Hence the mind is, in such conditions, said 
by moralists to act from reason, in contra¬ 
distinction to its more excited and disturbed 
state, when it is said to act from passion. 
The calmness of Reason gives to the whole 
compound the appearance of unmixed rea¬ 
son. The illusion is further promoted by a 
mode of expression used in most languages. 
A man is said to act reasonably, when his 
conduct is such as may be reasonably ex¬ 
pected. Amidst the disorders of a vicious 
mind, it is difficult to form a reasonable con¬ 
jecture concerning future conduct; but the 
quiet and well-ordered state of Virtue ren¬ 
ders the probable acts of her fortunate 
votaries the object of very rational expecta¬ 
tion. 

As far as it is not presumptuous to attempt 
a distinction between modes of thinking 
foreign to the mind which makes the attempt, 
and modes of expression scarcely translatable 
into the only technical language in which 
that mind is wont to think, it seems that the 







42 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


systems of Cudworth and Clarke, though 
they appear very similar, are in reality dif¬ 
ferent in some important points of view. 
The former, a Platonist, sets out from those 
“ Ideas” (a word, in this acceptation of it, 
which has no corresponding term in English), 
the eternal models of created things, which, 
as the Athenian master taught, pre-existed 
in the Everlasting Intellect, and, of right, 
rule the will of every inferior mind. The 
illustrious scholar of Newton, with a manner 
of thinking more natural to his age and 
school, considered primarily the very rela¬ 
tions of things themselves; — conceived, in¬ 
deed, by the Eternal Mind, but which, if 
such inadequate language may be pardoned, 
are the law of Its will, as well as the model 
of Its works.* * * * § 

EARL OF SHAFTESBURY.'}' 

Lord Shaftesbury, the author of the Cha¬ 
racteristics, was the grandson of Sir Antony 
Ashley Cooper, created Earl of Shaftesbury, 
one of the master spirits of the English 
nation, whose vices, the bitter fruits of the 
insecurity of a troublous time, succeeded by 
the corrupting habits of an inconstant, venal, 
and profligate court, have led an ungrateful 
posterity to overlook his wisdom and disin¬ 
terested perseverance, in obtaining for his 
country the unspeakable benefits of the 
Habeas Corpus Act. The fortune of the 
Characteristics has been singular. For a 
time the work was admired more undistin- 
guishingly than its literary character war¬ 


* Mr. Wollaston’s system, that morality consisted 
in acting according to truth, seems to coincide with 
that of Dr. Clarke. The murder of Cicero by 
Popilius Lenas, was, according to him, a practical 
falsehood; for Cicero had been his benefactor, and 
Popilius acted as if that were untrue. If the truth 
spoken of be that gratitude is due for benefits, the 
reasoning is evidently a circle. If any truth be 
meant, indifferently, it is plain that the assassin 
acted in perfect conformity to several certain 
truths; such as the malignity of Antony, the in¬ 
gratitude and venality of Popilius, and the probable 
impunity of his crime, when law was suspended, 
and good men without ppwer. 
f Bom, 1671; died, 1713. 


rants. In the succeeding period it was 
j ustly criticised, but too severely condemned. 
Of late, more unjustly than in either of the 
former cases, it has been generally neglected. 
It seemed to have the power of changing 
the temper of its critics. It provoked the 
amiable Berkeley to a harshness equally un¬ 
wonted and unwarranted *; while it softened 
the rugged Warburton so far as to dispose 
the fierce, yet not altogether ungenerous, 
polemic to praise an enemy in the very heat 
of conflict.! 

Leibnitz, the most celebrated of Conti¬ 
nental philosophers, warmly applauded the 
Characteristics, and (what was a more cer¬ 
tain proof of admiration) though at an ad¬ 
vanced age, criticised that work minutely.]; 
Le Clerc, who had assisted the studies of the 
author, contributed to spread its reputation 
by his Journal, then the most popular in 
Europe. Locke is said to have aided in his 
education, probably rather by counsel than 
by tuition. The author had indeed been 
driven from the regular studies of his coun¬ 
try by the insults with which he was loaded 
at Winchester School, when he was only 
twelve years old, immediately after the death 
of his grandfather §; — a choice of time which 

* See Minute Philosopher, Dialogue iii.; but 
especially his Theory of Vision Vindicated, Lond. 
1733 (not republished in the quarto edition of his 
works), where this most excellent man sinks for a 
moment to the level of a railing polemic. 

t It is remarkable that the most impure pas¬ 
sages of Warburton’s composition are those in 
which he lets loose his controversial zeal, and that 
he is a fine writer principally where he writes from 
generous feeling. “ Of all the virtues which were 
so much in this noble writer’s heart and in his 
writings, there was not one he more revered than 
the love of public liberty. . . . The noble author 
of the Characteristics had many excellent qualities, 
both as a man and a writer: he was temperate, 
chaste, honest, and a lover of his country. In his 
writings he has shown how much he has imbibed 
the deep sense, and how naturally he could cop}’' 
the gracious manner of Plato. (Dedication to the 
Freethinkers, prefixed to the Divine Legation.) 
He, however, soon relapses, but not without excuse; 
for he thought hmself vindicating the memory of 
Locke. 

t Op. iii. 39—56. 

§ [With regard to this story*, authorised as it is, 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 43 


seemed not so much to indicate anger against 
the faults of a great man, as triumph over 
the principles of liberty, which seemed at 
that time to have fallen for ever. He gave 
a genuine proof of respect for freedom of 
thought, by preventing the expulsion, from 
Holland, of Bayle (from whom he differs in 
every moral, political, and, it may be truly 
added, religious opinion,) when, it must be 
owned, the right of asylum was, in strict 
justice, forfeited by the secret services which 
the philosopher had rendered to the enemy 
of Holland and of Europe. In the small 
part of his short life which premature in¬ 
firmities allowed him to apply to public 
affairs, he co-operated zealously with the 
friends of freedom ; but, as became a moral 
philosopher, he supported, even against them, 
a law to allow those who were accused of 
treason to make their defence by counsel, 
although the parties first to benefit from this 
act of imperfect justice were persons con¬ 
spired together to assassinate King William, 
and to re-enslave their country. On that 
occasion it is well known with what ad¬ 
mirable quickness he took advantage of the 
embarrassment which seized him, when he 
rose to address the House of Commons. 
“ If I,” said he, “ who rise only to give my 
opinion on this bill, am so confounded that 
I cannot say what I intended, what must the 
condition of that man be, who, without as¬ 
sistance, is pleading for his own life! ” Lord 
Shaftesbury was the friend of Lord Somers; 
and the tribute paid to his personal charac¬ 
ter by Warburton, who knew many of his 
contemporaries and some of his friends, may 
be considered as evidence of its excellence. 

His fine genius and generous spirit shine 
through his writings; but their lustre is 


the Editor cannot help, on behalf of his own “ nurs¬ 
ing mother,” throwing out some suspicion that the 
Chancellor’s politics must have been made use of 
somewhat as a scapegoat; else the nature of boys 
was at that time more excitable touching their 
schoolmates’ grandfathers than it is now. There is 
a rule traditionally observed in College, “ that no 
boy has a right to think till he has forty juniors; ” 
upon which rock the cock-boat of the embryo 
metaphysician might have foundered.] 


often dimmed by peculiarities, and, it must 
be said, by affectations, which, originating in 
local, temporary, or even personal circum¬ 
stances, are particularly fatal to the per¬ 
manence of fame. There is often a charm 
in the egotism of an artless writer, or of an 
actor in great scenes; but other laws are 
imposed on the literary artist. Lord Shaftes¬ 
bury, instead of hiding himself behind his 
work, stands forward with too frequent 
marks of self-complacency, as a nobleman qf 
polished manners, with a mind adorned by 
the fine arts, and instructed by ancient phi¬ 
losophy ; shrinking with a somewhat effemi¬ 
nate fastidiousness from the clamour and 
prejudices of the multitude, whom he nei¬ 
ther deigns to conciliate, nor puts forth his 
strength to subdue. The enmity of the 
majority of Churchmen to the government 
established at the Revolution, was calculated 
to fill his mind with angry feelings; which 
overflowed too often, if not upon Christianity 
itself, yet upon representations of it, closely 
intertwined with those religious feelings to 
which, in other forms, his own philosophy 
ascribes surpassing worth. His small, and 
occasional writings, of which the main fault 
is the want of an object or a plan, have many 
passages remarkable for the utmost beauty 
and harmony of language. Had he imbibed 
the simplicity, as well as copied the ex¬ 
pression and cadence, of the greater ancients, 
he would have done more justice to his 
genius; and his works, like theirs, would 
have been preserved by that first-mentioned 
quality, without which but a very few writ¬ 
ings, of whatever mental power, have long 
survived their writers. Grace belongs only 
to natural movements ; and Lord Shaftes¬ 
bury, notwithstanding the frequent beauty 
of his thoughts and language, has rarely 
attained it. He is unfortunately prone to 
pleasantry, which is obstinately averse from 
constraint, and which he had no interest in 
raising to be the test of truth. His affect¬ 
ation of liveliness as a man of the world, 
tempts him sometimes to overstep the indis¬ 
tinct boundaries which separate familiarity 
from vulgarity. Of his two more consider¬ 
able writings, The Moralists, on which he 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


44 


evidently most valued himself, and which is 
spoken of by Leibnitz with enthusiasm, is 
by no means the happiest. Yet perhaps 
there is scarcely any composition in our lan¬ 
guage more lofty in its moral and religious 
sentiments, and more exquisitely elegant 
and musical in its diction, than the Platonic 
representation of the scale of beauty and 
love, in the speech to Palemon, near the 
close of the first part.* Many passages 
might be quoted, which in some measure 
justify the enthusiasm of the septuagenarian 
geometer. Yet it is not to be concealed 
that, as a whole, it is heavy and languid. It 
is a modern antique. The dialogues of Plato 
are often very lively representations of con¬ 
versations which might take place daily at a 
great university, full, like Athens, of rival 
professors and eager disciples, between men 
of various character, and great fame as well 
as ability. Socrates runs through them all. 
Ilis great abilities, his still more venerable 
virtues, his cruel fate, especially when joined 
to his very characteristic peculiarities, — to 
his grave humour, to his homely sense, to his 
assumed humility, to the honest slyness with 
which he ensnared the Sophists, and to the 
intrepidity with which he dragged them to 
justice, gave unity and dramatic interest to 
these dialogues as a whole. But Lord 
Shaftesbury’s dialogue is between fictitious 
personages, and in a tone at utter variance 
with English conversation. He had great 
power of thought and command over words; 
but he had no talent for inventing character 
and bestowing life on it. 

The Inquiry concerning Virtue f is nearly 
exempt from the faulty peculiarities of the 
author; the method is perfect, the reasoning 
just, the style precise and clear. The writer 
has no purpose but that of honestly proving 
his principles ; he himself altogether disap¬ 
pears ; and he is intent only on earnestly 
enforcing what he truly, conscientiously, and 
reasonably believes. Hence the charm of 
simplicity is revived in this production, which 
is unquestionably entitled to a place in the 
first rank of English tracts on moral philo- 

* § 3. f Characteristics, treatise iv. 


sophy. The point in which it becomes espe¬ 
cially pertinent to the subject of this Dis¬ 
sertation is, that it contains more intimations 
of an original and important nature on the 
theory of Ethics than perhaps any preced¬ 
ing work of modern times.* It is true that 
they are often but intimations, cursory, and 
appearing almost to be casual; so that many 
of them have escaped the notice of most 
readers, and even writers on these subjects. 
That the consequences of some of them are 
even yet not unfolded, must be owned to be 
a proof that they are inadequately stated; 
and may be regarded as a presumption that 
the author did not closely examine the bear¬ 
ings of his own positions. Among the most 
important of these suggestions is, the exist¬ 
ence of dispositions in man, by which he 
takes pleasure in the well-being of others, 
without any further view; — a doctrine, 
however, to all the consequences of which 
he has not been faithful in his other writ- 
ings.f Another is, that goodness consists in 
the prevalence of love for the system of 
which we are a part, over the passions point¬ 
ing to our individual welfare ; — a propo¬ 
sition which somewhat confounds the motives 
of right acts with their tendency, and seems 
to favour the melting of all particular affec¬ 
tions into general benevolence, because the 
tendency of these affections is to general 
good. The next, and certainly the most 
original, as well as important, is, that there 
are certain affections of the mind which, 
being contemplated by the mind itself 
through what he calls “ a reflex sense,” be- 


* I am not without suspicion that I have over¬ 
looked the claims of Dr. Henry More, who, not¬ 
withstanding some uncouthness of language, seems 
to have given the first intimations of a distinct 
moral faculty, which he calls “ the Boniform 
Faculty; ” a phrase against which an outcry would 
now be raised as German. Happiness, according 
to him, consists in a constant satisfaction, tv ru iyx- 
8ot7Su tyis ^t>xvs- Enchiridion Etliicum, lib. i. cap. ii. 

t “ It is the height of wisdom no doubt to be 
rightly selfish.” Charact. i. 121. The observation 
seems to be taken from what Aristotle says of 
'hXxvrlx : Tw fxtv ctyctOov piXccvrov tTvett. Ethics, lib. 
ix. c. viii. The chapter is admirable, and the as¬ 
sertion of Aristotle is very capable of a good sense. 










PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 45 


come the objects of love, or the contrary, 
according to their nature. So approved and 
loved, they constitute virtue or merit, as dis¬ 
tinguished from mere goodness , of which 
there are traces in animals who do not 
appear to reflect on the state of their own 
minds, and who seem, therefore, destitute of 
what he elsewhere calls “ a moral sense.” 
These statements are, it is true, far too short 
and vague. He nowhere inquires into the 
origin of the reflex sense: what is a much 
more material defect, he makes no attempt 
to ascertain in what state of mind it consists. 
We discover only by implication, and by the 
use of the term “ sense,” that he searches for 
the fountain of moral sentiments, not in mere 
reason, where Cudworth and Clarke had 
vainly sought for it, but in the heart, whence 
the main branch of them assuredly flows. It 
should never be forgotten, that we owe to 
these hints the reception, into ethical theory, 
of a moral sense; which, whatever may be 
thought of its origin, or in whatever words 
it may be described, must always retain its 
place in such theory as a main principle of 
our moral nature. 

His demonstration of the utility of Virtue 
to the individual, far surpasses all other at¬ 
tempts of the same nature; being founded, 
not on a calculation of outward advantages 
or inconveniences, alike uncertain, precari¬ 
ous, and degrading, but on the unshaken 
foundation of the delight, which is of the 
very essence of social affection and virtuous 
sentiment; on the dreadful agony inflicted 
by all malevolent passions upon every soul 
that harbours the hellish inmates; on the all- 
important truth, that to love is to be happy, 
and to hate is to be miserable, — that affec¬ 
tion is its own reward, and ill will its own 
punishment; or, as it has been more simply 
and more affectingly, as well as with more sa¬ 
cred authority, taught, that “ to give is more 
blessed than to receive,” and that to love 
one another is the sum of all human virtue. 

The relation of Religion to Morality, as 
far as it can be discovered by human reason, 
was never more justly or more beautifully 
stated . 1 If he represents the mere hope of 
reward and dread of punishment as selfish, 


and therefore inferior motives to virtue and 
piety, he distinctly owns their efficacy in re¬ 
claiming from vice, in rousing from lethargy, 
and in guarding a feeble penitence; in all 
which he coincides with illustrious and zeal¬ 
ous Christian writers. “ If by the hope of 
reward be understood the love and desire of 
virtuous enjoyment, or of the very practice 
and exercise of virtue in another life; an 
expectation or hope of this kind is so far 
from being derogatory from virtue, that it 
is an evidence of our loving it the more sin¬ 
cerely and/or its own sake." * 

EENELON. f —BOSSUET. J 

As the last question, though strictly speak¬ 
ing theological, is yet in truth dependent on 

* Inquiry, book i. part. iii. § 3. So Jeremy 
Taylor; “ He that is grown in grace pursues virtue 
purely and simply for its own interest. When per¬ 
sons come to that height of grace, and love God for 
himself, that is but heaven in another sense.” 
(Sermon on Growth in Grace.) So before him the 
once celebrated Mr. John Smith of Cambridge: 
“ The happiness which good men shall partake is 
not distinct from their godlike nature. Happiness 
and holiness are but two several notions of one 
thing. Hell is rather a nature than a place, and 
heaven cannot be so Avell defined by anything with¬ 
out us, as by something within us.” (Select Dis¬ 
courses, 2nd edit. Cambridge, 1673.) In accordance 
with these old authorities is the recent language of 
a most ingenious as well as benevolent and pious 
writer. “ The holiness of heaven is still more attrac¬ 
tive to the Christian than its happiness. The 
desire of doing that which is right for its own sake 
is a part of his desire after heaven.” (Unconditional 
Freeness of the Gospel, by T. Erskine, Esq. Edinb. 
1828, p. 32, 33.) See also the Appendix to Ward’s 
Life of Henry More, Lond. 1710, pp. 247—271. 
This account of that ingenious and amiable philo¬ 
sopher contains an interesting view of his opinions, 
and many beautiful passages of his writings, but 
unfortunately very few particulars of the man. His 
letters on Disinterested Piety (see the Appendix to 
Mr. Ward’s work), his boundless charity, his zeal 
for the utmost toleration, and his hope of general 
improvement from “ a pacific and perspicacious 
posterity,” place him high in the small number of 
true philosophers who, in their estimate of men, 
value dispositions more than opinions, and in their 
search for good, more often look forward than back¬ 
ward. 

f Bom, 1651; died, 1715. 

J Born, 1627; died, 1704. 







46 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


the mare general question, which relates to 
the reality of disinterested affections in 
human nature, it seems not foreign from the 
present purpose to give a short account of a 
dispute on the subject in France, between 
two of the most eminent persons of their 
time ; namely, the controversy between 
Fenelon and Bossuet, concerning the possi¬ 
bility of men being influenced by the pure 
and disinterested love of God. Never were 
two great men more unlike. Fenelon in his 
writings exhibits more of the qualities 
which predispose to religious feelings, than 
any other equally conspicuous person; a 
mind so pure as steadily to contemplate 
supreme excellence; a heart capable of be¬ 
ing touched and affected by the contempla¬ 
tion ; a gentle and modest spirit, not elated 
by the privilege, but seeing clearer its own 
want of worth as it came nearer to such 
brightness, and disposed to treat with com¬ 
passionate forbearance those errors in others, 
of which it felt a humbling consciousness. 
Bossuet was rather a great minister in the 
ecclesiastical commonwealth; employing 
knowledge, eloquence, argument, the energy 
of his character, the influence, and even the 
authority of his station, to vanquish oppo¬ 
nents, to extirpate revolters, and sometimes 
with a patrician firmness, to withstand the 
dictatorial encroachment of the Roman 
Pontiff on the spiritual aristocracy of France. 
Fenelon had been appointed tutor to the 
Duke of Burgundy. He had all the quali¬ 
ties which fit a man to be the preceptor of a 
prince, and which most disable him to get or 
to keep the office. Even birth, and urbanity, 
and accomplishment, and vivacity, were an 
insufficient atonement for his genius and vir¬ 
tue. Louis XIY. distrusted so fine a spirit, 
and appears to have early suspected, that a 
fancy moved by such benevolence might im¬ 
agine examples for his grandson which the 
world would consider as a satire on his own 
reign. Madame de Maintenon, indeed, fa¬ 
voured him ; but he was generally believed 
to have forfeited her good graces by dis¬ 
couraging her projects for at least a nearer 
approach to a seat on the throne. He of¬ 
fended her too by obeying her commands, in 


laying before her an account of her faults, 
and some of those of her royal husband, 
which was probably the more painfully felt 
for its mildness, justice, and refined observa¬ 
tion. * An opportunity for driving such an 
intruder from a court presented itself some¬ 
what strangely, in the form of a subtile con¬ 
troversy on one of the most abstruse ques¬ 
tions of metaphysical theology. Molinos, a 
Spanish priest, reviving and perhaps exag¬ 
gerating the maxims of the ancient Mystics, 
had recently taught, that Christian perfec¬ 
tion consisted in the pure love of God, with¬ 
out hope of reward or fear of punishment. 
This offence he expiated by seven years’ im¬ 
prisonment in the dungeons of the Roman 
Inquisition. His opinions were embraced 
by Madame Guy on, a pious French lady of 
strong feeling and active imagination, who 
appears to have expressed them in a hyper¬ 
bolical language, not infrequent in devo¬ 
tional exercises, especially in those of other¬ 
wise amiable persons of her sex and character. 
In the fervour of her zeal, she disregarded 
the usages of the world, and the decorum 
imposed on females. She left her family, 
took a part in public conferences, and as¬ 
sumed an independence scarcely reconcilable 
with the more ordinary and more pleasing 
virtues of women. Her pious effusions were 
examined with the rigour which might be 
excusable if exercised on theological propo¬ 
sitions. She was falsely charged by Harlay, 
the dissolute Archbishop of Paris, with per¬ 
sonal licentiousness. For these crimes she 
was dragged from convent to convent, im¬ 
prisoned for years in the Bastile, and, as an 
act of mercy, confined during the latter 
years of her life to a provincial town, as a 
prison at large. A piety thus pure and dis¬ 
interested could not fail to please Fenelon. 
He published a work in justification of 
Madame Guyon’s character, and in expla¬ 
nation of the degree in which he agreed 
with her. Bossuet, the oracle and cham¬ 
pion of the Church, took up arms against 
him. It would be painful to suppose that a 
man of such great powers was actuated by 


* Bausset, Histoire de Fenelon, i. 252. 
















PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 47 


mean jealousy; and. it is needless. The 
union of zeal for opinion with the pride of 
authority, is apt to give sternness to the ad¬ 
ministration of controversial bishops ; to say 
nothing of the haughty and inflexible cha¬ 
racter of Bossuet himself. He could not 
brook the independence of him who was 
hitherto so docile a scholar and so gentle a 
friend. He was jealous of novelties, and 
dreaded a fervour of piety likely to be un¬ 
governable, and productive of movements of 
which no man could foresee the issue. It 
must be allowed that he had reason to be 
displeased with the indiscretion and turbu¬ 
lence of the innovators, and might appre¬ 
hend that, in preaching motives to virtue 
and religion which he thought unattainable, 
the coarser but surer foundations of com¬ 
mon morality might be loosened. A con¬ 
troversy ensued, in which he employed the 
utmost violence of polemical or factious 
contest. Fenelon replied with brilliant suc¬ 
cess, and submitted his book to the judgment 
of Rome. After a long examination, the 
commission of ten Cardinals appointed to 
examine it were equally divided, and he 
seemed, in consequence, about to be ac¬ 
quitted. But Bossuet had in the mean time 
easily gained Louis XIY. Madame de 
Maintenon betrayed Fenelon’s confidential 
correspondence; and he was banished to 
his diocese, and deprived of his pensions and 
official apartments in the palace. Louis 
XIV. regarded the slightest differences from 
the authorities of the French church as re¬ 
bellion against himself. Though endowed 
with much natural good sense, he was too 
grossly ignorant to be made to comprehend 
one of the terms of the question in dispute. 
He did not, however, scruple to urge the 
Pope to the condemnation of Fenelon. In¬ 
nocent XII. (Pignatelli), an aged and pacific 
Pontiff, was desirous of avoiding such harsh 
measures. He said that “ the archbishop of 
Cambray might have erred from excess in 
the love of God, but the bishop of Meaux 
had sinned by a defect of the love of his 
neighbour.”* But he was compelled to 

* Bausset, Histoire de Fenelon. ii. 220. note. 


condemn a series of propositions, of which 
the first was, “ There is an habitual state of 
love to God, which is pure from every mo¬ 
tive of personal interest, and in which nei¬ 
ther the fear of punishment nor the hope of 
reward has any part.” * Fenelon read the 
bull which condemned him in his own ca¬ 
thedral, and professed as humble a submis¬ 
sion as the lowest of his flock. In some of 
the writings of his advanced years, which 
have been recently published, we observe 
with regret that, when wearied out by his 
exile, ambitious to regain a place at court 
through the Jesuits, or prejudiced against 
the Calvinising doctrines of the Jansenists, 
the strongest anti-papal party among Catho¬ 
lics, or somewhat detached from a cause of 
which his great antagonist had been the 
victorious leader, he made concessions to 
the absolute monarchy of Rome, which did 
not become a luminary of the Gallican 
church.f 

Bossuet, in his writings on this occasion, 
besides tradition and authorities, relied 
mainly on the supposed principle of philo¬ 
sophy, that man must desire his own happi¬ 
ness, and cannot desire anything else, other¬ 
wise than as a means towards it; which ren¬ 
ders the controversy an incident in the 
history of ethics. It is immediately con¬ 
nected with the preceding part of this Dis¬ 
sertation, by the almost literal coincidence 
between Bossuet’s foremost objection to the 
disinterested piety contended for by Fene¬ 
lon, and the fundamental position of a very 
ingenious and once noted divine of the 
English church, in his attack on the disin¬ 
terested affections, believed by Shaftesbury 
to be a part of human nature.^ 


* CEuvres de Bossuet, viii. 308. (Liege, 1767.) 
f De Summi Pontificis Auctoritate Dissertatio. 

X “Haec est natura voluntatis humanae, ut et 
beatitudinem, et ea quorum necessaria connexio 
cum beatitudine clare intelligitur, necessario appe- 
tat... Nullus est actus ad quern revera non impel- 
limur motivo beatitudinis, explicite vel implicite; ” 
meaning by the latter that it may be concealed 
from ourselves, as he says, for a short time, by a 
nearer object. CEuvres de Bossuet, viii. 80. “The 
only motive by which individuals ccm be induced to 














48 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


LEIBNITZ. 

There is a singular contrast between the 
form of Leibnitz’s writings and the character 
of his mind. The latter was systematical, 
even to excess. It was the vice of his pro¬ 
digious intellect, on every subject of science 
where it was not bound by geometrical 
chains, to confine his view to those most 
general principles, so well called by Bacon 
“ merely notional,” which render it, indeed, 
easy to build a system, but only because 
they may be alike adapted to every state of 
appearances, and become thereby really in¬ 
applicable to any. Though his genius was 
thus naturally turned to system, his writings 
were, generally, occasional and miscella¬ 
neous. The fragments of his doctrines are 
scattered in reviews; or over a voluminous 
literary correspondence; or in the prefaces 
and introductions to those compilations to 
which this great philosopher was obliged by 
his situation to descend. This defective and 
disorderly mode of publication arose partly 
from the conflicts between business and 
study, inevitable in his course of life; but 
probably yet more from the nature of his 
system, which, while it widely deviates from 
the most general principles of former philo¬ 
sophers, is ready to embrace their particular 
doctrines under its own generalities, and 
thus to reconcile them to each other, as well 
as to accommodate itself to popular or esta¬ 
blished opinions, and compromise with them, 
according to his favourite and oft-repeated 
maxim, “that most received doctrines are 
capable of a good sense f;” by which last 

the practice of virtue, must be the feeling or the 
prospect of private happiness.” Brown’s Essays on 
the Characteristics, p. 159., Lond. 1752. It must, 
however, be owned, that the selfishness of the 
Warburtonian is more rigid; making no provision 
for the object of one’s own happiness slipping out 
of view for a moment. It is due to the veiy inge¬ 
nious author of this forgotten book to add, that it 
is full of praise of his adversary, which, though 
just, was in the answerer generous; and that it 
contains an assertion of the unbounded right of 
public discussion, unusual even at the tolerant 
period of its appearance. 

* Born, 1646; died, 1716. 

f “Nouveaux Essais sur l’Entendement IIu- 


words our philosopher meant a sense re¬ 
concilable with his own principles. Partial 
and occasional exhibitions of these prin¬ 
ciples suited better that constant nego¬ 
tiation with opinions, establishments, and 
prejudices, to which extreme generalities 
are well adapted, than would have a full and 
methodical statement of the whole at once. 
It is the lot of every philosopher who at¬ 
tempts to make his principles extremely 
flexible, that they become like those tools 
which bend so easily as to penetrate nothing. 
Yet his manner of publication perhaps led 
him to those wide intuitions, as compre¬ 
hensive as those of Bacon, of which he ex¬ 
pressed the result as briefly and pithily as 
Hobbes. The fragment which contains his 
ethical principles is the preface to a collec¬ 
tion of documents illustrative of international 
law, published at Hanover in 1693* *, to 
which he often referred as his standard after¬ 
wards, especially when he speaks of Lord 
Shaftesbury, or of the controversy between 
the two great theologians of France. “ Right,” 
says he, “ is moral power; obligation, moral 
necessity. By ‘moral’ I understand what 
with a good man prevails as much as if it 
were physical. A good man is he who loves 
all men as far as reason allows. Justice is 
the benevolence of a wise man. To love is 
to be pleased with the happiness of another; 
or, in other words, to convert the happiness 
of another into a part of one’s own. Hence 
is explained the possibility of a disinterested 
love. When we are pleased with the happi¬ 
ness of any being, his happiness becomes 
one of our enjoyments. Wisdom is the 
science of happiness.” f 

REMARKS. 

It is apparent from the above passage, 
that Leibnitz had touched the truth on the 
subject of disinterested affection; and that 
he was more near clinging to it than any 

main,” liv. i. chap. ii. These Essays, which form 
the greater part of the publication entitled “ (Euvres 
Philosophiques,” edited by Itaspe, Amst. et Leipz. 
1765, are not included in Dutens’ edition of Leib¬ 
nitz’s works. 

* Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus. llanov. 
1695. f See Note N. 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 49 


modern philosopher, except Lord Shaftes¬ 
bury. It is evident, however, from the latter 
part of it, that, like Shaftesbury, he shrunk 
from his own just conception; under the in¬ 
fluence of that most ancient and far-spread 
prej udice of the schools, which assumed that 
such an abstraction as “Happiness” could 
be the object of love, and that the desire of 
so faint, distant, and refined an object, was 
the first principle of all moral nature, and 
that of it every other desire was only a mo¬ 
dification or a fruit. Both he and Shaftes¬ 
bury, however, when they relapsed into the 
selfish system, embraced it in its most re¬ 
fined form; considering the benevolent affec¬ 
tions as valuable parts of our own happiness, 
not in consequence of any of their effects or 
extrinsic advantages, but of that intrinsic 
delightfulness which was inherent in their 
very essence. But Leibnitz considered this 
refined pleasure as the object in the view of 
the benevolent man; an absurdity, or rather 
a contradiction, which, at least in the In¬ 
quiry concerning Virtue, Shaftesbury avoids. 
It will be seen from Leibnitz’s limitation, 
taken together with his definition of Wisdom, 
that he regarded the distinction of the moral 
sentiments from the social affections, and 
the just subordination of the latter, as en¬ 
tirely founded on the tendency of general 
happiness to increase that of the agent, not 
merely as being real, but as being present 
to the agent’s mind when he acts. In a 
subsequent passage he lowers his tone not a 
little. “ As for the sacrifice of life, or the 
endurance of the greatest pain for others, 
these things are rather generously enjoined 
than solidly demonstrated by philosophers. 
For honour, glory, and self-congratulation, 
to which they appeal under the name of 
Virtue, are indeed mental pleasures, and of 
a high degree, but not to all, nor out¬ 
weighing every bitterness of suffering; since 
all cannot imagine them with equal vivacity, 
and that power is little possessed by those 
whom neither education, nor situation, nor 
the doctrines of Religion or Philosophy, 
have taught to value mental gratifications.” * 


* Sec Note N. 


He concludes very truly, that Morality is 
completed by a belief of moral government. 
But the Inquiry concerning Virtue had 
reached that conclusion by a better road. 
It entirely escaped his sagacity, as it has 
that of nearly all other moralists, that the 
coincidence of Morality with well-under¬ 
stood interest in our outward actions, is 
very far from being the most important 
part of the question; for these actions flow 
from habitual dispositions, from affections 
and sensibilities, which determine their na¬ 
ture. There may be, and there are many 
immoral acts, which, in the sense in which 
words are commonly used, are advantageous 
to the actor. But the whole sagacity and 
ingenuity of the world may be safely chal¬ 
lenged to point out a case in which virtuous 
dispositions, habits, and feelings, are not 
conducive in the highest degree to the happi¬ 
ness of the individual; or to maintain that 
he is not the happiest, whose moral senti¬ 
ments and affections are such as to prevent 
the possibility of any unlawful advantage 
being presented to his mind. It would in¬ 
deed have been impossible to prove to Re- 
gulus that it was his interest to return to a 
death of torture in Africa. But what, if 
the proof had been easy ? The most thorough 
conviction on such a point would not have 
enabled him to set this example, if he had 
not been supported by his own integrity 
and generosity, by love of his country, and 
reverence for his pledged faith. What could 
the conviction add to that greatness of soul, 
and to these glorious attributes ? With such 
virtues he could not act otherwise than he 
did. Would a father affectionately interested 
in a son’s happiness, of very lukewarm feel¬ 
ings of morality, but of good sense enough 
to weigh gratifications and sufferings ex¬ 
actly, be really desirous that his son shoidd 
have these virtues in a less degree than Re- 
gulus, merely because they might expose 
him to the fate which Regulus chose ? On 
the coldest calculation he would surely per¬ 
ceive, that the high and glowing feelings of 
such a mind during life altogether throw 
into shade a few hours of agony in leaving 
it. And, if lie himself were so unfortunate 


E 


















50 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


that no more generous sentiment arose in 
his mind to silence such calculations, would 
it not be a reproach to his understanding 
not to discover, that, though in one case out 
of millions such a character might lead a 
Regulus to torture, yet, in the common 
course of nature, it is the source not only of 
happiness in life, but of quiet and honour 
in death? A case so extreme as that of 
Regulus will not perplex us, if we bear in 
mind, that though we cannot prove the act 
of heroic virtue to be conducive to the in¬ 
terest of the hero, yet we may perceive at 
once, that nothing is so conducive to his 
interest as to have a mind so formed that it 
could not shrink from it, but must rather 
embrace it with gladness and triumph. Men 
of vigorous health are said sometimes to 
suffer most in a pestilence. No man was 
ever so absurd as for that reason to wish 
that he were more infirm. The distemper 
might return once in a century: if he were 
then alive, he might escape it; and even if 
he fell, the balance of advantage would be 
in most cases greatly on the side of robust 
health. In estimating beforehand the value 
of a strong bodily frame, a man of sense 
would throw the small chance of a rare and 
short evil entirely out of the account. So 
must the coldest and most selfish moral 
calculator, who, if he be sagacious and exact, 
must pronounce, that the inconveniences to 
which a man may be sometimes exposed by 
a pure and sound mind, are no reasons for 
regretting that we do not escape them by 
possessing minds more enfeebled and dis¬ 
tempered. Other occasions will call our at¬ 
tention, in the sequel, to this important part 
of the subject; but the great name of Leib¬ 
nitz seemed to require that his degrading 
statement should not be cited without warn¬ 
ing the reader against its egregious fallacy. 

MALEBRANCHE.* 

This ingenious philosopher and beautiful 
writer is the only celebrated Cartesian who 
has professedly handled thetheory of Morals, f 


* Bora, 1638; died, 1715. 


His theory has in some points of view a con¬ 
formity to the doctrine of Clarke; while in 
others it has given occasion to his English 
follower Norris j to say, that if the Quakers 
understood their own opinion of the illu¬ 
mination of all men, they would explain it 
on the principles of Malebranche. “ There 
is,” says he, “one parent virtue, the uni¬ 
versal virtue, the virtue which renders us 
just and perfect, the virtue which will one 
day render us happy. It is the only virtue. 
It is the love of the universal order, as it 
eternally existed in the Divine Reason, where 
every created reason contemplates it. This 
order is composed of practical as well as 
speculative truth. Reason perceives the 
moral superiority of one being over another, 
as immediately as the equality of the radii 
of the same circle. The relative perfection 
of beings is that part of the immovable order 
to which men must conform their minds and 
their conduct. The love of order is the 
whole of virtue, and conformity to order 
constitutes the morality of actions.” It is 
not difficult to discover, that in spite of the 
singular skill employed in weaving this web, 
it answers no other purpose than that of 
hiding the whole difficulty. The love of 
universal order, says Malebranche, requires 
that we should value an animal more than a 
stone, because it is more valuable; and love 
God infinitely more than man, because he is 
infinitely better. But without presupposing 
the reality of moral distinctions, and the 
power of moral feelings, — the two points to 
be proved, how can either of these proposi¬ 
tions be evident, or even intelligible ? To 
say that a love of the Eternal Order will 
produce the love and practice of every virtue, 
is an assertion untenable, unless we take 
Morality for granted, and useless, if we do. 
In his work on Morals, all the incidental 
and secondary remarks are equally well con¬ 
sidered and well expressed. The manner in 


t Traite de Morale. Rotterdam, 1684. 

X Author of the Theory of the Ideal World, who 
well copied, though he did not equal, the clearness 
and choice of expression which belonged to his 
master. 















PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 51 


which he applied his principle to the parti¬ 
culars of human duty is excellent. He is 
perhaps the first philosopher who has pre¬ 
cisely laid down and rigidly adhered to the 
great principle, that Virtue consists in pure 
intentions and dispositions of mind , without 
which, actions, however conformable to rules, 
are not truly moral; — a truth of the highest 
importance, which, in the theological form, 
may be said to have been the main principle 
of the first Protestant Reformers. The 
ground of piety, according to him, is the 
conformity of the attributes of God to those 
moral qualities which we irresistibly love and 
revere.* * * § * “ Sovereign princes,” says he, 
“ have no right to use their authority with¬ 
out reason. Even God has no such miserable 
right.” f His distinction between a religious 
society and an established church, and his 
assertion of the right of the temporal power 
alone to employ coercion, are worthy of 
notice, as instances in which a Catholic, at 
once philosophical and orthodox, could thus 
speak, not only of the nature of God, but of 
the rights of the Church. 

JONATHAN EDWARDS.J 

This remarkable man, the metaphysician 
of America, was formed among the Calvinists 
of New England, when their stern doctrine 
retained its rigorous authority.§ His power 
of subtile argument, perhaps unmatched, 
certainly unsurpassed among men, was joined, 
as in some of the ancient Mystics, with a 
character which raised his piety to fervour. 
He embraced their doctrine, probably with¬ 
out knowing it to be theirs. “ True religion,” 
says he, “ in a great measure consists in holy 


* “ II faut aimer l’Etre infiniment parfait, et non 
pas un fantome £pouvantable, un Dieu injuste, ab- 
solu, puissant, mais sans bonte et sans sagesse. S’il 
y avoit un tel Dieu, le vrai Dieu nous defendroit 
de l’adorer et de l’aimer. II y a peut-etre plus de 
danger d’offenser Dieu lorsqu’on lui donne une 
forme si horrible, que de mepriser son fantome.” 
Traite de Morale, chap. viii. 

f Ibid. chap. xxii. 

X Born in 1703, at Windsor in Connecticut; died 
in 1758, at Princeton in New Jersey. 

§ See Note O. 


affections. A love of divine things, for the 
beauty and sweetness of their moral excel¬ 
lency, is the spring of all holy affections.”* 
Had he suffered this noble principle to take 
the right road to all its fair consequences, 
he would have entirely concurred with Plato, 
with Shaftesbury, and Malebranche, in de¬ 
votion to “ the first good, first perfect, and 
first fair.” But he thought it necessary 
afterwards to limit his doctrine to his own 
persuasion, by denying that such moral ex¬ 
cellence could be discovered in divine things 
by those Christians who did not take the 
same view as he did of their religion. All 
others, and some who hold his doctrines with 
a more enlarged spirit, may adopt his prin¬ 
ciple without any limitation. His ethical 
theory is contained in his Dissertation on 
the Nature of True Virtue; and in another, 
On God’s chief End in the Creation, pub¬ 
lished in London thirty years after his death. 
True virtue, according to him, consists in 
benevolence, or love to “ being in general,” 
which he afterwards limits to “ intelligent 
being,” though “sentient” would have in¬ 
volved a more reasonable limitation. This 
good-will is felt towards a particular being, 
first in proportion to his degree of existence 
(for, says he, “ that which is great has more 
existence, and is farther from nothing, than 
that which is little;”) and secondly, in pro¬ 
portion to the degree in which that particular 
being feels benevolence to others. Thus God, 
having infinitely more existence and bene¬ 
volence than man, ought to be infinitely 
more loved; and for the same reason, God 
must love himself infinitely more than he 
does all other beings.f He can act only 
from regard to Himself, and His end in 
creation can only be to manifest His whole 
nature, which is called acting for His own 
glory. 

* On Religious Affections, pp. 4. 187. 

•f The coincidence of Malebranche with this part 
of Edwards, is remarkable. Speaking of the Su¬ 
preme Being, he says, “ II s’aime invinciblement.” 
He adds another more startling expression, “Cer- 
tainement Dieu ne peut agir que pour lui-meme: 
il n’a point d’autre motif que son amour propre.” 
Traite de Morale, chap. xvii. 

E 2 









52 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


As far as Edwards confines himself to 
created beings, and while his theory is per¬ 
fectly intelligible, it coincides with that of 
universal benevolence, hereafter to be con¬ 
sidered. The term “ being ” is a mere en¬ 
cumbrance, which serves indeed to give it a 
mysterious outside, but brings with it from 
the schools nothing except their obscurity. 
He was betrayed into it, by the cloak which 
it threw over his really unmeaning assertion 
or assumption, that there are degrees of ex¬ 
istence; without which that part of his 
system -which relates to the Deity would 
have appeared to be as baseless as it really 
is. When we try such a phrase by apply¬ 
ing it to matters within the sphere of our 
experience, we see that it means nothing but 
degrees of certain faculties and powers. But 
the very application of the term “ being ” to 
all things, shows that the least perfect has 
as much being as the most perfect; or 
rather that there can be no difference, so 
far as that word is concerned, between two 
things to which it is alike applicable. The 
justness of the compound, proportion on 
which human virtue is made to depend, is 
capable of being tried by an easy test. If 
we suppose the greatest of evil spirits to 
have a hundred times the bad passions of 
Marcus Aurelius, and at the same time a 
hundred times his faculties, or in Edwards’s 
language, a hundred times his quantity of 
“ being,” it follows from this moral theory, 
that we ought to esteem and love the devil 
exactly in the same degree as we esteem and 
love Marcus Aurelius. 

The chief circumstance which justifies so 
much being said on the last two writers, is 
their concurrence in a point towards which 
ethical philosophy had been slowly approach¬ 
ing, from the time of the controversies raised 
up by Hobbes. They both indicate the in¬ 
crease of this tendency, by introducing an 
element into their theory, foreign from those 
cold systems of ethical abstraction, with 
which they continued in other respects to 
have much in common. Malebranche makes 
virtue consist in the love of “ order,” Ed¬ 
wards in the love of “ being.” In this lan¬ 
guage we perceive a step beyond the repre¬ 


sentation of Clarke, which made it a con¬ 
formity to the relations of things; but a step 
which cannot be made without passing into 
a new province;—without confessing, by 
the use of the word “ love,” that not only 
perception and reason, but emotion and 
sentiment, are among the fundamental prin¬ 
ciples of Morals. They still, however, were 
so wedded to scholastic prejudice, as to 
choose two of the most aerial abstractions 
which can be introduced into argument, — 
“being” and “order,”—to be the objects 
of those strong active feelings which were to 
govern the human mind. 

BUFFIER.* 

The same strange disposition to fix on 
abstractions as the objects of our primitive 
feelings, and the end sought by our warmest 
desires, manifests itself in the ingenious 
writer with whom this part of the Disserta¬ 
tion closes, under a form of less dignity than 
that which it assumes in the hands of Male¬ 
branche and Clarke. Buffer, the only Jesuit 
whose name has a place in the history of 
abstract philosophy, has no peculiar opinions 
which would have required any mention of 
him as a moralist, were it not for the just 
reputation of his treatise on First Truths, 
with which Dr. Reid so remarkably, though 
unaware of its existence, coincides, even in 
the misapplication of so practical- a term as 
“ common sense ” to denote the faculty 
which recognises the truth of first prin¬ 
ciples. His philosophical writings f are re¬ 
markable for that perfect clearness of ex¬ 
pression, which, since the great examples of 
Descartes and Pascal, has been so generally 
diffused, as to have become one of the envi¬ 
able peculiarities of French philosophical 
style, and almost of the French language. 
His ethical doctrine is that most commonly 
received among philosophers, from Aris¬ 
totle to Paley and Bentham: “ I desire to 
be happy; but as I live with other men, I 
cannot be happy without consulting their 


* Born, 1661; died, 1737. 
f Cours de Sciences. Paris, 1732. 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


53 


happiness: ” a proposition perfectly true 
indeed, but far too narrow; as inferring, 
that in the most benevolent acts a man must 
pursue only his own interest, from the fact 
that the practice of benevolence does in¬ 
crease his happiness, and that because a 
virtuous mind is likely to be the happiest, 
our observation of that property of Virtue 
is the cause of our love and reverence for it. 


SECTION VI. 

FOUNDATIONS. OF A MORE JUST THEORY OF 
ETHICS. 

BUTLER — HUTCHESON — BERKELEY — HUME — 
SMITH — PRICE — HARTLEY — TUCKER — PALEY 
— BENTHAM — STEWART — BROWN. 

From the beginning of ethical controversy 
to the eighteenth century, it thus appears, 
that the care of the individual for himself, 
and his regard for the things which preserve 
self, were thought to form the first, and, in 
the opinion of most, the earliest of all the 
principles which prompt men and other 
animals to activity; that nearly all philoso¬ 
phers regarded the appetites and desires, 
which look only to self-gratification, as mo¬ 
difications of this primary principle of self- 
love ; and that a very numerous body 
considered even the social affections them¬ 
selves as nothing more than the produce of 
a more latent and subtile operation of the 
desire of interest, and of the pursuit of plea¬ 
sure. It is true that they often spoke 
otherwise; but it was rather from the loose¬ 
ness and fluctuation of their language, than 
from distrust in their doctrine. It is true, 
also, that perhaps all represented the grati¬ 
fications of Virtue as more unmingled, more 
secure, more frequent, and more lasting 
than other pleasures; without which they 
could neither have retained a hold on the 
assent of mankind, nor reconciled the prin¬ 
ciples of their systems with the testimony of 
their hearts. We have seen how some began 
to be roused from a lazy acquiescence in 
this ancient hypothesis, by the monstrous 
consequences which Hobbes had legitimately 


deduced from it. A few, of pure minds and 
great intellect, laboured to render Morality 
disinterested, by tracing it to Reason as its 
source; without considering that Reason, 
elevated indeed far above interest, is also 
separated by an impassable gulf, from feel¬ 
ing, affection, and passion. At length it was 
perceived by more than one, that through 
whatever length of reasoning the mind may 
pass in its advances towards action, there is 
placed at the end of any avenue through 
which it can advance, some principle wholly 
unlike mere Reason, — some emotion or sen¬ 
timent which must be touched, before the 
springs of Will and action can be set in 
motion. Had Lord Shaftesbury steadily 
adhered to his own principles, — had Leib¬ 
nitz not recoiled from his statement, the 
truth might have been regarded as pro- 
mulged, though not unfolded. The writings 
of both prove, at least to us, enlightened as 
we are by what followed, that they were 
skilful in sounding, and that their lead had 
touched the bottom. But it was reserved 
for another moral philosopher to determine 
this hitherto unfathomed depth.* 

BUTLER.f 

Butler, who was the son of a Presbyterian 
trader, early gave such promise, as to induce 

* The doctrine of the Stoics is thus put by 
Cicero into the mouth of Cato: “ Placet his, inquit, 
quorum ratio mihi probatur, simul atque natum sit 
animal (hinc enim est ordiendum), ipsum sibi con- 
ciliari et commendari ad se conservandum, et ad 
suum statum, et ad ea, quie conservantia sunt ejus 
status, diligenda; alienari autem ab interitu, iisque 
rebus quae interitum videantur aflerre. Id ita esse 
sic probant, quod, antequam voluptas aut doloratti- 
gerit, salutaria appetant parvi, aspernenturque eon- 
traria: quod non fieret, nisi statum suum dili- 
gerent, interitum timerent: fieri autem non posset, 
ut appeterent aliquid, nisi sensum haberent sui, 
eoque se et sua diligerent. Ex quo intelligi debet, 
principium ductum esse a se diligendi sui.”—De 
Fin. lib. iii. cap. v.' We are told that diligendo is 
the reading of an ancient MS. Perhaps the omis¬ 
sion of “ a ” would be the easiest and most reasonable 
emendation. The above passage is perhaps the 
fullest and plainest statement of the doctrines pre¬ 
valent till the time of Butler. 

f Born, 1692; died, 1752. 








54 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

his father to fit him, by a proper education, 
for being a minister of that persuasion. He 
was educated at one of their seminaries under 
Mr. Jones of Gloucester, where Seeker, 
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was 
his fellow-student. Though many of the 
dissenters had then begun to relinquish Cal¬ 
vinism, the uniform effect of that doctrine, 
in disposing its adherents to metaphysical 
speculation, long survived the opinions which 
caused it, and cannot be doubted to have 
influenced the mind of Butler. When a 
student at the academy at Gloucester, he 
wrote private letters to Dr. Clarke on his 
celebrated Demonstration, suggesting ob¬ 
jections which were really insuperable, and 
which are marked by an acuteness which 
neither himself nor any other ever surpassed. 
Clarke, whose heart was as well schooled as 
his head, published the letters, with his own 
answers, in the next edition of his work, and, 
by his good offices with his friend and fol¬ 
lower, Sir Joseph Jekyll, obtained for the 
young philosopher an early opportunity of 
making his abilities and opinions known, by 
the appointment of preacher at the Chapel 
of the Master of the Rolls. He was after¬ 
wards raised to one of the highest seats on 
the episcopal bench, through the philosophi¬ 
cal taste of Queen Caroline, and her influ¬ 
ence over the mind of her husband, which 
continued long after her death. “ He was 
wafted,” says Horace Walpole, “to the see 
of Durham, on a cloud of Metaphysics.” * 
Even in the fourteenth year of his widow¬ 
hood, George II. was desirous of inserting 
the name of the Queen’s metaphysical fa¬ 
vourite in the Regency Bill of 1751. 

His great work on the Analogy of Religion 
to the Course of Nature, though only a 
commentary on the singularly original and 
pregnant passage of Origen f, which is so 
honestly prefixed to it as a motto, is, not¬ 
withstanding, the most original and profound 
work extant in any language on the philo- 

sophy of religion. It is entirely beyond our 
present scope. His ethical discussions are 
contained in those deep and sometimes dark 
dissertations which he preached at the Chapel 
of the Rolls, and afterwards published under 
the name of “ Sermons,” while he was yet 
fresh from the schools, and full of that cou¬ 
rage with which youth often likes to exercise 
its strength in abstract reasonings, and to 
push its faculties into the recesses of abstruse 
speculation. But his youth was that of a 
sober and mature mind, early taught by 
Nature to discern the boundaries of Know¬ 
ledge, and to abstain from fruitless efforts to 
reach inaccessible ground. In these Ser¬ 
mons*, he has taught truths more capable 
of being exactly distinguished from the doc¬ 
trines of his predecessors, more satisfactorily 
established, more comprehensively applied 
to particulars, more rationally connected 
with each other, and therefore more worthy 
of the name of “ discovery,” than any with 
which we are acquainted ; — if we ought not, 
with some hesitation, to except the first steps 
of the Grecian philosophers towards a theory 
of Morals. It is a peculiar hardship, that 
the extreme ambiguity of language, an ob¬ 
stacle which it is one of the chief merits of 
an ethical philosopher to vanquish, is one of 
the circumstances which prevent men from 
seeing the justice of applying to him so am¬ 
bitious a term as “ discoverer.” He owed 
more to Lord Shaftesbury than to all other 
writers besides. He is just and generous 
towards that philosopher ; yet, whoever care¬ 
fully compares their writings, will without 
difficulty distinguish the two builders, and 
the larger as well as more regular and la¬ 
boured part of the edifice, which is the work 
of Butler. 

Mankind have various principles of action ; 
some leading directly to the good of the in¬ 
dividual, some immediately to the good of 
the community. But the former are not 
instances of self-love, or of any form of it; 

* Memoirs of Geo. IT., i. 129. 
t “Ejus (analogia) vis est; ut id quod dubium 
est ad aliquid simile de quo non quaeritur, referat; 
ut incerta certis probet.” . 

* See Sermons i. ii. iii. On Human Nature ; v. 
On Compassion; viii. On Resentment ; ix. On 
Forgiveness; xi. and xii. On the Love of our 
Neighbour; and xiii. On the Love of God; to¬ 
gether with the excellent Preface. 









PROGRESS OP ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 55 


for self-love is the desire of a man’s own 
happiness, whereas the object of an appetite 
or passion is some outward thing. Self-love 
seeks things as means of happiness; the pri¬ 
vate appetites seek things, not as means, but 
as ends. A man eats from hunger, and 
drinks from thirst; and though he knows 
that these acts are necessary to life, that 
knowledge is not the motive of his conduct. 
No gratification can indeed be imagined 
without a previous desire. If all the parti¬ 
cular desires did not exist independently, 
self-love would have no object to employ 
itself about; for there would in that case be 
no happiness,'which, by the very supposition 
of the opponents, is made up of the gratifi¬ 
cations of various desires. No pursuit could 
be selfish or interested, if there were not 
satisfactions to be gained by appetites which 
seek their own outward objects without re¬ 
gard to self. These satisfactions in the mass 
compose what is called a man’s interest. 

In contending, therefore, that the bene¬ 
volent affections are disinterested, no more 
i3 claimed for them than must be granted to 
mere animal appetites and to malevolent 
passions. Each of these principles alike 
seeks its own object, for the sake simply of 
obtaining it. Pleasure is the result of the 
attainment, but no separate part of the aim 
of the agent. The desire that another per¬ 
son may be gratified, seeks that outward 
object alone, according to the general course 
of human desire. Resentment is as disinter¬ 
ested as gratitude or pity, but not more so. 
Hunger or thirst may be, as much as the 
purest benevolence, at variance with self- 
love. A regard to our own general happi¬ 
ness is not a vice, but in itself an excellent 
quality. It were well if it prevailed more 
generally over craving and short-sighted 
appetites. The weakness of the social affec¬ 
tions, and the strength of the private desires, 
properly constitutes selfishness a vice utterly 
at variance with the happiness of him who 
harbours it, and as such, condemned by self- 
love. There are as few who attain the great¬ 
est satisfaction to themselves, as who do the 
greatest good to others. It is absurd to say 
with some, that the pleasure of benevolence 


is selfish because it is felt by self. Under¬ 
standing and reasoning are acts of self, for 
no man can think by proxy; but no one 
ever called them selfish. Why ? Evidently 
because they do not regard self. Precisely 
the same reason applies to benevolence. 
Such an argument is a gross confusion of 
“ self,” as it is a subject of feeling or thought, 
with “ self” considered as the object of either. 
It is no more just to refer the private appe¬ 
tites to self-love because they commonly 
promote happiness, than it would be to refer 
them to self-hatred in those frequent cases 
where their gratification obstructs it. 

But, besides the private or public desires, 
and besides the calm regard to our own ge¬ 
neral welfare, there is a principle in man, in 
its nature supreme over all others. This 
natural supremacy belongs to the faculty 
which surveys, approves, or disapproves the 
several affections of our minds and actions 
of our lives. As self-love is superior to the 
private passions, so Conscience is superior 
to the whole of man.. Passion implies nothing 
but an inclination to follow an object, and 
in that respect passions differ only in force: 
but no notion can be formed of the principle 
of reflection, or Conscience, which does not 
comprehend judgment, direction, superin¬ 
tendency ; authority over all other principles 
of action is a constituent part of the idea of 
it, and cannot be separated from it. Had 
it strength as it has right, it would govern 
the world. The passions would have their 
power, but according to their nature, which 
is to be subject to Conscience. Hence we 
may understand the purpose at which the 
ancients, perhaps confusedly, aimed when 
they laid it down “ that Virtue consisted in 
following Nature.” It is neither easy, nor, 
for the main object of the moralist, important, 
to render the doctrines of the ancients by 
modern language. If Butler returns to this 
phrase too often, it was rather from the re¬ 
mains of undistinguishing reverence for an¬ 
tiquity, than because he could deem its 
employment important to his own opinions. 

The tie which holds together Religion and 
Morality is, in the system of Butler, some¬ 
what different from the common representa- 













56 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


tions of it, but not less close. Conscience, 
or the faculty of approving or disapproving, 
necessarily constitutes the bond of union. 
Setting out from the belief of Theism, and 
combining it, as he had entitled himself to 
do, with the reality of Conscience, he could 
not avoid discovering that the being who 
possessed the highest moral qualities, is the 
object of the highest moral affections. He 
contemplates the Deity through the moral 
nature of man. In the case of a being who 
is to be perfectly loved, “ goodness must be 
the simple actuating principle within him, 
this being the moral quality which is the 
immediate object of love.” “ The highest, 
the adequate object of this affection, is per¬ 
fect goodness, which, therefore, we are to 
love with all our heart, with all our soul, 
and with all our strength.” “ We should 
refer ourselves implicitly to him, and cast 
ourselves entirely upon him. The whole 
attention of life should be to obey his com¬ 
mands.” * Moral distinctions are thus pre¬ 
supposed before a step can be made towards 
Religion : Virtue leads to piety; God is to 
be loved, because goodness is the object of 
love; and it is only after the mind rises 
through human morality to divine perfection, 
that all the virtues and duties are seen to 
hang from the throne of God.f 

REMARKS. 

There do not appear to be any errors in 
the ethical principles of Butler : the follow¬ 
ing remarks are intended to point out some 
defects in his scheme. And even that at¬ 
tempt is made with the unfeigned humility 
of one who rejoices in an opportunity of 
doing justice to that part of the writings of 
a great philosopher which has not been so 
clearly understood nor so justly estimated 
by the generality as his other works. 

1. It is a considerable defect, though per- 

* Sermon xiii.—“On the Love of God.” 

f “ The part in which I think I have done most 
service is that in which I have endeavoured to slip 
in a foundation under Butler’s doctrine of the 
supremacy of Conscience, which he left baseless.” 
Sir James Mackintosh to Professor Napier. — Ed. 


haps unavoidable in a sermon, that he omits 
all inquiry into the nature and origin of the 
private appetites, which first appear in hu¬ 
man nature. It is implied, but it is not 
expressed in his reasonings, that there is a 
time before the child can be called selfish, 
any more than social, when these appetites 
seem as it were separately to pursue their 
distinct objects, and that this is long ante¬ 
cedent to that state of mind in which their 
gratification is regarded as forming the mass 
called “ happiness.” It is hence that they 
are likened to instincts, distinct as these 
latter subsequently become. 

2. Butler shows admirably well, that un¬ 
less there were principles of action inde¬ 
pendent of self, there could be no pleasures 
and no happiness for self-love to watch over. 
A step farther would have led him to per¬ 
ceive that self-love is altogether a secondary 
formation, the result of the joint operation 
of Reason and Habit upon the primary 
principles. It could not have existed with¬ 
out presupposing original appetites and or¬ 
ganic gratifications. Had he considered this 
part of the subject, he would have strength¬ 
ened his case by showing that self-love is as 
truly a derived principle, not only as any of 
the social affections, but as any of the most 
confessedly acquired passions. It would ap¬ 
pear clear, that as self-love is not divested of 
its self-regarding character by considering it 
as acquired, so the social affections do not 
lose any part of their disinterested charac¬ 
ter, if they be considered 'as formed from 
simpler elements. Nothing would more tend 
to root out the old prejudice which treats a 
regard to self as analogous to a self-evident 
principle, than the proof that self-love is 
itself formed from certain original elements, 
and that a living being long subsists before 
its appearance.^ 

3. It must be owned that those parts of 
Butler’s discourses which relate to the social 


* The very able work ascribed to Mr. Hazlitt, 
entitled “ Essay on the Principles of Human Action,” 
Lond. 1805, contains original views on this subject. 

f Compare this statement with the Stoical doc¬ 
trine explained by Cicero in the book de Finibus, 
quoted above, of which it is the direct opposite. 








PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


affections are more satisfactory than those 
which handle the question concerning the 
moral sentiments. It is not that the real 
existence of the latter is not as well made 
out as that of the former. In both cases he 
occupies the unassailable ground of an ap¬ 
peal to consciousness. All men (even the 
worst) feel that they have a conscience and 
disinterested affections. Rut he betrays a 
sense of the greater vagueness of his notions 
on this subject: he falters as he approaches 
it. He makes no attempt to determine in 
what state of mind the action of Conscience 
consists. He does not venture steadily to 
denote it by a name; he fluctuates between 
different appellations, and multiplies the 
metaphors of authority and command, with¬ 
out a simple exposition of that mental ope¬ 
ration which these metaphors should only 
have illustrated. It commands other prin¬ 
ciples ; but the question recurs, Why, or 
How ? 

Some of his own hints and some fainter 
intimations of Shaftesbury, might have led 
him to what appears to be the true solution, 
which, perhaps, from its extreme simplicity, 
has escaped him and his successors. The 
truth seems to be, that the moral sentiments 
in their mature state, are a class of feelings 
which have no other object hut the mental dis¬ 
positions leading to voluntary action , and the 
voluntary actions which flow from these dis¬ 
positions. We are pleased with some dis¬ 
positions and actions, and displeased with 
others, in ourselves and our fellows. We 
desire to cultivate the dispositions and to 
perform the actions, which we contemplate 
with satisfaction. These objects, like all 
those of human appetite or desire, are sought 
for their own sake. The peculiarity of these 
desires is, that their gratification requires the 
use of no means; nothing (unless it be a vo¬ 
lition) is interposed between the desire and 
the voluntary act. It is impossible, there¬ 
fore, that these passions should undergo any 
change by transfer from being the end to 
being the means, as is the case with other 
practical principles. On the other hand, as 
soon as they are fixed on these ends, they 
cannot regard any further object. When 


—1 

57 

another passion prevails over them, the end 
of the moral faculty is converted into a 
means of gratification. But volitions and 
actions are not themselves the end or last 
object in view, of any other desire or aver¬ 
sion. Nothing stands between the moral 
sentiments and their object; they are, as it 
were, in contact with the Will. It is this 
sort of mental position, if the expression 
may be pardoned, that explains or seems to 
explain those characteristic properties which 
true philosophers ascribe to them, and which 
all reflecting men feel to belong to them. 
Being the only desires, aversions, sentiments, 
or emotions which regard dispositions and 
actions, they necessarily extend to the whole 
character and conduct. Among motives to 
action, they alone are justly considered as 
universal. They may and do stand between 
any other practical principle and its object, 
while it is absolutely impossible that another 
shall intercept their connexion with the Will. 
Be it observed, that though many passions 
prevail over them, no other can act beyond 
its own appointed and limited sphere ; and 
that such prevalence itself, leaving the na¬ 
tural order disturbed in no other part of the 
mind, is perceived to be a disorder, when¬ 
ever seen in another, and felt to be so by the 
very mind disordered, when the disorder 
subsides. Conscience may forbid the Will 
to contribute to the gratification of a desire: 
no desire ever forbids the W T ill to obey 
Conscience. 

This result of the peculiar relation of 
Conscience to the Will, justifies those meta¬ 
phorical expressions which ascribe to it 
“authority” and the right of “universal 
command.” It is immutable; for, by the law 
which regulates all feelings, it must rest on 
action , which is its object, and beyond which 
it cannot look; and as it employs no means , 
it never can be transferred to nearer objects, 
in the way in which he who first desires an 
object as a means of gratification, may come 
to seek it as his end. Another remarkable 
peculiarity is bestowed on the moral feelings 
by the nature of their object. As the ob¬ 
jects of all other desires are outward, the 
satisfaction of them may be frustrated by 















58 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


outward causes : the moral sentiments may 
always be gratified, because voluntary ac¬ 
tions and moral dispositions spring from 
within. No external circumstance affects 
them; — hence their independence. As the 
moral sentiment needs no means , and the 
desire is instantaneously followed by the 
volition, it seems to be either that which first 
suggests the relation between command and 
obedience , or at least that which affords the 
simplest instance of it. It is therefore with 
the most rigorous precision that authority 
and universality are ascribed to them. Their 
only unfortunate property is their too fre¬ 
quent weakness; but it is apparent that it 
is from that circumstance alone that their 
failure arises. Thus considered, the lan¬ 
guage of Butler concerning Conscience, that, 
“ had it strength, as it has right, it would 
govern the world,” which may seem to be 
only an effusion of generous feeling, proves 
to be a just statement of the nature and 
action of the highest of human faculties. 
The union of universality, immutability, and 
independence, with direct action on the Will, 
which distinguishes the Moral Sense from 
every other part of our practical nature, 
renders it scarcely metaphorical language to 
ascribe to it unbounded sovereignty and 
awful authority over the whole of the world 
within; — shows that attributes, well de¬ 
noted by terms significant of command and 
control, are, in fact, inseparable from it, or 
rather constitute its very essence; and jus¬ 
tifies those ancient moralists who represent 
it as alone securing, if not forming, the 
moral liberty of man. When afterwards the 
religious principle is evolved, Conscience is 
clothed with the sublime character of repre¬ 
senting the divine purity and majesty in the 
human soul. Its title is not impaired by 
any number of defeats; for every defeat ne¬ 
cessarily disposes the disinterested and dis¬ 
passionate by-stander to wish that its force 
were strengthened; and though it may be 
doubted whether, consistently with the pre¬ 
sent constitution of human nature, it could 
be so invigorated as to be the only motive 
to action, yet every such by-stander rejoices 
at all accessions to its.force, and would own, 


that man becomes happier, more excellent, 
more estimable, more venerable, in pro¬ 
portion as it acquires a power of banishing 
malevolent passions, of strongly curbing 
all the private appetites, and of influencing 
and guiding the benevolent affections them¬ 
selves. 

Let it be carefully considered whether 
the same observations could be made with 
truth, or with plausibility, on any other part 
or element of the nature of man. They are 
entirely independent of the question, whe¬ 
ther Conscience be an inherent, or an ac¬ 
quired principle. If it be inherent, that 
circumstance is, according to the common 
modes of thinking, a sufficient proof of its 
title to veneration. But if provision be 
made in the constitution and circumstances 
of all men, for uniformly producing it, by 
processes similar to those which produce 
other acquired sentiments, may not our re¬ 
verence be augmented by admiration of that 
Supreme Wisdom which, in such mental 
contrivances, yet more brightly than in the 
lower world of matter, accomplishes mighty 
purposes by instruments so simple ? Should 
these speculations be thought to have any 
solidity by those who are accustomed to 
such subjects, it would be easy to unfold 
and apply them so fully, that they may be 
thoroughly apprehended by every intelligent 
person. 

4. The most palpable defect of Butler’s 
scheme is, that it affords no answer to the 
question, “ What is the distinguishing quality 
common to all right actions,?” If it were 
answered, “ Their criterion is, that they are 
approved and commanded by Conscience,” 
the answerer would find that he was in¬ 
volved in a vicious circle; for Conscience 
itself could be no otherwise defined than as 
the faculty which approves and commands 
right actions. 

There are few circumstances more re¬ 
markable than the small number of Butler’s 
followers in Ethics; and it is perhaps still 
more observable, that his opinions were not 
so much rejected as overlooked. It is an 
instance of the importance of style. No 
thinker so great was ever so bad a writer. 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


Indeed, the ingenious apologies which have 
been lately attempted for this defect, amount 
to no more than that his power of thought 
was too much for his skill in language. 
How general must the reception have been 
of truths so certain and momentous as those 
contained in Butler’s discourses, — with how 
much more clearness must they have ap¬ 
peared to his own great understanding, if 
he had possessed the strength and distinc- 
ness with which Hobbes enforces odious 
falsehood, or the unspeakable charm of that 
transparent diction which clothed the un¬ 
fruitful paradoxes of Berkeley! 

HUTCHESON.* 

This ingenious writer began to try his 
own strength by private letters, written in 
his early youth to Dr. Clarke, the meta¬ 
physical patriarch of his time; on whom 
young philosophers seem to have considered 
themselves as possessing a claim, which he 
had too much goodness to reject. His cor¬ 
respondence with Hutcheson is lost; but we 
may judge of its spirit by his answers to 
Butler, and by one to Mr. Henry Home f, 
afterwards Lord Karnes, then a young ad¬ 
venturer in the prevalent speculations. 
Nearly at the same period with Butler’s 
first publication j, the writings of Hutch¬ 
eson began to show coincidences with him, 
indicative of the tendency of moral theory 
to assume a new form, by virtue of an im¬ 
pulse received from Shaftesbury, and quick¬ 
ened to greater activity by the adverse 
system of Clarke. Lord Molesworth, the 
friend of Shaftesbury, patronised Hutcheson, 
and even criticised his manuscript; and 


* Born in Ireland, 1694; died at Glasgow, 1747. 
f Woodhouselee’s Life of Lord Kames, vol. i. 
Append. No. 3. 

J The first edition of Butler’s Sermons was pub¬ 
lished in 1726, in which year also appeared the 
second edition of Hutcheson’s Inquiry into Beauty 
and Virtue. The Sermons had been preached some 
years before, though there is no likelihood that the 
contents could have reached a young teacher at 
Dublin. The place of Hutcheson’s birth is not 
mentioned in any account known to me. Ireland 
may be truly said to be “ incurxosa suorum” 


59 

though a Presbyterian, he was befriended 
by King, Archbishop of Dublin, himself a 
metaphysician; and aided by Mr. Synge, 
afterwards also a bishop, to whom specu¬ 
lations somewhat similar to his own had 
occurred. 

Butler and Hutcheson coincided in the 
two important positions, that disinterested 
affections, and a distinct moral faculty, are 
essential parts of human nature. Hutcheson 
is a chaste and simple writer, who imbibed 
the opinions, without the literary faults of 
his master, Shaftesbury. He has a clearness 
of expression, and fulness of illustration, 
which are wanting in Butler. But he is 
inferior to both these writers in the appear¬ 
ance at least of originality, and to Butler 
especially in that philosophical courage, 
which, when it discovers the fountains of 
truth and falsehood, leaves others to follow 
the streams. He states as strongly as Butler, 
that “ the same cause which determines us 
to pursue happiness for ourselves, deter¬ 
mines us both to esteem and benevolence 
on their proper occasions—even the very 
frame of our nature.” * It is in vain, as he 
justly observes, for the patrons of a refined 
selfishness to pretend that we pursue the 
happiness of others for the sake of the plea¬ 
sure which we derive from it; since it is 
apparent that there could be no such plea¬ 
sure if there had been no previous affection. 
“ Had we no affection distinct from self-love, 
nothing could raise a desire of the happiness 
of others, but when viewed as a mean of our 
own.”f He seems to have been the first 
who entertained just notions of the forma¬ 
tion of the secondary desires, which had 
been overlooked by Butler. “ There must 
arise, in consequence of our original desires, 
secondary desires of every thing useful to 
gratify the primary desire. Thus, as soon 
as we apprehend the use of wealth, or power, 
to gratify our original desires, we also desire 
them. From their universality as means 
arises the general prevalence of these desires 
of wealth and power.” j Proceeding farther 


* Inquiry, p. 152. 

f Essay on the Passions, p. 17. J Ibid. p. 8. 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


60 


in bis zeal against the selfish system than 
Lord Shaftesbury, who seems ultimately to 
rest the reasonableness of benevolence on 
its subserviency to the happiness of the in¬ 
dividual, he represents the moral faculty to 
be, as well as self-love and benevolence, a 
calm general impulse, which may and does 
impel a good man to sacrifice not only happi¬ 
ness, but even life itself, to Virtue. 

As Mr. Locke had spoken of “ an internal 
sensation;” Lord Shaftesbury once or twice 
of “ a reflex sense,” and once of “ a moral 
sense;” Hutcheson, who had a steadier, if 
not a clearer view of the nature of Con¬ 
science than Butler, calls it “ a moral sense; ” 
a name which quickly became popular, and 
continues to be a part of philosophical lan¬ 
guage. By “ sense ” he understood a capa¬ 
city of receiving ideas, together with plea¬ 
sures and pains, from a class of objects : the 
term “moral” was used to describe the 
particular class in question. It implied only 
that Conscience was a separate element in 
our nature, and that it was not a state or 
act of the Understanding. According to 
him, it also implied that it was an original 
and implanted principle; but every other 
part of his theory might be embraced by 
those who hold it to be derivative. 

The object of moral approbation, ac¬ 
cording to him, is general benevolence; and 
he carries this generous error so far as to 
deny that prudence, as long as it regards 
ourselves, can be morally approved; — an 
assertion contradicted by every man’s feel¬ 
ings, and to which we owe the Dissertation 
on the Nature of Virtue, which Butler 
annexed to his Analogy. By proving that 
all virtuous actions produce general good, 
he fancied that he had proved the necessity 
of regarding the general good in every act 
of virtue;—an instance of that confusion of 
the theory of moral sentiments with the 
criterion of moral actions, against which the 
reader was warned at the opening of this 
Dissertation, as fatal to ethical philosophy. 
He is chargeable, like Butler, with a vicious 
circle, in describing virtuous acts as those 
which are approved by the moral sense, 
while he at the same time describes the 


moral sense as the faculty which perceives 
and feels the morality of actions. 

Hutcheson was the father of the modern 
school of speculative philosophy in Scot¬ 
land; for though in the beginning of the 
sixteenth century the Scotch are said to 
have been known throughout Europe by 
their unmeasured passion for dialectical sub- 
tilties *, and though this metaphysical taste 
was nourished by the controversies which 
followed the Reformation, yet it languished 
with every other intellectual taste and talent 
from the Restoration,—first silenced by civil 
disorders, and afterwards repressed by an 
exemplary, but unlettered clergy, — till the 
philosophy of Shaftesbury was brought by 
Hutcheson from Ireland. We are told by 
the writer of his Life (a fine piece of philo¬ 
sophical biography), that “ he had a remark¬ 
able degree of rational enthusiasm for learn¬ 
ing, liberty, Religion, Virtue, and human 
happiness f; ” that he taught in public with 
persuasive eloquence; that his instructive 
conversation was at once lively and modest; 
and that he united pure manners with a 
kind disposition. What wonder that such a 
man should have spread the love of Know¬ 
ledge and Virtue around him, and should 
have rekindled in his adopted country a 

* The character given of the Scotch by the 
famous and unfortunate Servetus (edition of Ptole¬ 
my, 1533) is in many respects curious: “ Gallis 
amicissimi, Anglorumque regi maxime infesti. * * * 
Subitaingenia,etinultionemprona,ferociaque. * * * 
In bello fortes; mediae, vigiliae, algoris patientis- 
simi; decenti forma sed cultu negligentiori; invidi 
natura, et caeterorum mortalium contemptores.; os- 
tentant plus nimio nobilitatem suam, et in summd 
etiam egestate suum genus ad regiam stirpem referunt; 
nec non diafecticis argutiis sibi blandiuntur. ,, — 
“Subita ingenia” is an expression equivalent to 
the “ Praefervidum Scotorum ingenium ” of Bu¬ 
chanan. Churchill almost agrees in words with 
Servetus; 

“ Whose lineage springs 

From great and glorious, though forgotten kings.” 

The strong antipathy of the late King George III. 
to what he called “ Scotch Metaphysics,” proves 
the permanency of the last part of the national 
character. 

t Life by Dr. Leechman, prefixed to the System 
of Moral Philosophy. 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 61 


relish for the sciences which he cultivated! 
To him may also be ascribed that proneness 
to multiply ultimate and original principles in 
human nature, which characterised the Scot¬ 
tish school till the second extinction of a 
passion for metaphysical speculation in Scot¬ 
land. A careful perusal of the writings of 
this now little studied philosopher will 
satisfy the well-qualified reader, that Dr. 
Adam Smith’s ethical speculations are not 
so unsuggested as they are beautiful. 

BERKELEY.* 

This great Metaphysician was so little a 
moralist, that it requires the attraction of 
his name to excuse its introduction here. 
His Theory of Vision contains a great dis¬ 
covery in mental philosophy. His imma- 
terialism is chiefly valuable as a touchstone 
of metaphysical sagacity; showing those to 
be altogether without it, who, like Johnson 
and Beattie, believed that his speculations 
were sceptical, that they implied any dis¬ 
trust in the senses, or that they had the 
smallest tendency to disturb reasoning or 
alter conduct. Ancient learning, exact sci¬ 
ence, polished society, modern literature, 
and the fine arts, contributed to adorn and 
enrich the mind of this accomplished man. 
All his contemporaries agreed with the 
satirist in ascribing 

“ To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.” f 

Adverse factions and hostile wits concurred 
only in loving, admiring, and contributing 
to advance him. The severe sense of Swift 
endured his visions; the modest Addison 
endeavoured to reconcile Clarke to his am¬ 
bitious speculations. His character con¬ 
verted the satire of Pope into fervid praise; 
even the discerning, fastidious, and turbu¬ 
lent Atterbury said, after an interview with 
him, “ So much understanding, so much 
knowledge, so much innocence, and such 
humility, I did not think had been the 
portion of any but angels, till I saw this 

* Born near Thomastown, in Ireland, 1684; died 
at Oxford, 1753. 

f Epilogue to Pope’s Satires, dialogue 2. 


gentleman.” * “ Lord Bathurst told me, 

that the members of the Scriblerus Club 
being met at his house at dinner, they 
agreed to rally Berkeley, who was also his 
guest, on his scheme at Bermudas. Berke¬ 
ley, having listened to the many lively 
things they had to say, begged to be heard 
in his turn, and displayed his plan with such 
an astonishing and animating force of elo¬ 
quence and enthusiasm, that they were 
struck dumb, and after some pause, rose all 
up together, with earnestness exclaiming, 
t Let us set out with him immediately.’ ” f 
It was when thus beloved, and celebrated 
that he conceived, at the age of forty-five, 
the design of devoting his life to reclaim 
and convert the natives of North America; 
and he employed as much influence and 
solicitation as common men do for their 
most prized objects, in obtaining leave to 
resign his dignities and revenues, to quit his 
accomplished and affectionate friends, and 
to bury himself in what must have seemed 
an intellectual desert. After four years’ 
residence at Newport, in Rhode Island, he 
was compelled, by the refusal of Govern¬ 
ment to furnish him with funds for his 
College, to forego his work of heroic, or 
rather godlike benevolence; though not 
without some consoling forethought of the 
fortune of the country where he had so¬ 
journed. 

Westward the course of empire takes its way, 
The first four acts already past, 

A fifth shall close the drama with the day, 
Time’s noblest offspring is its last. 

Thus disappointed in his ambition of 
keeping a school for savage children, at a 
salary of a hundred pounds by the year, he 
was received, on his return, with open arms 
by the philosophical queen, at whose meta¬ 
physical parties he made one with Sherlock, 
who, as well as Smalridge, was his supporter, 
and with Hoadley, who, following Clarke, 
was his antagonist. By her influence he 
was made bishop of Cloyne. It is one of 
his highest boasts, that though of English 

* Duncombe’s Letters, pp. 106, 107. 

j- Warton on Pope, i. 199. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


62 

extraction, lie was a true Irishman, and the 
first eminent Protestant, after the unhappy 
contest at the Revolution, who avowed his 
love for all his countrymen. He asked, 
“ Whether their habitations and furniture 
were not more sordid than those of the 
savage Americans ? ” * * * § “ Whether a scheme 
for the welfare of this nation should not 
take in the whole inhabitants ? ” and “ Whe¬ 
ther it was a vain attempt, to project the 
flourishing of our Protestant gentry, exclu¬ 
sive of the bulk of the natives?”f He 
proceeds to promote the reformation sug¬ 
gested in this pregnant question by a series 
of Queries, intimating with the utmost skill 
and address, every reason that proves the 
necessity, and the safety, and the wisest 
mode of adopting his suggestion. He con¬ 
tributed, by a truly Christian address to 
the Roman Catholics of his diocese, to their 
perfect quiet during the rebellion of 1745 ; 
and soon after published a letter to the 
clergy of that persuasion, beseeching them 
to inculcate industry among their flocks, for 
which he received their thanks. He tells 
them that it was a saying among the negro 
slaves, “ If negro were not negro, Irishman 
would be negro.” It is difficult to read 
these proofs of benevolence and foresight 
without emotion, at the moment when, after 
a lapse of near a century, his suggestions 
have been at length, at the close of a strug¬ 
gle of twenty-five years, adopted, by the 
admission of the whole Irish nation to the 
privileges of the British constitution.^ The 
patriotism of Berkeley was not, like that of 
Swift, tainted by disappointed ambition, nor 
was it, like Swift’s, confined to a colony of 
English Protestants. Perhaps the Querist 
contains more hints, then original, and still 
unapplied in legislation and political eco¬ 
nomy, than are to be found in any other 
equal space. From the writings of his ad¬ 
vanced years, when he chose a medical 
tract § to be the vehicle of his philosophical 


* See his Querist, 358.; published in 1735. 

f Ibid. 255. 

X April, 1829. 

§ Siris, or Reflections on Tar Water. 


reflections, though it cannot be said that he 
relinquished his early opinions, it is at least 
apparent that his mind had received a new 
bent, and was habitually turned from rea¬ 
soning towards contemplation. His imma- 
terialism indeed modestly appears, but only 
to purify and elevate our thoughts, and to 
fix them on Mind, the paramount and pri¬ 
meval principle of all things. “ Perhaps,” 
says he, “ the truth about innate ideas may 
be, that there are properly no ideas, or 
passive objects in the mind but what are 
derived from sense, but that there are also, 
besides these, her own acts and operations, 
— such are notions ; ” a statement which 
seems once more to admit general concep¬ 
tions, and which might have served, as well 
as the parallel passage of Leibnitz, as the 
basis of the modern philosophy of Germany. 
From these compositions of his old age, he 
appears then to have recurred with fondness 
to Plato and the later Platonists; writers 
from whose mere reasonings an intellect so 
acute could hardly hope for an argumenta¬ 
tive satisfaction of all its difficulties, and 
whom he probably rather studied as a means 
of inuring his mind to objects beyond the 
“ visible diurnal sphere,” and of attaching 
it, through frequent meditation, to that 
perfect and transcendent goodness to which 
his moral feelings always pointed, and 
which they incessantly strove to grasp. His 
mind, enlarging as it rose, at length receives 
every theist, however imperfect his belief, 
to a communion in its philosophic piety. 
“ Truth,” he beautifully concludes, “ is the 
cry of all, but the game of a few. Certainly, 
where it is the chief passion, it does not 
give way to vulgar cares, nor is it contented 
with a little ardour in the early time of life; 
active perhaps to pursue, but not so fit to 
weigh and revise. He that would make a 
real progress in knowledge, must dedicate 
his age as well as youth, the later growth 
as well as first fruits, at the altar of Truth.” 
So did Berkeley, and such were almost his 
latest words. 

His general principles of Ethics may be 
shortly stated in his own words : — “As God 
is a being of infinite goodness, His end is the 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 63 

good of His creatures. The general well¬ 
being of all men of all nations, of all ages of 
the world, is that which He designed should 
be procured by the concurring actions of 
each individual.” Having stated that this 
end can be pursued only in one of two ways, 
— either by computing the consequences of 
each action, or by obeying rules which gene¬ 
rally tend to happiness, — and having shown 
the first to be impossible, he rightly infers, 

“ that the end to which God requires the 
concurrence of human actions, must be car¬ 
ried on by the observation of certain deter¬ 
minate and universal rules, or moral pre¬ 
cepts, which in their own nature have a 
necessary tendency to promote the well-being 
of mankind, taking in all nations and ages, 
from the beginning to the end of the world.” * 
A romance, of which a journey to an Utopia, 
in the centre of Africa, forms the chief part, 
called “ The Adventures of Signor Gau- 
dentio di Lucca,” has been commonly as¬ 
cribed to him; probably on no other ground 
than its union of pleasing invention with 
benevolence and elegance.f Of the exqui¬ 
site grace and beauty of his diction, no man 
accustomed to English composition can need 
to be informed. His works are, beyond dis¬ 
pute, the finest models of philosophical style 
since Cicero. Perhaps they surpass those 
of the orator, in the wonderful art by which 
the fullest light is thrown on the most mi¬ 
nute and evanescent parts of the most sub¬ 
tile of human conceptions. Perhaps, also, 
he surpassed Cicero in the charm of sim¬ 
plicity, a quality eminently found in Irish 
writers before the end of the eighteenth 
century; — conspicuous in the masculine 
severity of Swift, in the Platonic fancy of 
Berkeley, in the native tenderness and ele¬ 
gance of Goldsmith, and not withholding its 
attractions from Hutcheson and Leland, 
writers of classical taste, though of inferior 
power. The two Irish philosophers of the 
eighteenth century may be said to have co¬ 
operated in calling forth the metaphysical 

genius of Scotland; for, though Hutcheson 
spread the taste for, and furnished the prin¬ 
ciples of such speculations, yet Berkeley 
undoubtedly produced the scepticism of 
Hume, which stimulated the instinctive 
school to activity, and was thought incapa¬ 
ble of confutation, otherwise than by their 
doctrines. 

DAVID IHJME.* 

The life of Mr. Hume, written by himself, 
is remarkable above most, if not all writings 
of that sort, for hitting the degree of interest 
between coldness and egotism which becomes 
a modest man in speaking of his private 
history. Few writers, whose opinions were 
so obnoxious, have more perfectly escaped 
every personal imputation. Very few men 
of so calm a character have been so warmly 
beloved. That he approached to the cha¬ 
racter of a perfectly good and wise man, is 
an affectionate exaggeration, for which his 
friend Dr. Smith, in the first moments of his 
sorrow, may well be excused, f But such a 
praise can never be earned without passing 
through either of the extremes of fortune,— 
without standing the test of temptations, 
dangers, and sacrifices. It may be said with 
truth, that the private character of Mr. 
Hume exhibited all the virtues which a man 
of reputable station, under a mild govern¬ 
ment in the quiet times of a civilised coun¬ 
try, has often the opportunity to practise. 
He showed no want of the qualities which 
fit men for more severe trials. Though 
others had warmer affections, no man was a 
kinder relation, a more unwearied friend, 
or more free from meanness apd malice. His 
character was so simple, that he did not 
even affect modesty; but neither his friend¬ 
ships nor his deportment were changed by a 
fame which filled all Europe. His good 
nature, his plain manners, and his active 
kindness, procured him at Paris the enviable 

* Sermon in Trinity College chapel on Passive 
Obedience, 1712. 

f See Gentleman’s Magazine for January, 1777. 

* Bom at Edinburgh, 1711; died there, 1776. 
f Dr. Smith’s Letter to Mr. Strahan, annexed to 
the Life of Hume. 










64 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

high privileges, would have looked with 


name of “ the good David ,” from a society 
not so alive to goodness, as without reason 
to place it at the head of the qualities of a 
celebrated man.* His whole character is 
faithfully and touchingly represented in the 
story of La Roche f, where Mr. Mackenzie, 
without concealing Mr. Hume’s opinions, 
brings him into contact with scenes of tender 
piety, and yet preserves the interest inspired 
by genuine and unalloyed, though mode¬ 
rated, feelings and affections. The amiable 
and venerable patriarch of Scottish litera¬ 
ture, — opposed as he was to the opinions 
of the philosopher on whom he has com¬ 
posed this best panegyric, — tells us that he 
read his manuscript to Dr. Smith, “ wha de¬ 
clared that he did not find a syllable to 
object to, but added, with his characteristic 
absence of mind, that he was surprised he 
had never heard of the anecdote before.” j 
So lively was the delineation, thus sanc¬ 
tioned by the most natural of all testi¬ 
monies. Mr. Mackenzie indulges his own 
religious feelings by modestly intimating, 
that Dr. Smith’s answer seemed to justify 
the last words of the tale, “ that there were 
moments when the philosopher recalled to his 
mind the venerable figure of the good La 
Roche, and wished that he had never 
doubted.” To those who are strangers to 
the seductions of paradox, to the intoxica¬ 
tion of fame, and to the bewitchment of pro¬ 
hibited opinions, it must be unaccountable, 
that he who revered benevolence should, 
without apparent regret, cease to see it on 
the throne of the Universe. It is a matter 
of wonder that his habitual esteem for every 
fragment and shadow of moral excellence 
should not lead him to envy those who con¬ 
templated its perfection in that living and 
paternal character which gives it a power 
over the human heart. 

On the other hand, if we had no expe¬ 
rience of the power of opposite opinions in 
producing irreconcilable animosities, we might 
have hoped that those who retained such 


* See Note P. 
f Mirror, Nos. 42, 43, 44. 

J Mackenzie’s Life of John Home, p. 21. 


more compassion than dislike on a virtuous 
man who had lost them. In such cases it is 
too little remembered, that repugnance to 
hypocrisy and impatience of long conceal¬ 
ment, are the qualities of the best formed 
minds, and that, if the publication of some 
doctrines proves often painful and mis¬ 
chievous, the habitual suppression of opi¬ 
nion is injurious to Reason, and very danger¬ 
ous to sincerity. Practical questions thus 
arise, so difficult and perplexing that their 
determination generally depends on the 
boldness or timidity of the individual, — on 
his tenderness for the feelings of the good, 
or his greater reverence for the free ex¬ 
ercise of reason. The time is not yet come 
when the noble maxim of Plato, “ that every 
soul is unwillingly deprived of truth,” will be 
practically and heartily applied by men to 
the honest opponents who differ from them 
most widely. 

It was in his twenty-seventh year that 
Mr. Hume published at London the Trea¬ 
tise of Human Nature, the first systematic 
attack on all the principles of knowledge and 
belief, and the most formidable, if universal 
scepticism could ever be more than a mere 
exercise of ingenuity.* This memorable 
work was reviewed in a Journal of that 
timef, in a criticism not distinguished by 
ability, which affects to represent the style 
of a very clear writer as unintelligible,— 
sometimes from a purpose to insult, but 


* Sextus, a physician of the empirical, i. e. anti- 
theoretical school, who lived at Alexandria in the 
reign of Antoninus Pius, has preserved the reason¬ 
ings of the ancient Sceptics as they were to be 
found in their most improved state, in the writings 
of iEnesidemus, a Cretan, who was a professor in 
the same city, soon after the reduction of Egypt 
into a Roman province. The greater part of the 
grounds of doubt are very shallow and popular: 
there are, among them, intimations of the argu¬ 
ment against a necessary connection of causes with 
effects, afterwards better presented by Granville in 
his Scepsis Scientifica. See Note Q. 

f The Works of the Learned for Nov. and Dec. 
1739, pp. 353—404. This review is attributed by 
some (Chalmer’s Biogr. Diet., voce Hume) to War- 
burton, but certainly without foundation. 








PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


65 


oftener from sheer dulness, which is unac¬ 
countably silent respecting the consequences 
of a sceptical system, but which concludes 
with the following prophecy so much at 
variance with the general tone of the article, 
that it would seem to be added by a dif¬ 
ferent hand. “ It bears incontestable marks 
of a great capacity, of a soaring genius, but 
young, and not.yet thoroughly practised. 
Time and use may ripen these qualities in 
the author, and we shall probably have rea¬ 
son to consider this, compared with his later 
productions, in the same light as we view the 
juvenile works, of Milton or the first manner 
of Raphael.” 

The great speculator did not in this work 
amuse himself, like Bayle, with dialectical 
exercises, which only inspire a disposition 
towards doubt, by showing in detail the un¬ 
certainty of most opinions. He aimed at 
proving, not that nothing was known, but 
that nothing could be known,—from the 
structure of the Understanding to demon¬ 
strate that we are doomed for ever to dwell 
in absolute and universal ignorance. It is 
true that such a system of universal scep¬ 
ticism never can be more than an intellectual 
amusement, an exercise of subtilty, of which 
the only use is to check dogmatism, but 
which perhaps oftener provokes and pro¬ 
duces that much more common evil. As 
those dictates of experience which regulate 
conduct must be the objects of belief, all ob¬ 
jections which , attack them in common with 
the principles of reasoning, must be utterly 
ineffectual. Whatever attacks every prin¬ 
ciple of belief can destroy none. As long as 
the foundations of Knowledge are allowed 
to remain on the same level (be it called of 
certainty or uncertainty), with the maxims 
of life, the whole system of human convic¬ 
tion must continue undisturbed. When the 
sceptic boasts of having involved the results 
of experience and the elements of Geometry 
in the same ruin with the doctrines of re¬ 
ligion and the principles of Philosophy, he 
may be answered, that no dogmatist ever 
claimed more than the same degree of cer¬ 
tainty for these various convictions and opi¬ 
nions, and that his scepticism, therefore, 


leaves them in the relative condition in which 
it found them. No man knew better or 
owned more frankly than Mr. Hume, that to 
this answer there is no serious reply. Uni¬ 
versal scepticism involves a contradiction in 
terms : it is a belief that there can be no be¬ 
lief. It is an attempt of the mind to act 
without its structure, and by other laws 
than those to which its nature had subjected 
its operations. To reason without assenting 
to the principles on which reasoning is 
founded, is not unlike an effort to feel with¬ 
out nerves, or to move without muscles* 
No man can be allowed to be an opponent in 
reasoning, who does not set out with ad¬ 
mitting all the principles, without the ad¬ 
mission of which it is impossible to reason.* 
It is indeed a puerile, nay, in the eye of 
Wisdom, a childish play, to attempt either 
to establish or to confute principles by argu¬ 
ment, which every step of that argument 
must presuppose. The only difference be¬ 
tween the two cases is, that he who tries to 
prove them can do so only by first taking 
them for granted, and that he who attempts 
to impugn them falls at the very first step 
into a contradiction from which he never 
can rise. 

It must, however, be allowed, that uni¬ 
versal scepticism has practical consequences 
of a very mischievous nature. This is be¬ 
cause its universality is not steadily kept in 
view, and constantly borne in mind. If it 
were, the above short and plain remark 
would be an effectual antidote to the poison. 
But in practice, it is an armoury from which 


* This maxim, which contains a sufficient an¬ 
swer to all universal scepticism, or, in other words, 
to all scepticism properly so called, is significantly 
conveyed in the quaint title of an old and rare 
book, entitled, “ Scivi; sive Sceptices et Sceptico- 
rum a Jure Disputationis Exclusio,” by Thomas 
White, the metaphysician of the English Catholics 
in modern times. “ Fortunately,” says the illus¬ 
trious sceptic himself, “ since Reason is incapable 
of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices 
for that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical 
delirium.” — Treat, of Hum. Nat., i. 467.; almost 
in the sublime and immortal words of Pascal: 
“ La Raison confond les dogmatistes, et la Nature 
les sceptiques.” 


T? 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


66 


weapons are taken to be employed against 
some opinions, while it is hidden from notice 
that the same weapon would equally cut 
down every other conviction. It is thus that 
Mr. Hume’s theory of causation is used as an 
answer to arguments for the existence of the 
Deity, without warning the reader that it 
would equally lead him not to expect that 
the sun will rise to-morrow. It must also 
be added, that those who are early accus¬ 
tomed to dispute first principles are never 
likely to acquire, in a sufficient degree, that 
earnestness and that sincerity, that strong 
love of Truth, and that conscientious soli¬ 
citude for the formation of just opinions, 
which are not the least virtues of men, but 
of which the cultivation is the more especial 
duty of all who call themselves philosophers.* 

It is not an uninteresting fact that Mr. 
Hume, having been introduced by Lord 
Kames (then Mr. Henry Home) to Dr. 
Butler, sent a copy of his Treatise to that 
philosopher at the moment of his preferment 
to the bishopric of Durham; and that the 
perusal of it did not deter the philosophic 
prelate from “ everywhere recommending 
Mr. Hume’s Moral and Political Essays f,” 
published two years afterwards; — essays 
which it would indeed have been unworthy 
of such a man not to have liberally com¬ 
mended ; for they, and those which followed 
them, whatever may be thought of the con¬ 
tents of some of them, must be ever regarded 
as the best models in any language, of the 
short but full, of the clear and agreeable, 
though deep discussion of difficult questions. 

Mr. Hume considered his Inquiry con¬ 
cerning the Principles of Morals as the best 
of his writings. It is very creditable to his 
character, that he should have looked back 
with most complacency on a tract the least 
distinguished by originality, and the least 


* It would be an act of injustice to those readers 
who are not acquainted with that valuable volume 
entitled “ Essays on the Formation of Opinions,” 
not to refer them to it as enforcing that neglected 
part of morality. To it may he added, a masterly 
article in the Westminster Review, vi. 1., occasioned 
by the Essays. 

f Woodhouselee’s Life of Kames, i. 86. 104. 


tainted by paradox, among his philosophical 
works; but deserving of all commendation 
for the elegant perspicuity of the style, and 
the novelty of illustration and inference 
with which he unfolded to general readers a 
doctrine too simple, too certain, and too im¬ 
portant, to remain till his time undiscovered 
among philosophers. His diction has, indeed, 
neither the grace of Berkeley, nor the 
strength of Hobbes; but it is without the 
verbosity of the former, or the rugged stern¬ 
ness of the latter. His manner is more 
lively, more easy, more ingratiating, and, if 
the word may be so applied, more amusing, 
than that of any other metaphysical writer.* 
He knew himself too well to be, as Dr. 
Johnson asserted, an imitator of Yoltaire; 
who, as it were, embodied in his own person 
all the wit and quickness and versatile in- 
g€?nuity of a people which surpasses other 
nations in these brilliant qualities. If he 
must be supposed to have had an eye on any 
French writer, it would be a more plausible 
guess, that he sometimes copied, with a tem¬ 
perate hand, the unexpected thoughts and 
familiar expressions of Fontenelle. Though 
he carefully weeded his writings in their 
successive editions, yet they still contain 
Scotticisms and Gallicisms enough to em¬ 
ploy the successors of such critics as those 
who exulted over the Patavinity of the 
Roman historian. His own great and modest 
mind would have been satisfied with the 
praise which cannot be withheld from him, 
that there is no writer in our language who, 
through long works, is more agreeable ; and 
it is no derogation from him, that, as a 
Scotsman, he did not reach those native and 
secret beauties, characteristical of a lan¬ 
guage, which are never attained, in elaborate 
composition, but by a very small number of 


* These commendations are so far from being at 
variance with the remarks of the late most inge¬ 
nious Dr. Thomas Brown, on Mr. Hume’s “ mode 
of writing,” (Inquiry into the Relation of Cause 
and Effect, 3rd ed. p. 327.), that they may rather 
be regarded as descriptive of those excellencies of 
which the excess produced the faults of Mr. Hume, 
as a mere searcher and teacher, justly, though 
perhaps severely, animadverted on by Dr. Brown. 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


those who familiarly converse in it from in¬ 
fancy. The Inquiry affords, perhaps, the 
best specimen of his style. In substance, its 
chief merit is the proof, from an abundant 
enumeration of particulars, that all the qua¬ 
lities and actions of the mind which are 
generally approved by mankind agree in the 
circumstance of being useful to society. In 
the proof (scarcely necessary) that bene¬ 
volent affections and actions have that ten¬ 
dency, he asserts the real existence of these 
affections with unusual warmth; and he well 
abridges some of the most forcible arguments 
of Butler*, whom it is remarkable that he 
does not mention. To show the importance 
of his principle, he very unnecessarily dis¬ 
tinguishes the comprehensive duty of justice 
from other parts of Morality, as an artificial 
virtue, for which our respect is solely derived 
from notions of utility. If all things were 
in such plenty that there could never be a 
want, or if men were so benevolent as to 
provide for the wants of others as much as 
for their own, there would, says he, in neither 
case be any justice, because there would be 
no need for it. But it is evident that the 
same reasoning is applicable to every good 
affection and right action. None of them 
could exist if there were no scope for their 
exercise. If there were no suffering, there 
could be no pity and no relief: if there were 
no offences, there could be no placability: if 
there were no crimes, there could be no 
mercy. Temperance, prudence, patience, 
magnanimity, are qualities of which the value 
depends on the evils by which they are re¬ 
spectively exercised.f 

* Inquiry, § ii. part i., especially the concluding 
paragraphs; those which precede being more his 
own. 

f “ Si nobis, cum ex hac vita migraverimus, in 
beatorum insulis, ut tabulae ferunt, immortale aevum 
degere liceret, quid opus esset eloquentia, cum ju- 
dicia nulla fierent ? aut ipsis etiam virtutibus? 
Nec enim fortitudine indigeremus, nullo proposito 
aut labore aut periculo; nec justitia, cum esset nihil 
quod appeteretur alieni; nec temperantia, quae re- 
geret eas quae nullae essent libidines: ne prudentia 
quidem egeremus, nullo proposito delectu bonorum 
et malorum. Una igitur essemus beati cognitione 
rerum et scientia.” — Frag. Cic. Hortens, apud 


67 

With regard to purity of manners, it must 
be owned that Mr. Hume, though he contro¬ 
verts no rule, yet treats vice with too much 
indulgence. It was his general disposition 
to distrust those virtues which are liable to 
exaggeration, and may be easily counter¬ 
feited. The ascetic pursuit of purity, and 
hypocritical pretences to patriotism, had too 
much withdrawn the respect of his equally 
calm and sincere nature from these excellent 
virtues ; more especially as severity in both 
these respects was often at apparent variance 
with affection, which can neither be long 
assumed, nor ever overvalued. Yet it was 
singular that he who, in his essay on Poly¬ 
gamy and Divorce*, had so well shown the 
connexion of domestic ties with the outward 
order of society, should not have perceived 
their deeper and closer relation to all the 
social feelings of human nature. It cannot 
be enough regretted, that, in an inquiry 
written with a very moral purpose, his habit 
of making truth attractive, by throwing over 
her the dress of paradox, should have given 
him for a moment the appearance of weigh¬ 
ing the mere amusements of society and 
conversation against domestic fidelity, which 
is the preserver of domestic affection, the 
source of parental fondness and filial regard, 
and, indirectly, of all the kindness which 
exists between human beings. That families 
are schools where the infant heart learns to 
love, and that pure manners are the cement 
which alone holds these schools together, are 
truths so certain, that it is wonderful he 
should not have betrayed a stronger sense of 
their importance. No one could so well 
have proved that all the virtues of that class, 

Augustine de Trinitate. Cicero is more extensive, 
and therefore more consistent than Hume; but his 
enumeration errs both by excess and defect. He 
supposes Knowledge to render beings happy in 
this imaginary state, without stooping to inquire 
how. He omits a virtue which might well exist 
in it, though we cannot conceive its formation in 
such a state — the delight in each other’s well¬ 
being ; and he omits a conceivable though unknown 
vice, that of unmixed ill-will, which would render 
such a state of hell to the wretch who harboured 
the malevolence. 

* Essays and Treatises, vol. i. 

3 ? 3 










68 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


in their various orders and degrees, minister 
to the benevolent affections; and that every 
act which separates the senses from the 
affections tends, in some degree, to deprive 
kindness of its natural auxiliary, and to 
lessen its prevalence in the world. It did 
not require his sagacity to discover that the 
gentlest and tenderest feelings flourish only 
under the stern guardianship of these severe 
virtues. Perhaps his philosophy was loosened, 
though his life was uncorrupted, by that uni¬ 
versal and undistinguishing profligacy which 
prevailed on the Continent, from the regency 
of the Duke of Orleans to the French Re¬ 
volution ; — the most dissolute period of 
European history, at least since the Roman 
emperors.*' At Rome, indeed, the connexion 
of licentiousness with cruelty, which, though 
scarcely traceable in individuals, is generally 
very observable in large masses, bore a fear¬ 
ful testimony to the value of austere purity. 
The alliance of these remote vices seemed to 
be broken in the time of Mr. Hume. Plea¬ 
sure, in a more improved state of society, 
seemed to return to her more natural union 
with kindness and tenderness, as well as with 
refinement and politeness. Had he lived 
fourteen years longer, however, he would 
have seen, that the virtues which guard the 
natural seminaries of the affections are their 
only true and lasting friends. He would 
also then have seen (the demand of well- 
informed men for the improvement of civil 
institutions, — and that of all classes growing 
in intelligence, to be delivered from a de¬ 
grading inferiority, and to be admitted to a 
share of political power proportioned to their 
new importance, having been feebly, yet 
violently, resisted by those ruling castes who 
neither knew how to yield, nor how to with¬ 
stand,) how speedily the sudden demolition 
of the barriers (imperfect as these were) of 
law and government, led to popular excesses, 
desolating wars, and a military dictatorship, 
which for a long time threatened to defeat 
the reformation, and to disappoint the hopes 
of mankind. This tremendous conflagration 
threw a fearful light on the ferocity which 

* Sec Note E. 


lies hid under the arts and pleasures of cor¬ 
rupted nations; as earthquakes and vol¬ 
canoes disclose the rocks which compose the 
deeper parts of our planet, beneath a fertile 
and flowery surface. A part of this dread¬ 
ful result may be ascribed, not improbably, 
to that relaxation of domestic ties, which is 
unhappily natural to the populace of all vast 
capitals, and was at that time countenanced 
and aggravated by the example of their su¬ 
periors. Another part, doubtless, arose from 
the barbarising power of absolute govern¬ 
ment, or, in other words, of injustice in high 
places. A narration of those events attests, 
as strongly as Roman history, though in a 
somewhat different manner, the humanising 
efficacy of the family virtues, by the con¬ 
sequences of the want of them in the higher 
classes, whose profuse and ostentatious sen¬ 
suality inspired the labouring and suffering 
portion of mankind with contempt, disgust, 
envy, and hatred. 

The Inquiry is disfigured by another 
speck of more frivolous paradox. It con¬ 
sists in the attempt to give the name of 
Virtue to qualities of the Understanding; 
and it would not have deserved the single 
remark about to be made on it, had it 
been the paradox of an inferior man. He 
has altogether omitted the circumstance 
on which depends the difference of our 
sentiments regarding moral and intellec¬ 
tual qualities. We admire intellectual ex¬ 
cellence, but we bestow no moral appro¬ 
bation on it. Such approbation has no ten¬ 
dency directly to increase it, because it is 
not voluntary. We cultivate our natural 
disposition to esteem and love benevolence 
and justice, because these moral sentiments, 
and the expression of them, directly and 
materially dispose others, as well as our¬ 
selves, to cultivate these two virtues. We 
cultivate a natural anger against oppression, 
which guards ourselves against the practice 
of that vice, and because the manifestation 
of it deters others from its exercise. The 
first rude resentment of a child is against 
every instrument of hurt: we confine it to 
intentional hurt, when we are taught by 
experience that it prevents only that species 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


69 


of hurt; and at last it is still further limited 
to wrong done to ourselves or others, and in 
that case becomes a purely moral sentiment. 
We morally approve industry, desire of 
knowledge, love of truth, and all the habits 
by which the Understanding is strengthened 
and rectified, because their formation is 
subject to the Will *; but we do not feel 
moral anger against folly or ignorance, be¬ 
cause they are involuntary. No one but 
the religious persecutor, — a mischievous 
and overgrown child, wreaks his vengeance 
on involuntary, inevitable, compulsory acts 
or states of the Understanding, which are 
no more affected by blame than the stone 
which the foolish child beats for hurting 
him. Reasonable men apply to every thing 
which they wish to move, the agent which is 
capable of moving it; — force to outward 
substances, arguments to the Understand¬ 
ing, and blame, together with all other 
motives, whether moral or personal, to the 
Will alone. It is as absurd to entertain an 
abhorrence of intellectual inferiority or 
error, however extensive or mischievous, as 
it would be to cherish a warm indignation 
against earthquakes or hurricanes. It is 
singular that a philosopher who needed the 
most liberal toleration should, by represent¬ 
ing states of the Understanding as moral or 
immoral, have offered the most philosophical 
apology for persecution. 

That general utility constitutes a uniform 
ground of moral distinctions, is a part of 
Mr. Hume’s ethical theory which never can 
be impugned, until some example can be 
produced of a virtue generally pernicious, or 
of a vice generally beneficial. The religious 
philosopher who, with Butler, holds that 
benevolence must be the actuating principle 
of the Divine mind, will, with Berkeley, 
maintain that pure benevolence can pre¬ 
scribe no rules of human conduct but such 
as are beneficial to men; thus bestowing on 
the theory of moral distinctions the certainty 
of demonstration in the eyes of all who be¬ 
lieve in God. 

* “ In hac quaestione primas tenet Voluntas, qua, 
ut ait Augustinus, peccatur, et recte vivitur.” — 
Erasmus, Diatribe adversus Lutherum. 


The other question of moral philosophy 
which relates to the theory of moral appro¬ 
bation, has been by no means so distinctly 
and satisfactorily handled by Mr. Hume. 
His general doctrine is, that an interest in 
the well-being of others, implanted by nature, 
which he calls “ sympathy ” in his Treatise 
of Human Nature, and much less happily 
“ benevolence ” in his subsequent Inquiry *, 
prompts us to be pleased with all generally 
beneficial actions. In this respect his doc¬ 
trine nearly resembles that of Hutcheson. 
He does not trace his principle through the 
variety of forms which our moral sentiments 
assume: there are very important parts of 
them, of which it affords no solution. For 
example, though he truly represents our 
approbation, in others, of qualities useful to 
the individual, as a proof of benevolence, 
he makes no attempt to explain our moral 
approbation of such virtues as temperance 
and fortitude in ourselves. He entirely 
overlooks that consciousness of the rightful 
supremacy of the Moral Faculty over every 
other principle of human action, without an 
explanation of which, ethical theory is want¬ 
ing in one of its vital organs. 

Notwithstanding these considerable de¬ 
fects, his proof from induction of the bene¬ 
ficial tendency of Virtue, his conclusive 
arguments for human disinterestedness, and 
his decisive observations on the respective 
provinces of Reason and Sentiment in Mo¬ 
rals, concur in ranking the Inquiry with the 
ethical treatises of the highest merit in our 
language, — with Shaftesbury’s Inquiry con¬ 
cerning Virtue, Butler’s Sermons, and 
Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. 

ADAM SMITH.j* 

The great name of Adam Smith rests 
upon the Inquiry into the Nature and 
Causes of the Wealth of Nations; perhaps 
the only book which produced an immediate, 
general, and irrevocable change in some of 
the most important parts of the legislation 


* Essays and Treatises, vol. ii. 
f Bom, 1723; died, 1790. 









70 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


of all civilised states. The works of Gro- 
tius, of Locke, and of Montesquieu, which 
bear a resemblance to it in character, and 
had no inconsiderable analogy to it in the 
extent of their popular influence, were pro¬ 
ductive only of a general amendment, not so 
conspicuous in particular instances, as dis¬ 
coverable, after a tune, in the improved 
condition of human affairs. The work of 
Smith, as it touched those matters which 
may be numbered, and measured, and 
weighed, bore more visible and palpable 
fruit. In a few years it began to alter laws 
and treaties, and has made its way, through¬ 
out the convulsions of revolution and con¬ 
quest, to a due ascendent over the minds of 
men, with far less than the average of those 
obstructions of prejudice and clamour which 
ordinarily choke the channels through which 
truth flows into practice.* The most emi¬ 
nent of those who have since cultivated and 
improved the science will be the foremost to 
address their immortal master, 

.Tenebris tantis tam clarum extollere lumen 

Qui primus potuisti, inlustrans commoda vita;, 

Te sequor! f 

In a science more difficult, because both 
ascending to more simple general principles, 
and running down through more minute 
applications, though the success of Smith 
has been less complete, his genius is not less 
conspicuous. Perhaps there is no ethical 
work since Cicero’s Offices, of which an 
abridgment enables the reader so inade¬ 
quately to estimate the merit, as the Theory 
of Moral Sentiments. This is not chiefly 
owing to the beauty of diction, as in the 
case of Cicero; but to the variety of expla¬ 
nations of life and manners which embellish 
the book often more than they illuminate the 
theory. Yet, on the other hand, it must be 
owned that, for purely philosophical pur¬ 
poses, few books more need abridgment; for 
the most careful reader frequently loses 
sight of principles buried under illustra¬ 
tions. The naturally copious and flowing 


* See Note S. f Lucret. lib. iii. 


style of the author is generally redundant; 
and the repetition of certain formularies of 
the system is, in the later editions, so fre¬ 
quent, as to be wearisome, and sometimes 
ludicrous. Perhaps Smith and Hobbes may 
be considered as forming the two extremes 
of good style in our philosophy; the first of 
graceful fulness falling into flaccidity; while 
the masterly concision of the second is 
oftener carried forward into dictatorial dry¬ 
ness. Iiume and Berkeley, though they 
are nearer the extreme of abundance *, are 
probably the least distant from perfection. 

That mankind are so constituted as to 
sympathise with each other’s feelings, and 
to feel pleasure in the accordance of these 
feelings, are the only facts required by Dr. 
Smith; and they certainly must be granted 
to him. To adopt the feelings of another is 
to approve them. When the sentiments of 
another are such as would be excited in us 
by the same objects, we approve them as 
morally proper. To obtain this accordance, 
it becomes necessary for him who enjoys, or 
suffers, to lower the expression of his feeling 
to the point to which the by-stander can 
raise his fellow-feelings; on this attempt 
are founded all the high virtues of self- 
denial and self-command: and it is equally 
necessary for the by-stander to raise his 
sympathy as near as he can to the level of 
the original feeling. In all unsocial passions, 
such as anger, we have a divided sympathy 
between him who feels them, and those who 
are the objects of them. Hence the pro¬ 
priety of extremely moderating them. Pure 
malice is always to be concealed or dis¬ 
guised, because all sympathy is arrayed 
against it. In the private passions, where 
there is only a simple sympathy , — that with 
the original passion, — the expression has 
more liberty. The benevolent affections, 
where there is a double sympathy , — with 
those who feel them, and those who are 
their objects, —are the most agreeable, and 


* This remark is chiefly applicable to Hume’s 
Essays. His Treatise of Human Nature is more 
Hobbian in its general tenor, though it has 
Ciceronian passages. 










PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


71 


may be indulged with the least apprehension 
of finding no echo in other breasts. Sym¬ 
pathy with the gratitude of those who are 
benefited by good actions, prompts us to 
consider them as deserving of reward, and 
forms the sense of merit; as fellow-feeling 
with the resentment of those who are in¬ 
jured by crimes leads us to look on them as 
worthy of punishment, and constitutes the 
sense of demerit. These sentiments require 
not only beneficial actions, but benevolent 
motives! being compounded, in the case of 
merit, of a direct sympathy with the good 
disposition of the benefactor, and an indirect 
sympathy with the persons benefited; in 
the opposite case, with precisely opposite 
sympathies. He who does an act of wrong 
to another to gratify his own passions, must 
not expect that the spectators, who have 
none of his undue partiality to his own in¬ 
terest, will enter into his feelings. In such 
a case, he knows that they will pity the 
person wronged, and be full of indignation 
against him. When he is cooled, he adopts 
the sentiments of others on his own crime, 
feels shame at the impropriety of his former 
passion, pity for those who have suffered 
by him, and a dread of punishment from 
general and just resentment. Such are the 
constituent parts of remorse. 

Our moral sentiments respecting ourselves 
arise from those which others feel con¬ 
cerning us. We feel a self-approbation 
whenever we believe that the general feeling 
of mankind coincides with that state of mind 
in which we ourselves were at a given time. 
“We suppose ourselves the spectators of 
our own behaviour, and endeavour to ima¬ 
gine what effect it would in this light pro¬ 
duce in us.” We must view our own con¬ 
duct with the eyes of others before we can 
judge it. The sense of duty arises from 
putting ourselves in the place of others, and 
adopting their sentiments respecting our 
own conduct. In utter solitude there could 
have been no self-approbation. The rules 
of Morality are a summary of those senti¬ 
ments ; and often beneficially stand in their 
stead when the self-delusions of passion 
would otherwise hide from us the non-con¬ 


formity of our state of mind with that which, 
in the circumstances, can be entered into 
and approved by impartial by-standers. It 
is hence that we learn to raise our mind 
above local or temporary clamour, and to 
fix our eyes on the surest indications of the 
general and lasting sentiments of human 
nature. “When we approve of any cha¬ 
racter or action, our sentiments are derived 
from four sources: first, we sympathise with 
the motives of the agent; secondly , we enter 
into the gratitude of those who have been 
benefited by his actions; thirdly , we observe 
that his conduct has been agreeable to the 
general rules by which those two sympathies 
generally act; and, last of all, when we con¬ 
sider such actions as forming part of a 
system of behaviour which tends to promote 
the happiness either of the individual or 
of society, they appear to derive a beauty 
from this utility, not unlike that which we 
ascribe to any well-contrived machine.” * 

REMARKS. 

That Smith is the first who has drawn the 
attention of philosophers to one of the most 
curious and important parts of human na¬ 
ture, — who has looked closely and steadily 
into the workings of Sympathy, its sudden 
action and re-action, its instantaneous con¬ 
flicts and its emotions, its minute play and 
varied illusions, is sufficient to place him 
high among the cultivators of mental philo¬ 
sophy. He is very original in applications 
and explanations; though, for his principle, 
he is somewhat indebted to Butler, more to 
Hutcheson, and most of all to Hume. These 
writers, except Hume in his original work, 
had derived sympathy, or a great part of it, 
from benevolence f: Smith, with deeper 
insight, inverted the order. The great part 
performed by various sympathies in moral 
approbation was first unfolded by him; and 
besides its intrinsic importance, it strength- 


* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Edinb. 1801. 
ii. 304. 

f There is some confusion regarding this point 
in Butler’s firet sermon on Compassion. 








72 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

T 


ened the proofs against those theories which 
ascribe that great function to Reason. 
Another great merit of the theory of “ sym¬ 
pathy” is, that it brings into the strongest 
light that most important characteristic of 
the moral sentiments which consists in their 
being the only principles leading to action, 
and dependent on emotion or sensibility, 
with respect to the objects of which, it is 
not only possible but natural for all man¬ 
kind to agree.* 

The main defects of this theory seem to 
be the following. 

1. Though it is not to be condemned for 
declining inquiry into the origin of our 
fellow-feeling, which, being one of the most 
certain of all facts, might well be assumed 
as idtimate in speculations of this nature, it 
is evident that the circumstances to which 
some speculators ascribe the formation of 
sympathy at least contribute to strengthen 
or impair, to contract or expand it. It will 
appear, more conveniently, in the next 
article, that the theory of “ sympathy ” has 
suffered from the omission of these circum¬ 
stances. For the present, it is enough to 
observe how much our compassion for va¬ 
rious- sorts of animals, and our fellow-feeling 
with various races of men, are proportioned 
to the resemblance which they bear to our¬ 
selves, to the frequency of our intercourse 
with them, and to other causes which, in the 
opinion of some, afford evidence that sym¬ 
pathy itself is dependent on a more general 
law. 

2. Had Smith extended his view beyond 
the mere play of sympathy itself, and taken 
into account all its preliminaries and accom¬ 
paniments, and consequences, it seems im¬ 
probable that he would have fallen into the 
great error of representing the sympathies 
in their primitive state, without undergoing 
any transformation, as continuing exclu¬ 

* The feelings of beauty, grandeur, and what¬ 
ever else is comprehended under the name of Taste, 
form no exception, for they do not lead to action, 
hut terminate in delightful contemplation; which 
constitutes the essential distinction between them 
and the moral sentiments, to which, in some points 
of view, they may doubtless be likened. 


sively to constitute the moral sentiments. 
He is not content with teaching that they 
are the roots out of which these sentiments 
grow, the stocks on which they are grafted, 
the elements of which they are compounded; 

— doctrines to which nothing could be ob¬ 
jected but their unlimited extent. He tacitly 
assumes, that if a sympathy in the beginning 
caused or formed a moral approbation, so it 
must ever continue to do. He proceeds 
like a geologist who should tell us that the 
body of this planet had always been in the 
same state, shutting his eyes to transition 
states, and secondary formations; or like a 
chemist who should inform us that no com¬ 
pound substance can possess new qualities 
entirely different from those which belong 
to its materials. His acquiescence in this 
old and still general error is the more re¬ 
markable, because Mr. Hume’s beautiful 
Dissertation on the Passions * had just be¬ 
fore opened a striking view of some of the 
compositions and decompositions which 
render the mind of a formed man as different 
from its original state, as the organisation 
of a complete animal is from the condition 
of the first dim speck of vitality. It is from 
this oversight (ill supplied by moral rules, 

— a loose stone in his building) that he has 
exposed himself to objections founded on 
experience, to which it is impossible to at¬ 
tempt any answer. For it is certain that in 
many, nay in most cases of moral appro¬ 
bation, the adult man approves the action 
or disposition merely as right , and with a 
distinct consciousness that no process of 
sympathy intervenes between the approval 
and its object. It is certain that an un¬ 
biassed person would call it moral appro¬ 
bation , only as far as it excluded the inter¬ 
position of any reflection between the con¬ 
science and the mental state approved. Upon 
the supposition of an unchanged state of 
our active principles, it would follow that 
sympathy never had any share in the greater 
part of them. Had he admitted the sym¬ 
pathies to be only elements entering into 
the formation of Conscience, their disappear- 


* Essays and Treatises, vol. ii. 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


ance, or their appearance only as auxiliaries, 
after the mind is mature, would have been 
no more an objection to his system, than 
the conversion of a substance from a tran¬ 
sitional to a permanent state is a perplexity 
to the geologist. It would perfectly re¬ 
semble the destruction of qualities, which 
is the ordinary effect of chemical com¬ 
position. 

3 The same error has involved him in 
another difficulty perhaps still more fatal. 
The sympathies have nothing more of an 
imperative character than any other emo¬ 
tions. They attract or repel like other feel¬ 
ings, according to their intensity. If, then, 
the sympathies continue in mature minds to 
constitute the whole of Conscience, it be¬ 
comes utterly impossible to explain the cha¬ 
racter of command and supremacy, which 
is attested by the unanimous voice of man¬ 
kind to belong to that faculty, and to 
form its essential distinction. Had he 
adopted the other representation, it would 
be possible to conceive, perhaps easy to ex¬ 
plain, that Conscience should possess a 
quality which belonged to none of its 
elements. 

4. It is to this representation that Smith’s 
theory owes that unhappy appearance of 
rendering the rule of our conduct dependent 
on the notions and passions of those who 
surround us, of which the utmost efforts of 
the most refined ingenuity have not been 
able to divest it. This objection, or topic, 
is often ignorantly urged; the answers are 
frequently solid; but to most men they 
must always appear to be an ingenious and 
intricate contrivance of cycles and epicycles, 
which perplex the mind too much to satisfy 
it, and seemed devised to evade difficulties 
which cannot be solved. All theories which 
treat Conscience as built up by circum¬ 
stances inevitably acting on all human minds, 
are, indeed, liable to somewhat of the same 
misconception; unless they place in the 
strongest light (what Smith’s theory ex¬ 
cludes) the total destruction of the scaffold¬ 
ing, which was necessary only to the erec¬ 
tion of the building, after the mind is adult 
and mature, and warn the hastiest reader, 


73 

that it then rests on its own foundation 
alone. 

5. The constant reference of our own dis¬ 
positions and actions to the point of view 
from which they are estimated by others, 
seems to be rather an excellent expedient 
for preserving our impartiality, than a fun¬ 
damental principle of Ethics. But impar¬ 
tiality, which is no more than a removal 
of some hinderance to right judgment, sup¬ 
plies no materials for its exercise, and no 
rule, or even principle, for its guidance. 
It nearly coincides with the Christian pre¬ 
cept of “doing unto others as we would 
they should do unto us;” an admirable 
practical maxim, but, as Leibnitz has said 
truly, intended only as a correction of self- 
partiality. 

6. Lastly, this ingenious system renders 
all morality relative, by referring it to the 
pleasure of an agreement of our feelings 
with those of others, — by confining itself 
entirely to the question of moral appro¬ 
bation, and by providing no place for the 
consideration of that quality which distin¬ 
guishes all good from all bad actions; — a 
defect which will appear in the sequel to be 
more immediately fatal to a theorist of the 
sentimental , than to one of the intellectual 
school. Smith shrinks from considering 
utility in that light, as soon as it presents 
itself, or very strangely ascribes its power 
over our moral feelings to admiration of 
the mere adaptation of means to ends (which 
might surely be as well felt for the pro¬ 
duction of wide-spread misery, by a con¬ 
sistent system of wicked conduct,) — instead 
of ascribing it to benevolence, with Hutch¬ 
eson and Hume, or to an extension of that 
very sympathy which is his own first prin¬ 
ciple. 

RICHARD PRICE.* 

About the same time with the celebrated 
work of Smith, but with a popular reception 
very different, Dr. Richard Price, an excel¬ 
lent and eminent Nonconformist minister, 


* Born, 1723; died, 1791. 








74 


MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


published a Review of the Principal Ques¬ 
tions in Morals * * * * § ;—an attempt to revive the 
intellectual theory of moral obligation, which 
seemed to have fallen under the attacks of 
Butler, Hutcheson, and Hume, and before 
that of Smith. It attracted little observation 
at first; but being afterwards countenanced 
by the Scottish School, it may seem to de¬ 
serve some notice, at a moment when the 
kindred speculations of the German meta¬ 
physicians have effected an establishment 
in France, and are no longer unknown in 
England. 

The Understanding itself is, according to 
Price, an independent source of simple ideas. 
“ The various kinds of agreement and dis¬ 
agreement between our ideas, spoken of by 
Locke, are so many new simple ideas.” 
“ This is true of our ideas of proportion, of 
our ideas of identity and diversity, existence, 
connection, cause and effect, power, possi¬ 
bility, and of our ideas of right and wrong.” 
“The first relates to quantity, the last to 
actions, the rest to all things.” “ Like all 
other simple ideas, they are undefinable.” 

It is needless to pursue this theory farther, 
till an answer shall be given to the ob¬ 
servation made before, that as no perception 
or judgment, or other unmixed act of Un¬ 
derstanding, merely as such, and without 
the agency of some intermediate emotion , 
can affect the Will, the account given by 
Dr. Price of perceptions or judgments re¬ 
specting moral subjects, does not advance 
one step towards the explanation of the au¬ 
thority of Conscience over the Will, which 
is the matter to be explained. Indeed, this 
respectable writer felt the difficulty so much 
as to allow, “ that in contemplating the acts 
of moral agents, we have both a perception 
of the understanding and a feeling of the 
heart.” He even admits, that it would have 
been highly pernicious to us if our reason 
had been left without such support. But he 
has not shown how, on such a supposition, 
we could have acted on a mere opinion ; nor 
has he given any proof that what he calls 

* The third edition was published at London in 
1787. 


“ support” is not, in truth, the whole of what 
directly produces the conformity of volun¬ 
tary acts to Morality.* 

DAVID HARTLEY.j" 

The work of Dr. Hartley, entitled “ Ob¬ 
servations on Man J,” is distinguished by an 
uncommon union of originality with modesty, 
in unfolding a simple and fruitful principle 
of human nature. It is disfigured by the 
absurd affectation of mathematical forms 
then prevalent; and it is encumbered and 
deformed by a mass of physiological specu¬ 
lations,—groundless, or at best uncertain, 
and wholly foreign from its proper purpose, 
—which repel the inquirer into mental phi¬ 
losophy from its perusal, and lessen the re¬ 
spect of the physiologist for the author’s 
judgment. It is an unfortdnate example of 
the disposition predominant among undis- 
tinguishing theorists to class together all the 
appearances which are observed at the same 
time, and in the immediate neighbourhood of 
each other. At that period, chemical phe¬ 
nomena were referred to mechanical princi¬ 
ples ; vegetable and animal life were sub¬ 
jected to mechanical or chemical laws ; and 
while some physiologists § ascribed the vital 
functions to the Understanding, the greater 
part of metaphysicians were disposed, with 
a grosser confusion, to derive the intellectual 


* The following sentences will illustrate the text, 
and are in truth applicable to all moral theories on 
merely intellectual principles: “ Reason alone, did 
we possess it in a higher degree, would answer all 
the ends of the passions. Thus there would be no 
need of parental affection, were all parents suffi¬ 
ciently acquainted with the reasons for taking upon 
them the guidance and support of those whom 
Nature has placed under their care, and were 
they virtuous enough to he always determined by 
those reasons .” — Review, p. 121. A very slight 
consideration will show, that without the last 
words the preceding part would be utterly false, 
and with them it is utterly insignificant. 

f Born, 1705; died, 1757. 

I London, 1749. 

§ Among them was G. E. Stahl, bom, 1660; 
died, 1734; — a German physician and chemist of 
deserved eminence. 

















PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


operations from bodily causes. The error in 
the latter case, though less immediately per¬ 
ceptible, is deeper and more fundamental 
than in any other, since it overlooks the 
primordial and perpetual distinction between 
the being which thinks and the thing which is 
thought of, —not to be lost sight of, by the 
mind’s eye, even for a twinkling, without 
involving all nature in darkness and con¬ 
fusion. Hartley and Condillac *, who, much 
about the same time, but seemingly without 
any knowledge of each other’s speculations'!', 
began in a very similar mode to simplify, 
but also to mutilate the system of Locke, 
stopped short of what is called “material¬ 
ism,” which consummates the confusion, but 
touched its threshold. Thither, it must be 
owned, their philosophy pointed, and thither 
their followers proceeded. Hartley and 
Bonnet j, still more than Condillac, suffered 
themselves, like most of their contemporaries, 
to overlook the important truth, that all the 
changes in the organs which can be likened 
to other material phenomena, are nothing 
more than antecedents and prerequisites of 
perception , bearing not the faintest likeness 
to it, — as much outward in relation to the 
thinking principle, as if they occurred in any 
other part of matter; and that the entire 
comprehension of those changes, if it were 
attained, would not bring us a step nearer to 
the nature of thought. They who would 
have been the first to exclaim against the 
mistake of a sound for a colour, fell into the 
more unspeakable error of confounding the 
perception of objects, as outward, with the 


* Born, 1715; died, 1780. 
f Traite sur l’Origine des Connoissances Hu- 
maines, 1746; Traite des Syst&mes, 1749; Traite 
des Sensations, 1754. Foreign books were then 
little and slowly known in England. Hartley’s 
reading, except on theology, seems confined to the 
physical and mathematical sciences; and his whole 
manner of thinking and writing is so different from 
that of Condillac, that there is not the least reason 
to suppose the work of the one to have been known 
to the other. The work of Hartley, as we learn 
from the sketch of his life by his son, prefixed to 
the edition of 1791, was begun in 1730, and finished 
in 1746. 

J Born, 1720; died, 1793. 


75 

consciousness of our own mental operations. 
Locke’s doctrine, that “reflection” was a 
separate source of ideas, left room for this 
greatest of all distinctions; though with 
much unhappiness of expression, and with 
no little variance from the course of his own 
speculations. Hartley, Condillac, and Bonnet, 
in hewing away this seeming deformity from 
the system of their master, unwittingly 
struck off the part of the building which, 
however unsightly, gave it the power of 
yielding some shelter and guard to truths, 
of which the exclusion rendered it utterly 
untenable. They became consistent Nomi¬ 
nalists, in reference to whose controversy 
Locke expresses himself with confusion and 
contradiction; but on this subject they added 
nothing to what had been taught by Hobbes 
and Berkeley. Both Hartley and Condillac * 
have the merit of having been unseduced by 
the temptations either of scepticism, or of 
useless idealism; which, even if Berkeley 
and Hume could have been unknown to 
them, must have been within sight. Both 
agree in referring all the intellectual opera¬ 
tions to the “association of ideas,” and in 
representing that association as reducible to 
the single law, “ that ideas which enter the 
mind at the same time, acquire a tendency 
to call up each other, which is in direct pro¬ 
portion to the frequency of their having 
entered together.” In this important part 
of their doctrine they seem, whether uncon¬ 
sciously or otherwise, to have only repeated, 
and very much expanded, the opinion of 
Hobbes.f In its simplicity it is more agree¬ 
able than the system of Mr. Hume, who ad¬ 
mitted five independent laws of association ; 


* The following note of Condillac will show how 
much he differed from Hartley in his mode of con¬ 
sidering the Newtonian hypothesis of vibrations, 
and how far he was in that respect superior to him. 
“ Je suppose ici et ailleurs que les perceptions de 
l’ame ont pour cause physique l’ebranlement des 
fibres du cerveau; non que je regarde cette hypothese 
comme demontree , mais parcequ'elle est la plus com¬ 
mode pour expliquer ma pensee.” — CEuvres de Con¬ 
dillac, Paris, 1798, i. 60. 

f Human Nature, chap. iv. v. vi. For more an¬ 
cient statements, see Note T. 









76 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

and it is in comprehension far superior to 
the views of the same subject by Mr. Locke, 
whose ill-chosen name still retains its place 
in our nomenclature, but who only appeals 
to the principle as explaining some fancies 
and whimsies of the human mind. The 
capital fault of Hartley is that of a rash 
generalization, which may prove imperfect, 
and which is at least premature. All at¬ 
tempts to explain instinct by this principle 
have hitherto been unavailing: many of the 
most important processes of reasoning have 
not hitherto been accounted for by it.* It 
would appear, by a close examination, that 
even this theory, simple as it appears, pre¬ 
supposes many facts relating to the mind, 
of which its authors do not seem to have 
suspected the existence. How many ulti¬ 
mate facts of that nature, for example, are 
contained and involved in Aristotle’s cele¬ 
brated comparison of the mind in its first 
state to a sheet of unwritten paper ! f The 
texture of the paper, even its colour, the 
sort of instrument fit to act on it, its capa¬ 
city to receive and to retain. impressions, all 
its differences, from steel on the one hand to 
water on the other, certainly presuppose 
some- facts, and may imply many, without a 
distinct statement of which, the nature of 
writing could not be explained to a person 
wholly ignorant of it. How many more, as 
well as greater laws, may be necessary to 
enable mind to perceive outward objects! 
If the power of perception may be thus de¬ 
pendent, why may not what is called the 
“ association of ideas,” the attraction between 
thoughts, the power of one to suggest an¬ 
other, be affected by mental laws hitherto 
unexplored, perhaps unobserved ? 

But, to return from this digression into 
the intellectual part of man, it becomes 
proper to say, that the difference between 

Hartley and Condillac, and the immeasur¬ 
able superiority of the former, are chiefly to 
be found in the application which Hartley 
first made of the law of association to that 
other unnamed portion of our nature with 
which Morality more immediately deals; — 
that which feels pain and pleasure, — is in¬ 
fluenced by appetites and loathings, by de¬ 
sires and aversions, by affections and repug¬ 
nances. Condillac’s Treatise on Sensation, 
published five years after the work of Hart¬ 
ley, reproduces the doctrine of Hobbes, with 
its root, namely, that love and hope arc but 
transformed “sensations*,” (by which he 
means perceptions of the senses), and its 
wide-spread branches, consisting in desires 
and passions, which are only modifications of 
self-love. “ The words ‘ goodness ’ and 
‘ beauty,’ ” says he, almost in the very words 
of Hobbes, “ express those qualities of things 
by which they contribute to our pleasures.” f 
In the whole of his philosophical works, we 
find no trace of any desire produced by as¬ 
sociation, of any disinterested principle, or 
indeed of any distinction between the per¬ 
cipient and what, perhaps, we may venture 
to call the emotive or the pathematic part 
of human nature, for the present, until some 
more convenient and agreeable name shall 
be hit on by some luckier or more skilful ad¬ 
venturer. 

To the ingenuous, humble, and anxiously 
conscientious character of Hartley himself, 
we owe the knowledge that, about the year 
1730, he was informed that the Rev. Mr. 
Gay of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, 
then living in the west of England, asserted 
the possibility of deducing all our intel¬ 
lectual pleasures and pains from association; 
that this led him (Hartley) to consider the 
power of association; and that about that 
time Mr. Gay published his sentiments on 
this matter in a dissertation prefixed to 
Bishop Law’s Translation of King’s Origin 
of Evil. J No writer deserves the praise of 

* “ Ce que les logiciens ont dit des raisonnements 
dans bien des volumes, me paroit entierement su¬ 
perflu, et de nul usage.” — Condillac, i. 115.; an 
assertion of which the gross absurdity will be ap¬ 
parent to the readers of Dr. Whateley’s Treatise on 
Logic, one of the most important works of the 
present age. 
f See Note U. 

* Condillac, iii. 21. ; more especially Traite des 
Sensations, part ii. chap. vi. “ Its love for outward 
objects is only an effect of love for itself.” 
f Traitd des Sensations, part iv. chap. iii. 
i Hartley’s preface to the Observations on Man. 


















PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


77 


abundant fairness more than Hartley in this 
avowal. The dissertation of which he speaks 
is mentioned by no philosopher but himself. 
It' suggested nothing apparently to any other 
reader. The general texture of it is that of 
homespun selfishness. The writer had the 
merit to see and to own that Hutcheson had 
established as a fact the reality of moral sen¬ 
timents and disinterested affections. He 
blames, perhaps justly, that most ingenious 
man * *, for assuming that these sentiments 
and affections are implanted, and partake of 
the nature of instincts. The object of his 
dissertation is* to reconcile the mental ap¬ 
pearances described by Hutcheson with the 
first principle of the selfish system, that “ the 
true principle of all our actions is our own 
happiness.” Moral feelings and social af¬ 
fections are, according to him, “resolvable 
into reason, pointing out our private hap¬ 
piness ; and whenever this end is not perceived , 
they are to be accounted for from the asso¬ 
ciation of ideas.” Even in the single pas¬ 
sage in which he shows a glimpse of the 
truth, he begins with confusion, advances 
with hesitation, and after holding in his 
grasp for an instant the principle which 
sheds so strong a light around it, suddenly 
drops it from his hand. Instead of receiving 
the statements of Hutcheson (his silence re¬ 


The word “intellectual” is too narrow. Even 
“ mental” would be of very doubtful propriety. The 
theory in its full extent requires a word such as 
“ inorganic ” (if no better can be discovered), ex¬ 
tending to all gratification, not distinctly referred 
to some specific organ, or at least to some assign¬ 
able part of the bodily frame. 

* It has not been mentioned in its proper place, 
that Hutcheson appears nowhere to greater ad¬ 
vantage than in some letters on the Fable of the 
Bees, published when he was very young, at Dublin, 
with the signature of “Hibernicus.” “Private 
vices — public benefits,” says he, “ may signify any 
one of these five distinct propositions: 1st. They 
are in themselves public benefits; or, 2nd. They 
naturally produce public happiness; or, 3rd. They 
may be made to produce it; or, 4th. They may 
naturally flow from it; or, 5th. At least they may 
probably flow from it in our infirm nature.” See 
a small volume containing Thoughts on Laughter, 
and Remarks on the Fable of the Bees, Glasgow, 
1758, in which these letters are republished. 


lating to Butler is unaccountable) as en¬ 
largements of the science of man, he deals 
with them merely as difficulties to be recon¬ 
ciled with the received system of universal 
selfishness. In the conclusion of his fourth 
section, he well exemplifies the power of as¬ 
sociation in forming the love of money, of 
fame, of power, &c.; but he still treats these 
effects of association as aberrations and in¬ 
firmities, the fruits of our forgetfulness and 
shortsightedness, and not at all as the great 
process employed to sow and rear the most 
important principles of a social and moral 
nature. 

This precious mine may therefore be 
truly said to have been opened by Hartley; 
for he who did such superabundant justice 
to the hints of Gay, would assuredly not 
have withheld the like tribute from Hutche¬ 
son, had he observed the happy expression 
of “ secondary passions,” which ought to 
have led that philosopher himself farther 
than he ventured to advance. The extra¬ 
ordinary value of this part of Hartley’s sys¬ 
tem has been hidden by various causes, 
which have also enabled writers, who have 
borrowed from it, to decry it. The influence 
of his medical habits renders many of his 
examples displeasing, and sometimes dis¬ 
gusting. He has none of that knowledge of 
the world, of that familiarity with Litera¬ 
ture, of that delicate perception of the 
beauties of Nature and Art, which not only 
supply the most agreeable illustrations of 
mental philosophy, but afford the most ob¬ 
vious and striking instances of its happy ap¬ 
plication to subjects generally interesting. 
His particular applications of the general 
law are often mistaken, and are seldom more 
than brief notes and hasty suggestions; — 
the germs of theories which, while some 
might adopt them without detection, others 
might discover without being aware that 
they were anticipated. To which it may be 
added, that in spite of the imposing forms 
of Geometry, the work is not really dis¬ 
tinguished by good method, or even uniform 
adherence to that which had been chosen. 
His style is entitled to no praise but that of 
clearness, and a simplicity of diction, through 








78 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


which is visible a singular simplicity of 
mind. No book perhaps exists which, with 
so few of the common allurements, comes at 
last so much to please by the picture it pre¬ 
sents of the writer’s character, — a cha¬ 
racter which kept him pure from the pur¬ 
suit, often from the consciousness of novelty, 
and rendered him a discoverer in spite of his 
own modesty. In those singular passages in 
which, amidst the profound internal tran¬ 
quillity of all the European nations, he fore¬ 
tells approaching convulsions, to be followed 
by the overthrow of states and Churches, 
his quiet and gentle spirit, elsewhere almost 
ready to inculcate passive obedience for the 
sake of peace, is supported under its awful 
forebodings by the hope of that general pro¬ 
gress in virtue and happiness which he saw 
through the preparatory confusion. A meek 
piety, inclining towards mysticism, and some¬ 
times indulging in visions which borrow a 
lustre from his fervid benevolence, was 
beautifully, and perhaps singularly, blended 
in him with zeal for the most unbounded 
freedom of inquiry, flowing both from his 
own conscientious belief and his unmingled 
love of Truth. Whoever can so far subdue 
his repugnance to petty or secondary faults 
as to bestow a careful perusal on the work, 
must be unfortunate if he does not see, feel, 
and own, that the writer was a great philo¬ 
sopher and a good man. 

To those who thus study the work, it will 
be apparent that Hartley, like other philo¬ 
sophers, either overlooked or failed expli¬ 
citly to announce that distinction between 
perception and emotion, without which no 
system of mental philosophy is complete. 
Hence arose the partial and incomplete view 
of Truth conveyed by the use of the phrase 
“ association of ideas.” If the word “ asso¬ 
ciation,” which rather indicates the connec¬ 
tion between separate things than the per¬ 
fect combination and fusion which occur in 
many operations of the mind, must, notwith¬ 
standing its inadequacy, still be retained, 
the phrase ought at least to be “ association ” 
of thoughts 'with emotions , as well as with 
each other. With that enlargement an ob¬ 
jection to the Hartleian doctrine would . 


have been avoided, and its originality, as 
well as superiority over that of Condillac, 
would have appeared indisputable. The ex¬ 
amples of avarice and other factitious pas¬ 
sions are very well chosen; first, because 
few will be found to suppose that they are 
original principles of human nature * ; se¬ 
condly, because the process by which they 
are generated, being subsequent to the age 
of attention and recollection, may be brought 
home to the understanding of all men; and, 
thirdly, because they afford the most striking 
instance of secondary passions, which not 
only become independent of the primary 
principles from which they are derived, but 
hostile to them, and so superior in strength 
as to be capable of overpowering their 
parents. As soon as the mind becomes 
familiar with the frequent case of the man 
who first pursued money to purchase plea¬ 
sure, but at last, when he becomes a miser, 
loves his hoard better than all that it could 
purchase, and sacrifices all pleasures for its 
increase, we are prepared to admit that, by 
a like process, the affections, when they are 
fixed on the happiness of others as their ul¬ 
timate object, without any reflection on self, 
may not only be perfectly detached from 
self-regard or private desires, but may sub¬ 
due these and every other antagonist passion 
which can stand in their way. As the 
miser loves money for its own sake, so may 
the benevolent man delight in the well¬ 
being of his fellows. His good-will be¬ 
comes as disinterested as if it had been im¬ 
planted and underived. The like process 
applied to what is called “ self-love,” or the 
desire of permanent well-being, clearly ex¬ 
plains the mode in which that principle is 
gradually formed from the separate ap¬ 
petites, without whose previous existence no 
notion of well-being could be obtained. In 
like manner, sympathy, perhaps itself the 

* A very ingenious man, Lord Karnes, whose 
works had a great effect in rousing the mind of his 
contemporaries and countrymen, has indeed fancied 
that there is “a hoarding instinct” in man and 
other animals. But such conclusions are not so 
much objects of confutation, as ludicrous proofs of 
the absurdity of the premises which lead to them. 








PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 79 


result of a transfer of our own personal feel¬ 
ings by association to other sentient beings, 
and of a subsequent transfer of their feel¬ 
ings to our own minds, engenders the various 
social affections, which at last generate in 
most minds some regard to the well-being of 
our country, of mankind, of all creatures 
capable of pleasure. Rational Self-love 
controls and guides those far keener self- 
regarding passions of which it is the child, 
in the same manner as general benevolence 
balances and governs the variety of much 
warmer social affections from which it 
springs. It is-an ancient and obstinate error 
of philosophers to represent these two calm 
principles as being the source of the im¬ 
pelling passions and affections, instead of 
being among the last results of them. Each 
of them exercises a sort of authority in its 
sphere ; but the dominion of neither is co¬ 
existent with the whole nature of man. 
Though they have the power to quicken and 
check, they are both too feeble to impel; 
and if the primary principles were extin¬ 
guished, they would both perish from want 
of nourishment. If indeed all appetites and 
desires were destroyed, no subject would 
exist on which either of these general prin¬ 
ciples could act. 

The affections, desires, and emotions, 
having for their ultimate object the disposi¬ 
tions and actions of voluntary agents, which 
alone, from the nature of their object, are 
co-extensive with the whole of our active 
nature, are, according to the same philo¬ 
sophy, necessarily formed in every human 
mind by the transfer of feeling which is 
effected by the principle of Association. 
Gratitude, pity, resentment, and shame, 
seem to be the simplest, the most active, 
and the most uniform elements in their 
composition. It is easy to perceive how the 
complacency inspired by a benefit may be 
transferred to a benefactor, — thence to all 
beneficent beings and acts. The well- 
chosen instance of the nurse familiarly ex¬ 
emplifies the manner in which the child 
transfers his complacency from the gratifi¬ 
cation of his senses to the cause of it, and 
thus learns an affection fbr her who is the 


source of his enjoyment. With this simple 
process concur, in the case- of a tender 
nurse, and far more of a mother, a thousand 
acts of relief and endearment, the compla¬ 
cency that results from which is fixed on 
the person from whom they flow, and in 
some degree extended by association to all 
who resemble that person. So much of the 
pleasure of early life depends on others, 
that the like process is almost constantly 
repeated. Hence the origin of benevolence 
may be understood, and the disposition to 
approve all benevolent, and disapprove all 
malevolent acts. Hence also the same ap¬ 
probation and disapprobation are extended 
to all acts which we clearly perceive to 
promote or obstruct the happiness of men. 
When the complacency is expressed in 
action, benevolence may be said to be trans¬ 
formed into a part of Conscience. The rise 
of sympathy may probably be explained by 
the process of association, which transfers the 
feelings of others to ourselves, and ascribes 
our own feelings to others, — at first, and in 
some degree always, in proportion as the 
resemblance of ourselves to others is com¬ 
plete. The likeness in the outward signs of 
emotion is one of the widest channels in this 
commerce of hearts. Pity thereby becomes 
one of the grand sources of benevolence, 
and perhaps contributes more largely than 
gratitude : it is indeed one of the first mo¬ 
tives to Ihe conferring of those benefits 
which inspire grateful affection. Sympathy 
with the sufferer, therefore, is also trans¬ 
formed into a real sentiment, directly ap¬ 
proving benevolent actions and dispositions, 
and more remotely, all actions that promote 
happiness. The anger of the sufferer, first 
against all causes of pain, afterwards against 
all intentional agents who produce it, and 
finally against all those in whom the inflic¬ 
tion of pain proceeds from a mischievous 
disposition, when it is communicated to 
others by sympathy, and is so far purified 
by gradual separation from selfish and indi¬ 
vidual interest as to be equally felt against 
all wrong-doers, — whether the wrong be 
done against ourselves, our friends, or our 
enemies, —is the root out of which springs 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


80 


that which is commonly and well called a 
“sense of justice”—the most indispensable, 
perhaps, of all the component parts of the 
moral faculties. 

This is the main guard against Wrong. 
It relates to that portion of Morality where 
many of the outward acts are capable of 
being reduced under certain rules, of which 
the violations, wherever the rule is suffici¬ 
ently precise, and the mischief sufficiently 
great, may be guarded against by the terror 
of punishment. In the observation of the 
rules of justice consists duty; breaches of 
them we denominate “ crimes .” An abhor¬ 
rence of crimes, especially of those which 
indicate the absence of benevolence, as well 
as of regard for justice, is strongly felt; 
because well-framed penal laws, being the 
lasting declaration of the moral indignation 
of many generations of mankind, as long as 
they remain in unison with the sentiments 
of the age and country for which they are 
destined, exceedingly strengthen the same 
feeling in every individual; and this they 
do wherever the laws do not so much de¬ 
viate from the habitual feelings of the mul¬ 
titude as to produce a struggle between law 
and sentiment, in which it is hard to say on 
which side success is most deplorable. A 
man who performs his duties may be es¬ 
teemed, but is not admired; because it re¬ 
quires no more than ordinary virtue to act 
well where it is shameful and dangerous to 
do otherwise. The righteousness of those 
who act solely from such inferior motives, is 
little better than that “ of the Scribes and 
Pharisees.” Those only are just in the eye 
of the moralist who act justly from a con¬ 
stant disposition to render to every man his 
own.* Acts of kindness, of generosity, of 
pity, of placability, of humanity, when they 
are long continued, can hardly fail mainly 
to flow from the pure fountain of an excel- 

* “ Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas 
suum cuique tribuendi; ” an excellent definition in 
the mouth of the Stoical moralists, from whom it 
is borrowed, but altogether misplaced by the Roman 
jurists in a body of laws which deal only with out¬ 
ward acts in their relation to the order and interest 
of society. 


lent nature. They are not reducible to 
rules ; and the attempt to enforce them by 
punishment would destroy them. They are 
virtues of which the essence consists in a 
good disposition of mind. 

As we gradually transfer our desire from 
praise to praiseworthiness, this principle also 
is adopted into consciousness. On the other 
hand, when we are led by association to feel 
a painful contempt for those feelings and 
actions of our past self which we despise in 
others, there is developed in our hearts an¬ 
other element of that moral sense. It is a 
remarkable instance of the power of the law 
of Association, that the contempt or abhor¬ 
rence which we feel for the bad actions of 
others may be transferred by it, in any 
degree of strength, to our own past actions 
of the like kind: and as the hatred of bad 
actions is transferred to the agent, the same 
transfer may occur in our own case in a 
manner perfectly similar to that of which 
we are conscious in our feelings towards our 
fellow-creatures. There are many causes 
which render it generally feebler ; but it is 
perfectly evident that it requires no more 
than a sufficient strength of moral feeling to 
make it equal; and that the most apparently 
hyperbolical language used by penitents, in 
describing their remorse, may be justified, 
by the principle of Association. 

At this step in our progress, it is proper 
to observe, that a most important consider¬ 
ation has escaped Hartley, as well as every 
other philosopher.* The language of all 
mankind implies that the Moral Faculty, 
whatever it may be, and from what origin 
soever it may spring, is intelligibly and pro¬ 
perly spoken of as One. It is as common in 
mind, as in matter, for a compound to have 
properties not to be found in any of its con¬ 
stituent parts. The truth of this proposition 
is as certain in the human feelings as in any 
material combination. It is therefore easily 
to be understood, that originally separate 
feelings may be so perfectly blended by a 
process performed in each mind, that they 
can no longer be disjoined from each other, 


* See supra, section on Butler. 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


but must always co-operate, and thus reach 
the only union which we can conceive. The 
sentiment of moral approbation, formed by 
association out of antecedent affections, may 
become so perfectly independent of them, 
that we are no longer conscious of the means 
by which it was formed, and never can in 
practice repeat, though we may in theory 
perceive, the process by which it was gene¬ 
rated. It is in that mature and sound state 
of our nature that our emotions at the view 
of Right and Wrong are ascribed to Con¬ 
science. But why, it may be asked, do these 
feelings, rather than others, run into each 
other, and constitute Conscience ? The an¬ 
swer seems to be what has already been 
intimated in the observations on Butler. 
The affinity between these feelings consists 
in this, that while all other feelings relate to 
outward objects, they alone contemplate ex¬ 
clusively the dispositions and actions of volun¬ 
tary agents. When they are completely 
transferred from objects, and even persons, 
to dispositions and actions, they are fitted, 
by the perfect coincidence of their aim , for 
combining to form that one faculty which is 
directed only to that aim. 

The words “ Duty ” and “ Virtue,” and the 
word “ ought,” which most perfectly denotes 
Duty, but is also connected with Virtue, in 
every well-constituted mind, in this state 
become the fit language of the acquired, 
perhaps, but universally and necessarily ac¬ 
quired, faculty of Conscience. Some account 
of its peculiar nature has been attempted in 
the remarks on Butler ; for a further one a 
fitter occasion will occur hereafter. Some 
light may, however, now be thrown on the 
subject by a short statement of the hitherto 
unobserved distinction between the moral 
sentiments and another class of feelings with 
which they have some qualities in common. 
The “pleasures” (so called) of imagination 
appear, at least in most cases, to originate in 
association; but it is not till the original 
cause of the gratification is obliterated from 
the mind, that they acquire their proper 
character. Order and proportion may be at 
first chosen for their convenience: it is not 
until they are admired for their own sake 


81 

that they become objects of taste. Though 
all the proportions for which a horse is 
valued may be indications of speed, safety, 
strength, and health, it is not the less true 
that they only can be said to admire the 
animal for his beauty, who leave such con¬ 
siderations out of the account while they 
admire. The pleasure of contemplation in 
these particulars of Nature and Art becomes 
universal and immediate, being entirely de¬ 
tached from all regard to individual beings. 
It contemplates neither use nor interest. In 
this important particular the pleasures of 
imagination agree with the moral sentiments : 
hence the application of the same language 
to both in ancient and modern times; — 
hence also it arises that they may contem¬ 
plate the very same qualities and objects. 
There is certainly much beauty in the softer 
virtues,—much grandeur in the soul of a 
hero or a martyr; but the essential distinc¬ 
tion still remains ; the purest moral taste 
contemplates these qualities only with quies¬ 
cent delight or reverence ; it has no further 
view; it points towards no action. Con¬ 
science, on the contrary, containing in it a 
pleasure in the prospect of doing right, and 
an ardent desire to act well, having for its 
sole object the dispositions and acts of vo¬ 
luntary agents, is not, like moral taste, satis¬ 
fied with passive contemplation, but con¬ 
stantly tends to act on the will and conduct 
of the man. Moral taste may aid it, may be 
absorbed into it, and usually contributes its 
part to the formation of the moral faculty ; 
but it is distinct from that faculty, and may 
be disproportioned to it. Conscience, being 
by its nature confined to mental dispositions 
and voluntary acts, is of necessity excluded 
from the ordinary consideration of all things 
antecedent to these dispositions. The cir¬ 
cumstances from which such states of mind 
may arise, are most important objects of 
consideration for the Understanding; but 
they are without the sphere of Conscience, 
which never ascends beyond the heart of the 
man. It is thus that, in the eye of Con¬ 
science, man becomes amenable to its au¬ 
thority for all his inclinations as well as 
deeds ; that some of them are approved, 














82 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


loved, and revered; and that all the out¬ 
ward effects of disesteem, contempt, or 
moral anger, are felt to be the just lot of 
others. 

But, to return to Hartley, from this per¬ 
haps intrusive statement of what does not 
properly belong to him: he represents all 
the social affections of gratitude, veneration, 
and love, inspired by the virtues of our 
fellow-men, as capable of being transferred 
by association to the transcendent and un¬ 
mingled goodness of the Ruler of the world, 
and thus to give rise to piety, to which he 
gives the name of “ the theopathetic affec¬ 
tion.” This principle, like all the former in 
the mental series, is gradually detached from 
the trunk on which it grew: it takes separate 
root, and may altogether overshadow the 
parent stock. As such a Being cannot be 
conceived without the most perfect and con¬ 
stant reference to His goodness, so piety may 
not only become a part of Conscience, but 
its governing and animating principle, which, 
after long lending its own energy and au¬ 
thority to every other, is at last described by 
our philosopher as swallowing up all of them 
in order to perform the same functions more 
infallibly. 

In every stage of this progress we are 
taught by Dr. Hartley that a new product 
appears, which becomes perfectly distinct 
from the elements which formed it, which 
may be utterly dissimilar to them, and may 
attain any degree of vigour, however su¬ 
perior to theirs. Thus the objects of the 
private desires disappear when we are em¬ 
ployed in the pursuit of our lasting welfare; 
that which was first sought only as a means, 
may come to be pursued as an end, and 
preferred to the original end; the good 
opinion of our fellows becomes more valued 
than the benefits for which it was at first 
courted; a man is ready to sacrifice his life 
for him who has shown generosity, even to 
others; and persons otherwise of common 
character are capable of cheerfully marching 
in a forlorn hope, or of almost instinctively 
leaping into the sea to save the life of an 
entire stranger. These last acts, often of 
almost unconscious virtue, so familiar to the 


soldier and the sailor, so unaccountable on 
certain systems of philosophy, often occur 
without a thought of applause and reward,— 
too quickly for the thought of the latter, too 
obscurely for the hope of the former; and 
they are of such a nature that no man could 
be impelled to them by the mere expectation 
of either. 

The gratitude, sympathy, resentment, and 
shame, which are the principal constituent 
parts of the Moral Sense, thus lose their 
separate agency, and constitute an entirely 
new faculty, co-extensive with all the dis¬ 
positions and actions of voluntary agents ; 
though some of them are more predominant 
in particular cases of moral sentiment than 
others, and though the aid of all continues 
to be necessary in their original character, 
as subordinate but distinct motives of action. 
Nothing more evidently points out the dis¬ 
tinction of the Hartleian system from all 
systems called “selfish,” — not to say its 
superiority in respect to disinterestedness 
over all moral systems before Butler and 
Hutcheson, — than that excellent part of it 
which relates to the “ rule of life.” The 
various principles of human action rise in 
value according to the order in which they 
spring up after each other. We can then 
only be in a state of as much enjoyment as 
we are evidently capable of attaining, when 
we prefer interest to the original gratifica¬ 
tions ; honour to interest; the pleasures of 
imagination to those of sense; the dictates 
of Conscience to pleasure, interest, and re¬ 
putation ; the well-being of fellow-creatures 
to our own indulgences; in a word, when 
we pursue moral good and social happiness 
chiefly and for their own sake. “ With self- 
interest,” says Hartley, somewhat inaccu¬ 
rately in language, “ man must begin. He 
may end in self-annihilation. Tlieopathy, or 
piety, although the last result of the purified 
and exalted sentiments, may at length swal¬ 
low up every other principle, and absorb the 
whole man.” Even if this last doctrine 
should be an exaggeration unsuited to our 
present condition, it will the more strongly 
illustrate the compatibility, or rather the 
necessary connection, of this theory with the 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 83 


existence and power of perfectly disin¬ 
terested principles of human action. 

It is needless to remark on the secondary 
and auxiliary causes which contribute to the 
formation of moral sentiment; — education, 
imitation, general opinion, laws, and govern¬ 
ment. They all presuppose the Moral Fa¬ 
culty : in an improved state of society they 
contribute powerfully to strengthen it, and 
on some occasions they enfeeble, distort, 
and maim it; but in all cases they must 
themselves be tried by the test of an ethical 
standard. The value of this doctrine will 
not be essentially affected by supposing a 
greater number of original principles than 
those assumed by Dr. Hartley. The prin¬ 
ciple of Association applies as much to a 
greater as to a smaller number. It is a 
quality common to it with all theories, that 
the more simplicity it reaches consistently 
with truth, the more perfect it becomes. 
Causes are not to be multiplied without ne¬ 
cessity. If by a considerable multiplication 
of primary desires the law of Association 
were lowered nearly to the level of an 
auxiliary agent, the philosophy of human 
nature would still be under indelible obliga¬ 
tions to the philosopher who, by his fortu¬ 
nate error, rendered the importance of that 
great principle obvious and conspicuous. 

ABRAHAM TUCKER.* 

It has been the remarkable fortune of 
this writer to have been more prized and 
more disregarded by the cultivators of moral 
speculation, than perhaps any other philo¬ 
sopher, f He had many of the qualities 


* Born, 1705; died, 1774. 
f “ I have found in this writer more original 
thinking and observation upon the several subjects 
that he has taken in hand than in any other, — 
not to say than in all others put together. His 
talent also for illustration is unrivalled.”—Paley, 
Preface to Moral and Political Philosophy. See 
the excellent preface to an abridgment, by Mr. 
Hazlitt, of Tucker’s work, published in London in 
1807. May I venture to refer also to my own Dis¬ 
course on the Law of Nature and Nations, London, 
1799? Mr. Stewart treats Tucker and Hartley 
with unwonted harshness. 


which might be expected in an affluent 
country gentleman, living in a privacy un¬ 
disturbed by political zeal, and with a leisure 
unbroken by the calls of a profession, at a 
time when England had not entirely re¬ 
nounced her old taste for metaphysical spe¬ 
culation. He was naturally endowed, not 
indeed with more than ordinary acuteness 
or sensibility, nor with a high degree of 
reach and range of mind, but with a singular 
capacity for careful observation and original 
reflection, and with a fancy perhaps un¬ 
matched in producing various and happy 
illustration. The most observable of his 
moral qualities appear to have been prud¬ 
ence and cheerfulness, good-nature and easy 
temper. The influence of his situation and 
character is visible in his writings. In¬ 
dulging his own tastes and fancies, like most 
English squires of his time, he became, like 
many of them, a sort of humourist. Hence 
much of his originality and independence; 
hence the boldness with which he openly 
employs illustrations from homely objects. 
He wrote to please himself more than the 
public. He had too little regard for readers 
either to sacrifice his sincerity to them, or 
to curb his own prolixity, repetition, and 
egotism, from the fear of fatiguing them. 
Hence he became as loose, as rambling, and 
as much an egotist as Montaigne; but not 
so agreeably so, notwithstanding a consi¬ 
derable resemblance of genius; because he 
wrote on subjects where disorder and egotism 
are unseasonable, and for readers whom they 
disturb instead of amusing. His prolixity 
nt last so increased itself, when his work be¬ 
came long, that repetition in the latter parts 
partly arose from forgetfulness of the former; 
and though his freedom from slavish defer¬ 
ence to general opinion is very commend¬ 
able, it must be owned, that his want of a 
wholesome fear of the public renders the 
perusal of a work which is extremely in¬ 
teresting, and even amusing in most of its 
parts, on the whole a laborious task. He 
was by early education a believer in Chris¬ 
tianity, if not by natural character religious. 
His calm good sense and accommodating 
temper led him rather to explain established 


* G 2 







84 


MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


doctrines in a manner agreeable to his philo¬ 
sophy, than to assail them. Hence he was 
represented as a time-server by freethinkers, 
and as a heretic by the orthodox.* Living 
in a country where the secure tranquillity 
flowing from the Revolution was gradually 
drawing forth all mental activity towards 
practical pursuits and outward objects, he 
hastened from the rudiments of mental and 
moral philosophy, to those branches of it 
which touch the business of men.j* Had he 
recast without changing his thoughts, — had 
he detached those ethical observations for 
which he had so peculiar a vocation, from 
the disputes of his country and his day, he 
might have thrown many of his chapters 
into their proper form of essays, and these 
might have been compared, though not 
likened, to those of Hume. But the country 
gentleman, philosophic as he was, had too 
much fondness for his own humours to en¬ 
gage in a course of drudgery and deference. 
It may, however, be confidently added, on 
the authority of all those who have fairly 
made the experiment, that whoever, un¬ 
fettered by a previous system, undertakes 
the labour necessary to discover and relish 
the high excellences of this metaphysical 
Montaigne, will find his toil lightened as he 
proceeds, by a growing indulgence, if not 
partiality, for the foibles of the humourist, 
and at last rewarded, in a greater degree 
perhaps than by any other writer on mixed 
and applied philosophy, by being led to 
commanding stations and new points of view, 
whence the mind of a moralist can hardly 
fail to catch some fresh prospects of Nature 
and duty. 

* This disposition to compromise and accommo¬ 
dation, which is discoverable in Paley, was carried 
to its utmost length by Mr. Hey, a man of much 
acuteness, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. 

f Perhaps no philosopher ever stated more justly, 
more naturally, or more modestly than Tucker, the 
ruling maxim of his life. “ My thoughts,” says 
he, “have taken a turn from my earliest youth 
towards searching into the foundations and mea¬ 
sures of Right and Wrong; my love for retirement 
has furnished me with continual leisure; and the 
exercise of my reason has been my daily employ¬ 
ment.” 


It is in mixed, not in pure philosophy, 
that his superiority consists. In the part of 
his work which relates to the Intellect, he 
has adopted much from Hartley, hiding but 
aggravating the offence by a change of tech¬ 
nical terms; and he was ungrateful enough 
to countenance the vulgar sneer which in¬ 
volves the mental analysis of that philo¬ 
sopher in the ridicule to which his physio¬ 
logical hypothesis is liable.* Thus, for the 
Hartleian term “ association” he substitutes 
that of “translation,” when adopting the 
same theory of the principles which move 
the mind to action. In the practical and 
applicable part of that inquiry he indeed far 
surpasses Hartley; and it is little to add, 
that he unspeakably exceeds that bare and 
naked thinker in the useful as well as ad¬ 
mirable faculty of illustration. In the strictly 
theoretical part his exposition is consider¬ 
ably fuller; but the defect of his genius be¬ 
comes conspicuous when he handles a very 
general principle. The very term “trans¬ 
lation ” ought to have kept up in his mind a 
steady conviction that the secondary motives 
to action become as independent, and seek 
their own objects as exclusively, as the pri¬ 
mary principles. His own examples are 
rich in proofs of this important truth. But 
there is a slippery descent in the theory of 
human nature, by which he, like most of his 
forerunners, slid unawares into Selfishness. 
He was not preserved from this fall by 
seeing that all the deliberate principles which 
have self for their object are themselves of 
secondary formation; and he was led into 
the general error by the notion that plea¬ 
sure, or, as he calls it, “satisfaction,” was 
the original and sole object of all appetites 
and desires; — confounding this with the 
true, but very different proposition, that the 


* Light of Nature, vol. ii. chap xviii., of which 
the conclusion may be pointed out as a specimen 
of perhaps unmatched fruitfulness, vivacity, and 
felicity of illustration. The admirable sense of the 
conclusion of chap. xxv. seems to have suggested 
Paley’s good chapter on Happiness. The alteration 
of Plato’s comparison of Reason to a charioteer, 
and the passions to the horses, in chap, xxvi., is 
of characteristic and transcendent excellence. 













PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 85 


attainment of all the objects of appetite and 
desire is productive of pleasure. He did 
not see that, without presupposing desires, 
the word w pleasure ” would have no signi¬ 
fication; and that the representations by 
which he was seduced would leave only one 
appetite or desire in human nature. He had 
no adequate and constant conception, that 
the translation of desire from being the end 
to be the means occasioned the formation of 
a new passion, which is perfectly distinct 
from, and altogether independent of, the 
original desire. Too frequently (for he was 
neither obstinate nor uniform in error) he 
considered these translations as accidental 
defects in human nature, not as the ap¬ 
pointed means of supplying it with its variety 
of active principles. He was too apt to 
speak as if the selfish elements were not 
destroyed in the new combination, but re¬ 
mained still capable of being recalled, when 
convenient, like the links in a chain of 
reasoning, which we pass over from forget¬ 
fulness, or for brevity. Take him all in all, 
however, the neglect of his writings is the 
strongest proof of the disinclination of the 
English nation, for the last half century, to 
metaphysical philosophy.* 

WILLIAM PALEY.f 

This excellent writer, who, after Clarke 


* Much of Tucker’s chapter on Pleasure, and of 
Paley’s on Happiness (both of which are invalu¬ 
able), is contained in the passage of the Traveller, 
of which the following couplet expresses the main 
object: 

“ Unknown to them when sensual pleasures cloy, 
To fill the languid pause with finer joy.” 

“An honest man,” says Mr. Hume, (Inquiry 
concerning Morals, § ix.) “ has the frequent satis¬ 
faction of seeing knaves betrayed by their own 
maxims.” “ I used often to laugh at your honest 
simple neighbour Flamborough, and one way or 
another generally cheated him once a year: yet 
still the honest man went forward without suspicion, 
and grew rich, while I still continued tricksy and 
cunning, and was poor, without the consolation of 
being honest.”—Yicar of Wakefield, chap. xxvi. 

f Born, 1743; died, 1805. 


and Butler, ought to be ranked among the 
brightest ornaments of the English Church 
in the eighteenth century, is, in the history 
of philosophy, naturally placed after Tucker, 
to whom, with praiseworthy liberality, he 
owns his extensive obligations. It is a mis¬ 
take to suppose that he owed his system to 
Hume, — a thinker too refined, and a writer 
perhaps too elegant to have naturally at¬ 
tracted him. A coincidence in the prin¬ 
ciple of Utility, common to both with so 
many other philosophers, affords no suffi¬ 
cient ground for the supposition. Had he 
been habitually influenced by Mr. Hume, 
who has translated so many of the dark and 
crabbed passages of Butler into his own 
transparent and beautiful language, it is not 
possible to suppose that such a mind as that 
of Paley would have fallen into those prin¬ 
ciples of gross selfishness of which Mr. Hume 
is a uniform and zealous antagonist. 

The natural frame of Paley’s under¬ 
standing fitted it more for business and the 
world than for philosophy; and he accord¬ 
ingly enjoyed with considerable relish the 
few opportunities which the latter part of 
his life afforded of taking a part in the 
affairs of his county as a magistrate. Pene¬ 
tration and shrewdness, firmness and cool¬ 
ness, a vein of pleasantry, fruitful though 
somewhat unrefined, with an original home¬ 
liness and significancy of expression, were 
perhaps more remarkable in his conversa¬ 
tion, than the restraints of authorship and 
profession allowed them to be in his writ¬ 
ings. Grateful remembrance brings this 
assemblage of qualities with unfaded colours 
before the mind at the present moment, after 
the long interval of twenty-eight years. His 
taste for the common business and ordinary 
amusements of life fortunately gave a zest 
to the company which his neighbours chanced 
to yield, without rendering him insensible 
to the pleasures of intercourse with more 
enlightened society. The practical bent of 
his nature is visible in the language of his 
writings, which, on practical matters, is as 
precise as the nature of the subject requires, 
but, in his rare and reluctant efforts to rise 
to first principles, become indeterminate and 














MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


86 


unsatisfactory; though no man’s composition 
was more free from the impediments which 
hinder a man’s meaning from being quickly 
and clearly seen. He seldom distinguishes 
more exactly than is required for palpable 
and direct usefulness. He possessed that 
chastised acuteness of discrimination, exer¬ 
cised on the affairs of men, and habitually 
looking to a purpose beyond the mere in¬ 
crease of knowledge, which forms the cha¬ 
racter of a lawyer’s understanding, and which 
is apt to render a mere lawyer too subtile 
for the management of affairs, and yet too 
gross for the pursuit of general truth. His 
style is as near perfection in its kind as any 
in our language. Perhaps no words were 
ever more expressive and illustrative than 
those in which he represents the art of life to 
be that of rightly “ setting our habits.” 

The most original and ingenious of his 
writings is the Horae Paulinae. The Evi¬ 
dences of Christianity are formed out of an 
admirable translation of Butler’s Analogy, 
and a most skilful abridgment of Lardner’s 
Credibility of the Gospel History. He may 
be said to have thus given value to two 
works, of which the first was scarcely intel¬ 
ligible to the majority of those who were 
most desirous of profiting by it; while the 
second soon wearies out the larger part of 
readers, though the more patient few have 
almost always been gradually won over to 
feel pleasure in a display of knowledge, pro¬ 
bity, charity, and meekness, unmatched by 
any other avowed advocate in a case deeply 
interesting his warmest feelings. His Na¬ 
tural Theology is the wonderful work of a 
man who, after sixty, had studied Anatomy 
in order to write it; and it could only have 
been surpassed by one who, to great ori¬ 
ginality of conception and clearness of ex¬ 
position, adds the advantage of a high place 
in the first class of physiologists.* 

It would be unreasonable here to say 
much of a work which is in the hands of so 
many as his Moral and Political Philosophy. 


* See Animal Mechanics, by Mr. Charles Bell, 
published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
Knowledge. 


A very few remarks on one or two parts of 
it may be sufficient to estimate his value as 
a moralist, and to show his defects as a me¬ 
taphysician. His general account of Virtue 
may indeed be chosen for both purposes. 
The manner in which he deduces the neces¬ 
sary tendency of all virtuous actions to pro¬ 
mote general happiness, from the goodness 
of the Divine Lawgiver (though the prin¬ 
ciple be not, as has already more than once 
appeared, peculiar to him, but rather com¬ 
mon to most religious philosophers), is cha¬ 
racterised by a clearness and vigour which 
have never been surpassed. It is indeed 
nearly, if not entirely, an identical propo¬ 
sition, that a Being of unmixed benevolence 
will prescribe those laws only to His crea¬ 
tures which contribute to their well-being. 
When we are convinced that a course of 
conduct is generally beneficial to all men, 
we cannot help considering it as acceptable 
to a benevolent Deity. The usefulness of 
actions is the mark set on them by the 
Supreme Legislator, by which reasonable 
beings discover it to be His will that such 
actions should be done. In this apparently 
unanswerable deduction it is partly admitted, 
and universally implied, that the principles 
of Right and Wrong may be treated apart 
from the manifestation of them in the Scrip¬ 
tures. If it were otherwise, how could men 
of perfectly different religions deal or reason 
with each other on moral subjects ? How 
could they regard rights and duties as sub¬ 
sisting between them ? To what common 
principles could they appeal in their differ¬ 
ences ? Even the Polytheists themselves, 
those worshippers of 

Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, 

Whose attributes are rage, revenge, or lust, * 

by a happy inconsistency are compelled, 
however irregularly and imperfectly, to as¬ 
cribe some general enforcement of the moral 
code to their divinities. If there were no 
foundation for Morality antecedent to Re¬ 
vealed Religion, we should want that im¬ 
portant test of the conformity of a revela- 


* Essay on Man, Ep. iii. 















PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 87 


tion to pure morality, by which its claim to 
a divine origin is to be tried. The internal 
evidence of Religion necessarily presupposes 
such a standard. The Christian contrasts 
the precepts of the Koran with the pure 
and benevolent morality of the Gospel. The 
Mahometan claims, with justice, a supe¬ 
riority over the Hindoo, inasmuch as the 
Mussulman religion inculcates the moral 
perfection of one Supreme Ruler of the 
world. The ceremonial and exclusive cha¬ 
racter of Judaism has ever been regarded 
as an indication that it was intended to pave 
the way for an universal religion, a morality 
seated in the heart, and a worship of sublime 
simplicity. These discussions would be im¬ 
possible, unless Morality were previously 
proved or granted to exist. Though the 
science of Ethics is thus far independent, it 
by no means follows that there is any equal¬ 
ity, or that there may not be the utmost 
inequality, in the moral tendency of religi¬ 
ous systems. The most ample scope is still 
left for the zeal and activity of those who 
seek to spread important truth. But it is 
absolutely essential to ethical science that it 
should contain principles, the authority of 
which must be recognised by men of every 
conceivable variety of religious opinion. 

The peculiarities of Paley’s mind are dis¬ 
coverable in the comparison, or rather con¬ 
trast, between the practical chapter on Hap¬ 
piness, and the philosophical portion of the 
chapter on Virtue. “Virtue is the doing 
good to mankind, in obedience to the will of 
God, and for the sake of everlasting happi¬ 
ness.” * It is not perhaps very important to 
observe, that these words, which he offers 
as a “ definition,” ought in propriety to 
have been called a “ proposition; ” but it is 
much more necessary to say that they con¬ 
tain a false account of Virtue. According 
to this doctrine, every action not done for 
the sake of the agent’s happiness is vicious. 
Now, it is plain that an act cannot be said 
to be done for the sake of anything which is 
not present to the mind of the agent at the 
moment of action : it is a contradiction in 


* Book i. chap. vii. 


terms to affirm that a man acts for the sake 
of any object* of which, however it may be 
the necessary consequence of his act, he is 
not at the time fully aware. The unfelt 
consequences of his act can no more influ¬ 
ence his will than its unknown consequences. 
Nay, further, a man is only with any pro¬ 
priety said to act for the sake of his chief 
object; nor can he with entire correctness 
be said to act for the sake of anything but 
his sole object. So that it is a necessary 
consequence of Paley’s proposition, that 
every act which flows from generosity or 
benevolence is a vice ; — so also is every act 
of obedience to the will of God, if it arises 
from any motive but a desire of the reward 
which He will bestow. Any act of obedi¬ 
ence influenced by gratitude, and affection, 
and veneration towards Supreme Benevo¬ 
lence and Perfection, is so far imperfect; 
and if it arises solely from these motives it 
becomes a vice. It must be owned, that this 
excellent and most enlightened man has laid 
the foundations of Religion and Virtue in a 
more intense and exclusive selfishness than 
was avowed by the Catholic enemies of Fe- 
nelon, when they persecuted him for his 
doctrine of a pure and disinterested love of 
God. 

In another province, of a very subordi¬ 
nate kind, the disposition of Paley to limit 
his principles to his own time and country, 
and to look at them merely as far as they 
are calculated to amend prevalent vices and 
errors, betrayed him into narrow and false 
views. His chapter on what he calls the 
“ Law of Honour” is unjust, even in its 
own small sphere, because it supposes Ho¬ 
nour to allow what it does not forbid; though 
the truth be, that the vices enumerated by 
him are only not forbidden by Honour, be¬ 
cause they are not within its jurisdiction. 
He considers it as “ a system of rules con¬ 
structed by people of fashion; ” — a con¬ 
fused and transient mode of expression, 
which may be understood with difficulty by 
our posterity, and which cannot now be ex¬ 
actly rendered perhaps in any other lan¬ 
guage. The subject, however, thus nar¬ 
rowed and lowered, is neither unimportant 







88 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


in practice, nor unworthy of the consider¬ 
ation of the moral philosopher. Though all 
mankind honour Virtue and despise Vice, 
the degree of respect or contempt is often 
far from being proportioned to the place 
which virtues and vices occupy in a just 
system of ethics. Wherever higher honour 
is bestowed on one moral quality than on 
others of equal or greater moral value, what 
is called a “ point of honour ” may he said to 
exist. It is singular that so shrewd an ob¬ 
server as Paley should not have observed a 
law of honour far more permanent than that 
which attracted his notice, in the feelings of 
Europe respecting the conduct of men and 
women. Cowardice is not so immoral as 
cruelty, nor indeed so detestable: but it is 
more despicable and disgraceful: the female 
point of honour forbids indeed a great vice, 
but one not so great as many others by 
which it is not violated. It is easy enough 
to see, that where we are strongly prompted 
to a virtue by a natural impulse, we love 
the man who is constantly actuated by the 
amiable sentiment; but we do not consider 
that which is done without difficulty as re¬ 
quiring or deserving admiration and dis¬ 
tinction. The kind affections are their own 
rich reward, and they are the object of 
affection to others. To encourage kindness 
by praise would be to insult it, and to en¬ 
courage hypocrisy. It is for the conquest 
of fear, it would be still more for the con¬ 
quest of resentment, — if that were not, 
wherever it is real, the cessation of a state 
of mental agony, — that the applause of 
mankind is reserved. Observations of a 
similar nature will easily occur to every 
reader respecting the point of honour in the 
other sex. The conquest of natural frailties, 
especially in a case of far more importance 
to mankind than is at first sight obvious, is 
well distinguished as an object of honour, 
and the contrary vice is punished by shame. 
Honour is not wasted on those who abstain 
from acts which are punished by the law. 
These acts may be avoided without a pure 
motive. Wherever a virtue is easily culti¬ 
vable by good men ; wherever it is by nature 
attended by delight; wherever its outward 


observance is so necessary to society as to 
be enforced by punishment, it is not the 
proper object of honour. Honour and shame, 
therefore, may be reasonably dispensed, 
without being strictly proportioned to the 
intrinsic morality of actions, if the inequality 
of their distribution contributes to the gene¬ 
ral equipoise of the whole moral system. 
A wide disproportion, however, or indeed 
any disproportion not justifiable on moral 
grounds, would be a depravation of the 
moral principle. Duelling is among us a 
disputed case, though the improvement of 
manners has rendered it so much more in¬ 
frequent, that it is likely in time to lose its 
support from opinion. Those who excuse 
individuals for yielding to a false point of 
honour, as in the suicides of the Greeks and 
Romans, may consistently blame the faulty 
principle, and rejoice in its destruction. 
The shame fixed on a Hindoo widow of 
rank who voluntarily survives her husband, 
is regarded by all other nations with horror. 

There is room for great praise and some 
blame in other parts of Paley’s work. His 
political opinions were those generally 
adopted by moderate Whigs in his own age. 
His language on the Revolution of 1688 may 
be very advantageously compared, both in 
precision and in generous boldness *, to that 
of Blackstone, — a great master of classical 
and harmonious composition, but a feeble 
reasoner and a confused thinker, whose 
writings are not exempt from the charge of 
slavishness. 

It cannot be denied that Paley was some¬ 
times rather a lax moralist, especially on 
public duties. It is a sin which easily besets 
men of strong good sense, little enthusiasm, 

* “ Government may be too secure. The greatest 
tyrants have been those whose titles were the most 
unquestioned. Whenever, therefore, the opinion of 
right becomes too predominant and superstitious, 
it is abated by breaking the custom. Thus the Revo¬ 
lution broke the custom of succession, and thereby- 
moderated, both in the prince and in the people, 
those lofty notions of hereditary right, which in the 
one were become a continual incentive to tyranny, 
and disposed the other to invite servitude, by undue 
compliances and dangerous concessions.”—Book vi. 
chap. 2. 










PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 89 

and much experience. They are naturally 
led to lower their precepts to the level of 
their expectations. They see that higher 
pretensions often produce less good, — to 
say nothing of the hypocrisy, extravagance, 
and turbulence, which they may be said to 
foster. As those who claim more from men 
often gain less, it is natural for more sober 
and milder casuists to present a more ac¬ 
cessible Virtue to their followers. It was 
thus that the Jesuits began, till, strongly 
tempted by their perilous station as the 
moral guides of the powerful, some of them 
by degrees fell into that absolute licentious¬ 
ness for which all, not without injustice, 
have been cruelly immortalised by Pascal. 
Indulgence, which is a great virtue in judg¬ 
ment concerning the actions of others, is too 
apt, when blended in the same system with 
the precepts of Morality, to be received as a 
licence for our own offences. Accommo¬ 
dation, without which society would be pain¬ 
ful, and arduous affairs would become im¬ 
practicable, is more safely imbibed from 
temper and experience, than taught in early 
and systematic instruction. The middle 
region between laxity and rigour is hard to 
be defined ; and it is still harder steadily to 
remain within its boundaries. Whatever 
may be thought of Paley’s observations on 
political influence and ecclesiastical sub¬ 
scription to tests, as temperaments and miti¬ 
gations which may preserve us from harsh 
judgment, they are assuredly not well qua¬ 
lified to form a part of that discipline which 
ought to breathe into the opening souls of 
youth, at the critical period of the forma¬ 
tion of character, those inestimable virtues 
of sincerity, of integrity, of independence, 
which will even guide them more safely 
through life than will mere prudence ; while 
they provide an inward fountain of pure 
delight, immeasurably more abundant than 
all the outward sources of precarious and 
perishable pleasure. 

JEREMY BENTHAM.* 

The general scheme of this Dissertation 

i would be a sufficient reason for omitting the 
name of a living writer. The devoted at¬ 
tachment and invincible repugnance which 
an impartial estimate of Mr. Bentham has to 
encounter on either side, are a strong in- 
! ducement not to deviate from that scheme 
| in his case. But the most brief sketch of 
ethical controversy in England would be 
imperfect without it; and perhaps the utter 
hopelessness of finding any expedient for 
satisfying his followers, or softening his op¬ 
ponents, may enable a writer to look steadily 
and solely at what he believes to be the dic¬ 
tates of Truth and Justice. He who has 
spoken of former philosophers with un¬ 
reserved freedom, ought perhaps to subject 
his courage and honesty to the severest test 
by an attempt to characterise such a con¬ 
temporary. Should the very few who are 
at once enlightened and unbiassed be of 
opinion that his firmness and equity have 
stood this trial, they will be the more dis¬ 
posed to trust his fairness where the ex¬ 
ercise of that quality may have been more 
easy. 

The disciples of Mr. Bentham are more 
like the hearers of an Athenian philosopher 
than the pupils of a modern professor, or 
the cool proselytes of a modern writer. 
They are in general men of competent age, 
of superior understanding, who voluntarily 
embrace the laborious study of useful and 
noble sciences; who derive their opinions, 
not so much from the cold perusal of his 
writings, as from familiar converse with a 
master from whose lips these opinions are 
recommended by simplicity, disinterested¬ 
ness, originality, and vivacity,—aided rather 
than impeded by foibles not unamiable, — 
enforced of late by the growing authority of 
years and of fame, and at all times strength¬ 
ened by that undoubting reliance on his 
own judgment which mightily increases the 
ascendant of such a man over those who ap¬ 
proach him. As he and they deserve the 
credit of braving vulgar prejudices, so they 
must be content to incur the imputation of 
falling into the neighbouring vices of seek¬ 
ing distinction by singularity, — of clinging 
to opinions, because they are obnoxious, — 

* Born, 1748; died, 1832.—En. 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


90 


of wantonly wounding the most respectable 
feelings of mankind, — of regarding an im¬ 
mense display of method and nomenclature 
as a sure token of a corresponding increase 
of knowledge, — and of considering them¬ 
selves as a chosen few, whom an initiation 
into the most secret mysteries of Philosophy 
entitles to look down with pity, if not con¬ 
tempt, on the profane multitude. Viewed 
with aversion or dread by the public, they 
become more bound to each other and to 
their master; while they are provoked into 
the use of language which more and more 
exasperates opposition to them. A hermit 
in the greatest of cities, seeing only his dis¬ 
ciples, and indignant that systems of govern¬ 
ment and law which he believes to be per¬ 
fect, are disregarded at once by the many 
and the powerful, Mr. Bentham has at 
length been betrayed into the most unphi- 
losophical hypothesis, that all the ruling 
bodies who guide the community have con¬ 
spired to stifle and defeat his discoveries. 
He is too little acquainted with doubts to 
believe the honest doubts of others, and he 
is too angry to make allowance for their pre¬ 
judices and habits. He has embraced the 
most extreme party in practical politics; 
— manifesting more dislike and contempt 
towards those who are moderate supporters of 
popular principles than towards their most 
inflexible opponents. To the unpopularity 
of his philosophical and political doctrines 
he has added the more general and lasting 
obloquy due to the unseemly treatment of 
doctrines and principles which, if there were 
no other motives for reverential deference, 
ought, from a regard to the feelings of the 
best men, to be approached with decorum 
and respect. 

Fifty-three years have passed since the 
publication of Mr. Bentham’s first work, A 
Fragment on Government, — a considerable 
octavo volume, employed in the examination 
of a short paragraph of Blackstone, un¬ 
matched in acute hypercriticism, but con¬ 
ducted with a severity which leads to an 
unjust estimate of the writer criticised, till 
the like experiment be repeated on other 
writings. It was a waste of extraordinary 


power to employ it in pointing out flaws and 
patches in the robe occasionally stolen from 
the philosophical schools, which hung loosely, 
and not unbecomingly, on the elegant com¬ 
mentator. This volume, and especially the 
preface, abounds in fine, original, and just 
observation ; it contains the germs of most of 
his subsequent productions, and it is an early 
example of that disregard for the method, 
proportions, and occasion of a writing which, 
with all common readers, deeply affects its 
power of interesting or instructing. Two 
years after, he published a most excellent 
tract on the Hard Labour Bill, which, con¬ 
curring with the spirit excited by Howard’s 
inquiries, laid the foundation of just reason¬ 
ing on reformatory punishment. The Let¬ 
ters on Usury *, are perhaps the best speci¬ 
men of the exhaustive discussion of a moral 
or political question, leaving no objection, 
however feeble, unanswered, and no diffi¬ 
culty, however small, unexplained ; — re¬ 
markable also, as they are, for the clearness 
and spirit of the style, for the full exposition 


* They were addressed to Mr. George Wilson, 
who retired from the English bar to his native 
country, and died at Edinburgh in 1816; — an 
early friend of Mr. Bentham, and afterwards an 
intimate one of Lord Ellenborough, of Sir Vicary 
Gibbs, and of all the most eminent of his profes¬ 
sional contemporaries. The rectitude of judgment, 
purity of heart, elevation of honour, the sternness 
only in integrity, the scorn of baseness, and indul¬ 
gence towards weakness, which were joined in him 
with a gravity exclusive neither of feeling nor of 
pleasantry, contributed, still more than his abilities 
and attainments of various sorts, to a moral autho¬ 
rity with his friends, and in his profession, which 
few men more amply possessed, or more usefully 
exercised. The same character, somewhat softened, 
and the same influence, distinguished his closest 
friend, the late Mr. Lens. Both were inflexible and 
incorruptible friends of civil and religious liberty, 
and both knew how to reconcile the warmest zeal 
for that sacred cause, with a charity towards their 
opponents, which partisans, often more violent than 
steady, treated as lukewarm. The present writer 
hopes that the good-natured reader will excuse him 
for having thus, perhaps unseasonably, bestowed 
heartfelt commendation on those who were above 
the pursuit of praise, and the remembrance of whose 
good opinion and good-will help to support him 
under a deep sense of faults and vices. 











PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


which suits them to all intelligent readers, 
and for the tender and skilful hand with 
which prejudice is touched. The urbanity 
of the apology for projectors, addressed to 
Dr. Smith, whose temper and manner the 
author seems for a time to have imbibed, is 
admirable. 

The Introduction to the Principles of 
Morals and Politics, printed before the Let¬ 
ters, but published after them, was the first 
sketch of his system, and is still the only 
account of it by himself. The great merit 
of this work, and of his other writings in 
relation to Jurisprudence properly so called, 
is not within our present scope. To the 
Roman jurists belongs the praise of having 
allotted a separate portion of their Digest to 
the signification of the words of the most 
frequent use in law and legal discussion.* 
Mr. Bentham not only first perceived and 
taught the great value of an introductory 
section, composed of definitions of general 
terms, as subservient to brevity and preci¬ 
sion in every part of a code; but he also 
discovered the unspeakable importance of 
natural arrangement in Jurisprudence, by 
rendering the mere place of a proposed law 
in such an arrangement a short and easy test 
of the fitness of the proposal.f But here he 


* Digest, lib. i. tit. 16. De Verborum Significa- 
tione. 

f See a beautiful article on Codification, in the 
Edinburgh Review, vol. xxix. p. 217. It need no 
longer be concealed that it was contributed by Sir 
Samuel Romilly. The steadiness with which he 
held the balance in weighing the merits of his 
friend against his unfortunate defects, is an example 
of his union of the most commanding moral prin¬ 
ciple -with a sensibility so warm, that, if it had 
been released from that stern authority, it would 
not so long have endured the coarseness and rough¬ 
ness of human concerns. From the tenderness of 
his feelings, and from an anger never roused but 
by cruelty and baseness, as much as from his genius 
and his pure taste, sprung that original and cha¬ 
racteristic eloquence, which was the hope of the 
afflicted as well as the terror of the oppressor. If 
his oratory had not flowed so largely from this 
moral source, which years do not dry up, he would 
not perhaps have been the only example- of an 
orator who, after the age of sixty, daily increased j 
in polish, in vigour, and in splendour. 


91 

does not distinguish between the value of 
arrangement as scaffolding, and the inferior 
convenience of its being the very frame¬ 
work of the structure. He, indeed, is much 
more remarkable for laying down desirable 
rules for the determination of rights, and the 
punishment of wrongs, in general, than for 
weighing the various circumstances which 
require them to be modified in different 
countries and times, in order to render them 
either more useful, more easily introduced, 
more generally respected, or more certainly 
executed. The art of legislation consists in 
thus applying the principles of Jurisprudence 
to the situation, wants, interests, feelings, 
opinions, and habits, of each distinct com¬ 
munity at any given time. It bears the 
same relation to Jurisprudence which the 
mechanical arts bear to pure Mathematics. 
Many of these considerations serve to show, 
that the sudden establishment of new codes 
can seldom be practicable or effectual for 
their purpose ; and that reformations, though 
founded on the principles of Jurisprudence, 
ought to be not only adapted to the peculiar 
interests of a people, but engrafted on their 
previous usages, and brought into harmony 
with those national dispositions on which the 
execution of laws depends.* The Romans, 
under Justinian, adopted at least the true 
principle, if they did not apply it with suf¬ 
ficient freedom and boldness. They con¬ 
sidered the multitude of occasional laws, 
and the still greater mass of usages, opinions, 
and determinations, as the materials of legis¬ 
lation, not precluding, but demanding a sys¬ 
tematic arrangement of the whole by the 
supreme authority. Had the arrangement 
been more scientific, had there been a bolder 
examination and a more free reform of many 
particular branches, a model would have 
been offered for liberal imitation by modern 
lawgivers. It cannot be denied, without 

* An excellent medium between those who ab¬ 
solutely require new codes, and those who obsti¬ 
nately adhere to ancient usages, has been pointed 
out by M. Meyer, in his most justly celebrated 
work, Esprit, &c. des Institutions Judiciaires des 
Principaux Pays 1’Europe, La Haye, 1819, tome i. 
Introduction, p. 8. 








92 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

t 


injustice and ingratitude, that Mr. Bentham 
has done more than any other writer to 
rouse the spirit of juridical reformation, 
which is now gradually examining every 
part of law, and which, when further pro¬ 
gress is facilitated by digesting the present 
laws, will doubtless proceed to the improve¬ 
ment of all. Greater praise it is given to 
few to earn : it ought to satisfy him for the 
disappointment of hopes which were not 
reasonable, that Russia should receive a code 
from him, or that North America could be 
brought to renounce the variety of her laws 
and institutions, on the single authority of a 
foreign philosopher, whose opinions had not 
worked their way, either into legislation or 
into general reception, in his own country. 
It ought also to dispose his followers to do 
fuller justice to the Romillys and Broug¬ 
hams, without whose prudence and energy, 
as well as reason and eloquence, the best 
plans of reformation must have continued a 
dead letter ; — for whose sake it might have 
been fit to reconsider the obloquy heaped on 
their profession, and to show more general 
indulgence to all those whose chief offence 
seems to consist in their doubts whether 
sudden changes, almost always imposed by 
violence on a community, be the surest road 
to lasting improvement. 

It is unfortunate that ethical theory, with 
which we are now chiefly concerned, is not 
the province in which Mr. Bentham has 
reached the most desirable distinction. It 
may be remarked, both in ancient and in 
modern times, that whatever modifications 
prudent followers may introduce into the 
system of an innovator, the principles of the 
master continue to mould the habitual dis¬ 
positions, and to influence the practical ten¬ 
dency of the school. Mr. Bentham preaches 
the principle of Utility with the zeal of a 
discoverer. Occupied more in reflection 
than in reading, he knew not, or forgot, how 
often it had been the basis, and how gene¬ 
rally an essential part, of all moral systems.* 
That in which he really differs from others, 
is in the Necessity which he teaches, and the 


* See Note Y. 


example which he sets, of constantly bring¬ 
ing that principle before us. This pecu¬ 
liarity appears to us to be his radical error. 
In an attempt, of which the constitution of 
human nature forbids the success, he seems 
to us to have been led into fundamental 
errors in moral theory, and to have given to 
his practical doctrine a dangerous direction. 

The confusion of moral approbation with 
the moral qualities which are its objects, 
common to Mr. Bentham with many other 
philosophers, is much more uniform and 
prominent in him than in most others. This 
general- error, already mentioned at the 
opening of this Dissertation, has led him 
more than others to assume, that because 
the principle of Utility forms a necessary 
part of every moral theory, it ought there- 
.fore to be the chief motive of human con¬ 
duct. Now it is evident that this assumption, 
rather tacitly than avowedly made, is wholly 
gratuitous. No practical conclusion can be 
deduced from the principle, but that we 
ought to cultivate those habitual dispositions 
which are the most effectual motives to use¬ 
ful actions. But before a regard to our own 
interest, or a desire to promote the welfare 
of men in general, be allowed to be the ex¬ 
clusive, or even the chief regulators of hu¬ 
man conduct, it must be shown that they 
are the most effectual motives to such useful 
actions: it is demonstrated by experience 
that they are not. It is even owned by the 
most ingenious writers of Mr. Bentham’s 
school, that desires which are pointed to 
general and distant objects, although they 
have their proper place and their due value, 
are commonly very faint and ineffectual in¬ 
ducements to action. A theory founded on 
Utility, therefore, requires that we should 
cultivate, as excitements to practice, those 
other habitual dispositions which we know 
by experience to be generally the source 
of actions beneficial to ourselves and our 
fellows;—habits of feeling productive of 
habits of virtuous conduct, and in their turn 
strengthened by the reaction of these last. 
What is the result of experience on the 
choice of the objects of moral culture ? Be¬ 
yond all dispute, that we should labour to 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 9.3 


attain that state of mind in which all the 
social affections are felt with the utmost 
warmth, giving birth to more comprehensive 
benevolence, but not supplanted by it; — 
when the Moral Sentiments most strongly 
approve what is right and good, without 
being perplexed by a calculation of conse¬ 
quences, though not incapable of being gra¬ 
dually rectified by Reason, whenever they 
are decisively proved by experience not to 
correspond in some of their parts to the uni¬ 
versal and perpetual effects of conduct. It 
is a false representation of human nature 
to affirm that “courage” is only “pru¬ 
dence.” * They coincide in their effects, 
and it is always prudent to be courageous : 
but a man who fights became he thinks it 
more hazardous to yield, is not brave. He 
does not become brave till he feels coward¬ 
ice to be base and painful, and till he is no 
longer in need of any aid from prudence. 
Even if it were the interest of every man to 
be bold, it is clear that so cold a considera¬ 
tion cannot prevail over the fear of danger. 
Where it seems to do so, it must be by the 
unseen power either of the fear of shame, or 
of some other powerful passion, to which it 
lends its name. It was Ion" ago with strik¬ 
ing justice observed by Aristotle, that he 
who abstains from present gratification, 
under a distinct apprehension of its painful 
consequences, is only prudent , and that he 
must acquire a disrelish for excess on its 
own account, before he deserves the name of 
a temperate man. It is only when the means 
are firmly and unalterably converted into 
ends, that the process of forming the mind is 
completed. Courage may then seek, instead 
of avoiding danger: Temperance may pre¬ 
fer abstemiousness to indulgence: Prudence 


* Mill, Analysis of the Human Mind, vol. ii. 
p. 237. It would be unjust not to say that this 
book, partly perhaps from a larger adoption of the 
principles of Hartley, holds out fairer opportunities 
of negotiation with natural feelings and the doc¬ 
trines of former philosophers than any other pro¬ 
duction of the same school. But this very assertion 
about courage clearly shows at least a forgetfulness 
that courage, even if it were the offspring of pru¬ 
dence, would not for that reason be a species of it. 


itself may choose an orderly government of 
conduct, according to certain rules, without 
regard to the degree in which it promotes 
welfare. Benevolence must desire the hap¬ 
piness of others to the exclusion of the con¬ 
sideration how far it is connected with that 
of the benevolent agent; and those alone 
can be accounted just who obey the dictates 
of Justice from having thoroughly learned 
an habitual veneration for her strict rules 
and for her larger precepts. In that com¬ 
plete state the mind possesses no power of 
dissolving the combinations of thought and 
feeling which impel it to action. Nothing 
in this argument turns on the difference be¬ 
tween implanted and acquired principles. 
As no man can cease, by any act of his, to 
see distance, though the power of seeing it 
be universally acknowledged to be an acqui¬ 
sition, so no man has the power to extin¬ 
guish the affections and the moral senti¬ 
ments (however much they may be thought 
to be acquired), any more than that of eradi¬ 
cating the bodily appetites. The best wri¬ 
ters of Mr. Bentham’s school overlook the 
indissolubility of these associations, and ap¬ 
pear not to bear in mind that their strength 
and rapid action constitute the perfect state 
of a moral agent. 

The pursuit of our own- general welfare, 
or of that of mankind at large, though from 
their vagueness and coldness they are unfit 
habitual motives and unsafe ordinary guides 
of conduct, yet perform functions of essen¬ 
tial importance in the moral system. The 
former, which we call “ self-love,” preserves 
the balance of all the active principles which 
regard ourselves ultimately, and contributes 
to subject them to the authority of the moral 
principles.* The latter, which is general 
benevolence, regulates in like manner the 
equipoise of the narrower affections, — 
quickens the languid, and checks the en¬ 
croaching, — borrows strength from pity, 
and even from indignation, — receives some 
compensation, as it enlarges, in the addition 
of beauty and grandeur, for the weakness 
which arises from dispersion, — enables us 


* See Note W. 









94 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


to look on all men as brethren, and overflows 
on every sentient being. The general in¬ 
terest of mankind, in truth, almost solely 
affects us through the affections of bene¬ 
volence and sympathy; for the coincidence 
of general with individual interest, — even 
where it is certain, —is too dimly seen to pro¬ 
duce any emotion which can impel to, or re¬ 
strain from, action. As a general truth, its 
value consists in its completing the triumph 
of Morality, by demonstrating the absolute 
impossibility of forming any theory of human 
nature which does not preserve the supe¬ 
riority of Virtue over Vice; — a great, 
though not a directly practical advantage. 

The followers of Mr. Bentham have car¬ 
ried to an unusual extent the prevalent fault 
of the more modern advocates of Utility, who 
have dwelt so exclusively on the outward 
advantages of Virtue as to have lost sight of 
the delight which is a part of virtuous feel¬ 
ing, and of the beneficial influence of good 
actions upon the frame of the mind. “Bene¬ 
volence towards others,” says Mr. Mill, 
“produces a return of benevolence from 
them.” The fact is true, and ought to be 
stated; but how unimportant is it in com¬ 
parison with that which is passed over in 
silence,—the pleasure of the affection itself, 
which, if it could become lasting and intense, 
would convert the heart into a heaven! No 
one who has ever felt kindness, if he could 
accurately recall his feelings, could hesitate 
about their infinite superiority. The cause 
of the general neglect of this consideration 
is, that it is only when a gratification is 
something distinct from a state of mind, that 
we can easily learn to consider it as a plea¬ 
sure. Hence the great error respecting the 
affections, where the inherent delight is not 
duly estimated, on account of that very pe¬ 
culiarity of its being a part of a state of 
mind which renders it unspeakably more 
valuable as independent of every thing with¬ 
out. The social affections are the only prin¬ 
ciples of human nature which have no direct 
pains: to have any of these desires is to be in 
a state of happiness. The malevolent pas¬ 
sions have properly no pleasures; for that 
attainment of their purpose which is impro¬ 


perly so called, consists only in healing or 
assuaging the torture which envy ? jealousy, 
and malice inflict on the malignant mind. 
It might with as much propriety be said that 
the tooth-ache and the stone have pleasures, 
because their removal is followed by an 
agreeable feeling. These bodily disorders, 
indeed, are often cured by the process which 
removes the suffering; but the mental dis¬ 
tempers of envy and revenge are nourished 
by every act of odious indulgence which for 
a moment suspends their pain. 

. The same observation is applicable to 
every virtuous disposition, though not so 
obviously as to the benevolent affections. 
That a brave man is, on the whole, far less 
exposed to danger than a coward, is not the 
chief advantage of a courageous temper. 
Great dangers are rare; but the constant 
absence of such painful and mortifying 
sensations as those of fear, and the steady 
consciousness of superiority to what subdues 
ordinary men, are a perpetual source of in¬ 
ward enjoyment. No man who has ever 
been visited by a gleam of magnanimity, can 
place any outward advantage of fortitude in 
comparison with the feeling of being always 
able fearlessly to defend a righteous cause.* 
Even humility, in spite of first appearances, 
is a remarkable example;—though it has of 
late been unwarrantably used to signify that 
painful consciousness of inferiority which is 
the first stage of envy.f It is a term conse¬ 
crated in Christian Ethics to denote that dis¬ 
position which, by inclining towards a modest 
estimate of our qualities, corrects the pre¬ 
valent tendency of human nature to over¬ 
value our merits and to overrate our claims. 
What can be a less doubtful, or a much 

* According to Cicero’s definition of fortitude, 
‘ Virtus pugnans pro sequitate.” The remains of 
the original sense of “virtus,” manhood, give a 
beauty and force to these expressions, which can¬ 
not be preserved in our language. The Greek 
“ ipri 5,” and the German “ tugend,” originally de¬ 
noted “strength,” afterwards “courage,” and at 
last “ virtue.” But the happy derivation of “ vir¬ 
tus” from “ vir” gives an energy to the phrase of 
Cicero, which illustrates the use of etymology in 
the hands of a skilful writer. 

t Anal. Hum. Mind, vol. ii. p. 222, 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


95 


more considerable blessing than this constant 
sedative, which soothes and composes the 
irritable passions of vanity and pride ? What 
is more conducive to lasting peace of mind 
than the consciousness of proficiency in that 
most delicate species of equity which, in the 
secret tribunal of Conscience, labours to be 
impartial in the comparison of ourselves with 
others ? What can so perfectly assure us of 
the purity of our Moral Sense, as the habit 
of contemplating, not that excellence which 
we have reached, but that which is still to be 
pursued*, — of not considering how far we 
may outrun others, but how far we are from 
the goal ? 

Virtue has often outward advantages, and 
always inward delights; but the last, though 
constant, strong, inaccessible, and inviolable, 
are not easily considered by the common 
observer as apart from the form with which 
they are blended. They are so subtile and 
evanescent as to escape the distinct contem¬ 
plation of all but the very few who meditate 
on the acts of the mind. The outward ad¬ 
vantages, on the other hand, — cold, uncer¬ 
tain, dependent, and precarious as they are, 
— yet stand out to the sense and to the 
memory, may be as it were handled and 
counted, and are perfectly on a level with 
the general apprehension. Hence they have 
become the almost exclusive theme of all 
moralists who profess to follow Reason. 
There is room for suspecting that a very 
general illusion prevails on this subject. 
Probably the smallest part of the pleasure 
of Virtue, because it is the most palpable, 
has become the sign and mental represent¬ 
ative of the whole ; the outward and visible 
sign suggests only insensibly the inward and 
mental delight. Those who are prone to 
display chiefly the external benefits of mag¬ 
nanimity and kindness, would speak with far 
less fervour, and perhaps less confidence, if 
their feelings were not unconsciously affected 
by the mental state which is overlooked in 
their statements. But when they speak of 
what is without , they feel what was within , 


* For a description of vanity, by a great orator, 
see the Rev. R. Hall’s Sermon on Modern Infidelity. 


and their words excite the same feeling in 
others. 

Is it not probable that much of our love 
of praise may be thus ascribed to humane 
and sociable pleasure in the sympathy of 
others with us ? Praise is the symbol 
which represents sympathy, and which the 
mind insensibly substitutes for it in recol¬ 
lection and in language. Does not the de¬ 
sire of posthumous fame, in like manner, 
manifest an ambition for the fellow-feeling 
of our race, when it is perfectly unpro¬ 
ductive of any advantage to ourselves ? In 
this point of view, it may be considered as 
the passion the very existence of which 
proves the mighty power of disinterested 
desire. Every other pleasure from sym¬ 
pathy is derived from contemporaries: the 
love of fame alone seeks the sympathy of 
unborn generations, and stretches the chain 
which binds the race of man together, to an 
extent to which Hope sets no bounds. 
There is a noble, even if unconscious union 
of Morality with genius in the mind of him 
who sympathizes with the masters who 
lived twenty centuries before him, in order 
that he may learn to command the sym¬ 
pathies of the countless generations who are 
to come. 

In the most familiar, as well as in the 
highest instances, it would seem, that the 
inmost thoughts and sentiments of men are 
more pure than their language. Those who 
speak of “ a regard to character,” if they be 
serious, generally infuse into that word, un¬ 
awares, a large portion of that sense in which 
it denotes the frame of the mind. Those 
who speak of “ honour ” very often mean a 
more refined and delicate sort of conscience, 
which ought to render the more educated 
classes of society alive to such smaller wrongs 
as the laborious and the ignorant can 
scarcely feel. What heart does not warm 
at the noble exclamation of the ancient 
poet: “ Who is pleased by false honour, or 
frightened by lying infamy, but he who is 
false and depraved! ” * Every uncorrupted 
mind feels unmerited praise as a bitter re- 


* Horat. Epistol. lib. i. 16. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


96 

proach, and regards a consciousness of de¬ 
merit as a drop of poison in the cup of 
honour. How different is the applause which 
truly delights us all, a proof that the con¬ 
sciences of others are in harmony with our 
own! “ What,” says Cicero, “ is glory but 
the concurring praise of the good, the un¬ 
bought approbation of those who judge 
aright of excellent virtue! ” * A far greater 
than Cicero rises from the purest praise of 
man, to more sublime contemplations. 

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 

But lives and spreads aloft, by those pure eyes 

And perfect witness of all-judging Jove.f 

Those who have most earnestly incul¬ 
cated the doctrine of Utility have given 
another notable example of the very vulgar 
prejudice which treats the unseen as in¬ 
significant. Tucker is the only one of them 
who occasionally considers that most im¬ 
portant effect of human conduct which con¬ 
sists in its action on the frame of the mind, 
by fitting its faculties and sensibilities for 
their appointed purpose. A razor or a pen¬ 
knife would well enough cut cloth or meat; 
but if they were often so used, they would 
be entirely spoiled. The same sort of ob¬ 
servation is much more strongly applicable 
to habitual dispositions, which, if they be 
spoiled, we have no certain means of re¬ 
placing or mending. Whatever act, there¬ 
fore, discomposes the moral machinery of 
Mind, is more injurious to the welfare of the 
agent than most disasters from without can 
be: for the latter are commonly limited and 
temporary; the evil of the former spreads 
through the whole of life. Health of mind, 
as well as of body, is not only productive in 
itself of a greater sum of enjoyment than 
arises from other sources, but is the only 
condition of our frame in which we are 
capable of receiving pleasure from without. 
Hence it appears how incredibly absurd it 
is to prefer, on grounds of calculation, a 
present interest to the preservation of those 


* Probably quoted memoriter from De Fin. lib. iv. 
cap. 23 .—Ed. 
f Lycidas, 1. 78. 


mental habits on which our well-being de¬ 
pends. When they are most moral, they 
may often prevent us from obtaining ad¬ 
vantages : but it would be as absurd to 
desire to lower them for that reason, as it 
would be to weaken the body, lest its 
strength should render it more liable to 
contagious disorders of rare occurrence. 

It is, on the other hand, impossible to 
combine the benefit of the general habit 
with the advantages of occasional deviation; 
for every such deviation either produces re¬ 
morse, or weakens the habit, and prepares 
the way for its gradual destruction. He 
who obtains a fortune by the undetected 
forgery of a will, may indeed be honest in 
his other acts; but if he had such a scorn 
of fraud before as he must himself allow to 
be generally useful, he must suffer a severe 
punishment from contrition; and he will be 
haunted with the fears of one who has lost 
his own security for his good conduct. In 
all cases, if they be well examined, his loss 
by the distemper of his mental frame will 
outweigh the profits of his vice. 

By repeating the like observation on simi¬ 
lar occasions, it will be manifest that the 
infirmity of recollection, aggravated by the 
defects of language, gives an appearance 
of more selfishness to man than truly belongs 
to his nature ; and that the effect of active 
agents upon the habitual state of mind, — 
one of the considerations to which the epi¬ 
thet “ sentimental ” has of late been applied 
in derision, — is really among the most seri¬ 
ous and reasonable objects of Moral Phi¬ 
losophy. When the internal pleasures and 
pains which accompany good and bad feel¬ 
ings, or rather form a part of them, and the 
internal advantages and disadvantages which 
follow good and bad actions, are sufficiently 
considered, the comparative importance of 
outward consequences will be more and more 
narrowed; so that the Stoical philosopher 
may be thought almost excusable for reject¬ 
ing it altogether, were it not an indispensably 
necessary consideration for those in whom 
right habits of feeling are not sufficiently 
strong. They alone are happy, or even 
truly virtuous, who have little need of it. 











PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


The later moralists who adopt the prin¬ 
ciple of Utility, have so misplaced it, that in 
their hands it has as great-a tendency as any 
theoretical error can have, to lessen the in¬ 
trinsic pleasure of Virtue, and to unfit our 
habitual feelings for being the most effectual 
inducements to good conduct. This is the 
natural tendency of a discipline which brings 
Utility too closely and frequently into con¬ 
tact with action. By this habit, in its best 
state, an essentially Weaker motive is gra¬ 
dually substituted for others which must 
always be of more force. The frequent ap¬ 
peal to Utility as the standard of action 
tends to introduce an uncertainty with 
respect to the conduct of other men, which 
would render all intercourse with them in¬ 
supportable. It affords also so faff a disguise 
for selfish and malignant passions, as often to 
hide their nature from him who is their prey. 
Some taint of these mean and evil principles 
will at least spread itself, and a venomous 
animation, not its own, will be given to the 
cold desire of Utility. Moralists who take 
an active part in those affairs which often 
call out unamiable passions, ought to guard 
with peculiar watchfulness against such self- 
delusions. The sin that must most easily 
beset them, is that of sliding from general to 
particular consequences, — that of trying 
single actions, instead of dispositions, habits, 
and rules, by the standard of Utility, — that 
of authorising too great a latitude for dis¬ 
cretion and policy in moral conduct, — that 
of readily allowing exceptions to the most 
important rules, — that of too lenient a cen¬ 
sure of the use of doubtful means, when the 
end seems to them good, — and that of be¬ 
lieving unphilosophically, as well as danger¬ 
ously, that there can be any measure or 
scheme so useful to the world as the exist¬ 
ence of men who would not do a base thing 
for any public advantage. It was said of 
Andrew Fletcher, “ that he would lose his 
life to serve his country, but would not do a 
base thing to save it.” Let those preachers 
of Utility who suppose that such a man 
sacrifices ends to means , consider whether the 
scorn of baseness be not akin to the contempt 
of danger, and whether a nation composed 


97 

of such men would not be invincible. But 
theoretical principles are counteracted by a 
thousand causes, which confine their mischief 
as well as circumscribe their benefits. Men 
are never so good or so bad as their opinions. 
All that can be with reason apprehended is, 
that these last may always produce some 
part of their natural evil, and that the mis¬ 
chief will be greatest among the many who 
seek excuses for their passions. Aristippus 
found in the Socratic representation of the 
union of virtue and happiness a pretext for 
sensuality; and many Epicureans became 
voluptuaries in spite of the example of their 
master, — easily dropping by degrees the 
limitations by which he guarded his doc¬ 
trines. In proportion as a man accustoms 
himself to be influenced by the utility of 
particular acts, without regard to rules, he 
approaches to the casuistry of the Jesuits, 
and to the practical maxims of Caesar 
Borgia. 

Injury on this, as on other occasions, has 
been suffered by Ethics, from their close 
affinity to Jurisprudence. The true and 
eminent merit of Mr. Bentham is that of a 
reformer of Jurisprudence: he is only a 
moralist with a view to being a jurist; and 
he sometimes becomes for a few hurried 
moments a metaphysician with a view to 
laying the foundation of both the moral sci¬ 
ences. Both he and his followers have treated 
Ethics too juridically: they do not seem to 
be aware, or at least they do not bear con¬ 
stantly in mind, that there is an essential 
difference in the subjects of these two sci¬ 
ences. 

The object of law is the prevention of 
actions injurious to the community : it con¬ 
siders the dispositions from which they flow 
only indirectly , to ascertain the likelihood of 
their recurrence, and thus to determine the 
necessity and the means of preventing them. 
The direct object of Ethics is only mental 
disposition: it considers actions indirectly as 
the signs by which such dispositions are 
manifested. If it were possible for the mere 
moralist to see that a moral and amiable 
temper was the mental source of a bad ac¬ 
tion, he could not cease to approve and love 


H 







MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


98 


the temper, as we sometimes presume to 
suppose may be true of the judgments of the 
Searcher of Hearts. Religion necessarily 
coincides with Morality in this respect; and 
it is the peculiar distinction of Christianity 
that it places the seat of virtue in the heart. 
Law and Ethics are necessarily so much 
blended, that in many intricate combinations 
the distinction becomes obscure: but in all 
strong cases the difference is evident. Thus, 
law punishes the most sincerely repentant; 
but wherever the soul of the penitent can be 
thought to be thoroughly purified, Religion 
and Morality receive him with open arms. 

It is needless, after these remarks, to ob¬ 
serve, that those whose habitual contempla¬ 
tion is directed to the rules of action, are 
likely to underrate the importance of feeling 
and disposition; — an error of very unfor¬ 
tunate consequences, since the far greater 
part of human actions flow from these neg¬ 
lected sources; while the law interposes only 
in cases which may be called exceptions, 
which are now rare, and ought to be less 
frequent. 

The coincidence of Mr. Bentham’s school 
with the ancient Epicureans in the disregard 
of the pleasures of taste and of the arts de¬ 
pendent on imagination, is a proof both of 
the inevitable adherence of much of the 
popular sense of the words “interest” and 
“ pleasure,” to the same words in their phi¬ 
losophical acceptation, and of the pernicious 
influence of narrowing Utility to mere visible 
and tangible objects, to the exclusion of 
those which form the larger part of human 
enjoyment. 

The mechanical philosophers who, under 
Descartes and Gassendi, began to reform 
Physics in the seventeenth century, at¬ 
tempted to explain all the appearances of 
nature by an immediate reference to the 
figure of particles of matter impelling each 
other in various directions, and with unequal 
force, but in all other points alike. The 
communication of motion by impulse they 
conceived to be perfectly simple and intel¬ 
ligible. It never occurred to them, that 
the movement of one ball when another 
is driven against it, is a fact of which no 


explanation can be given which will amount 
to more than a statement of its constant 
occurrence. That no body can act where it 
is not, appeared to them as self-evident as 
that the whole is equal to all the parts. By 
this axiom they understood that no body 
moves another without touching it. They 
did not perceive, that it was only self-evident 
where it means that no body can act where 
it has not the power of acting ; and that if it 
be understood more largely, it is a mere 
assumption of the proposition on which their 
whole system- rested. Sir Isaac Newton 
reformed Physics, not by simplifying that 
science, but by rendering it much more 
complicated. He introduced into it the 
force of attraction, of which he ascertained 
many laws, but which even he did not dare 
to represent as being as intelligible, and as 
conceivably ultimate as impulsion itself. It 
was necessary for Laplace to introduce in¬ 
termediate laws, and to calculate disturbing 
forces, before the phenomena of the heavenly 
bodies could be reconciled even to Newton’s 
more complex theory. In the present state 
of physical and chemical knowledge, a man 
who should attempt to refer all the immense 
variety of facts to the simple impulse of the 
Cartesians, would have no chance of serious 
confutation. The number of laws augments 

o 

with the progress of knowledge. 

The speculations of the followers of Mr. 
Bentham are not unlike the unsuccessful 
attempt of the Cartesians. Mr. Mill, for 
example, derives the whole theory of Go¬ 
vernment* from the single fact, that every 
man pursues his interest when he knows it; 
which he assumes to be a sort of self-evident 
practical principle, — if such a phrase be not 
contradictory. That a man’s pursuing the 
interest of another, or indeed any other 
object in nature, is just as conceivable as that 
he should pursue his own interest, is a pro¬ 
position which seems never to have occurred 
to this acute and ingenious writer. Nothing, 
however, can be more certain than its truth, 
if the term “interest” be employed in its 
proper sense of general well-being, which is 


* Encyc. Brit., article “ Government.” 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 99 


the only acceptation in which it can serve 
the purpose of his arguments. If, indeed, 
the term be employed to denote the gratifi¬ 
cation of a predominant desire, his propo¬ 
sition is self-evident, but wholly unservice¬ 
able in his argument; for it is clear that 
individuals and multitudes often desire what 
they know to be most inconsistent with their 
general welfare. A nation, as much as an 
individual, and sometimes more, may not 
only mistake its interest, but, perceiving it 
clearly, may prefer the gratification of a 
strong passion to it.* The whole fabric of 
his political reasoning seems to be over¬ 
thrown by this single observation; and in¬ 
stead of attempting to explain the immense 
variety of political facts by the simple prin¬ 
ciple of a contest of interests, we are reduced 
to the necessity of once more referring them 
to that variety of passions, habits, opinions* 
and prejudices, which we discover only by 
experience. Mr. Mill’s essay on Education f 
affords another example of the inconvenience 
of leaping at once from the most general 
laws, to a multiplicity of minute appear¬ 
ances. Having assumed, or at least inferred 
from insufficient premises, that the intellec¬ 
tual and moral character is entirely formed 
by circumstances, he proceeds, in the latter 
part of the essay, as if it were a necessary 
consequence of that doctrine that we might 
easily acquire the power of combining and 
directing circumstances in such a manner as 
to produce the best possible character. 
Without disputing, for the present, the 
theoretical proposition, let us consider 
what would be the reasonableness of similar 
expectations in a more easily intelligible 
case. The general theory of the winds is 
pretty well understood ; we know that they 
proceed from the rushing of air from those 
portions of the atmosphere which are more 
condensed, into those which are more rare¬ 
fied: but how great a chasm is there be¬ 
tween that simple law and the great variety 


* The same mode of reasoning has been adopted 
by the writer of a late criticism, on Mr. Mill’s 
Essay. See Edinburgh Review, vol. xlix. p. 159. 
f Encyc. Brit., article “Education.” 


of facts which experience exhibits! The 
constant winds between the tropics are 
large and regular enough to be in some 
measure capable of explanation : but who 
can tell why, in variable climates, the wind 
blows to-day from the east, to-morrow from 
the west ? Who can foretell what its shift- 
ings and variations are to be ? Who can 
account for a tempest on one day, and a 
calm on another ? Even if we could fore¬ 
tell the irregular and infinite variations, how 
far might we not still be from the power of 
combining and guiding their causes? No 
man but the lunatic in the story of Rasselas 
ever dreamt that he could command the 
weather. The difficulty plainly consists in 
the multiplicity and minuteness of the cir¬ 
cumstances which act on the atmosphere : 
are those which influence the formation of 
the human character likely to be less minute 
and multiplied ? 

The style of Mr. Bentham underwent a 
more remarkable revolution than perhaps 
befell that of any other celebrated writer. 
In his early works, it was clear, free, spirited, 
often and seasonably eloquent: many pas¬ 
sages of his later writings retain the in¬ 
imitable stamp of genius; but he seems to 
have been oppressed by the vastness of his 
projected works, — to have thought that he 
had no longer more than leisure to preserve 
the heads of them, — to have been impelled 
by a fruitful mind to new plans before he 
had completed the old. In this state of 
things, he gradually ceased to use words for 
conveying his thoughts to others, but merely 
employed them as a sort of short-hand to 
preserve his meaning for his own purpose. 
It was no wonder that his language should 
thus become obscure and repulsive. Though 
many of his technical terms are in them¬ 
selves exact and pithy, yet the overflow of 
his vast nomenclature was enough to darken 
his whole diction. 

It was at this critical period that the ar¬ 
rangement and translation of his manuscripts 
were undertaken by M Dumont, a generous 
disciple, who devoted a genius formed for 
original and lasting works, to diffuse the 
principles, and promote the fame of his 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


100 


master. He whose pen Mirabeau did not 
disdain to borrow, — who, in the same school 
with Romilly, had studiously pursued the 
grace as well as the force of composition, 
was perfectly qualified to strip of its un¬ 
couthness a philosophy which he understood 
and admired. As he wrote in a general lan¬ 
guage, he propagated its doctrines through¬ 
out Europe, where they were beneficial to 
Jurisprudence, but perhaps injurious to the 
cause of reformation in Government. That 
they became more popular abroad than at 
home, is partly to be ascribed to the taste 
and skill of M. Dumont; partly to that ten¬ 
dency towards free speculation and bold 
reform which was more prevalent among 
nations newly freed, or impatiently aspiring 
to freedom, than in a people sueh as ours, 
long satisfied with their government, but not 
yet aware of the imperfections and abuses in 
their laws ; — to the amendment of which 
last a cautious consideration of Mr. Ben- 
tham’s works will undoubtedly most mate¬ 
rially contribute. 

DUGALD STEWART.* 

Manifold are the discouragements rising 
up at every step in that part of this Dis¬ 
sertation which extends to very recent times. 
No sooner does the writer escape from the 
angry disputes of the living, than he may 
feel his mind clouded by the name of a de¬ 
parted friend. But there are happily men 
whose fame is brightened by free discussion, 
and to whose memory an appearance of be¬ 
lief that they needed tender treatment would 
be a grosser injury than it could suffer from 
a respectable antagonist. 

Dugald Stewart was the son of Dr. Mat¬ 
thew Stewart, Professor of Mathematics in 
the University of Edinburgh, — a station 
immediately before filled by Maclaurin, on 
the recommendation of Newton. Hence the 
poet f spoke of “ the philosophic sire and 
son.” He was educated at Edinburgh, and 
he heard the lectures of Reid at Glasgow. 
He was early associated with his father in 


* Bom, 1753; died, 1828. f Burns. 


the duties of the mathematical professor¬ 
ship ; and during the absence of Dr. Adam 
Ferguson as secretary to the commissioners 
sent to conclude a peace with North Ame¬ 
rica, he occupied the chair of Moral Philo¬ 
sophy. He was appointed to the professor¬ 
ship on the resignation of Ferguson,—not the 
least distinguished among the modern mo¬ 
ralists inclined to the Stoical School. 

This office, filled in immediate succession 
by Ferguson, Stewart, and Brown, received 
a lustre from their names, which it owed in 
no degree to its modest exterior or its 
limited advantages, and was rendered by 
them the highest dignity, in the humble, but 
not obscure, establishments of Scottish lite¬ 
rature. The lectures of Mr. Stewart, for a 
quarter of a century, rendered it famous 
through every country where the light of 
reason was allowed to penetrate. Perhaps 
few men ever lived, who poured into the 
breasts of youth a more fervid and yet rea¬ 
sonable love of liberty, of truth, and of 
virtue. How many are still alive, in dif¬ 
ferent countries, and in every rank to which 
education reaches, who, if they accurately 
examined their own minds and lives, would 
not ascribe much of whatever goodness and 
happiness they possess, to the early im¬ 
pressions of his gentle and persuasive elo¬ 
quence ! He lived to see his disciples distin¬ 
guished among the lights and ornaments of 
the council and the senate.* He had the 

* As an example of Mr. Stewart’s school may be 
mentioned Francis Horner, a favourite pupil, and, 
till his last moment, an affectionate friend. The 
short life of this excellent person is worthy of serious 
contemplation, by those more especially, who, in 
circumstances like his, enter on the slippery path 
of public affairs. Without the aids of birth or for¬ 
tune, in an assembly where aristocratical propen¬ 
sities prevail,—by his understanding, industry, 
pure taste, and useful information,—still more by 
modest independence, by steadiness and sincerity, 
joined to moderation,—by the stamp of unbending 
integrity, and by the conscientious considerateness 
which breathed through his well-chosen language, 
he raised himself, at the early age of thirty-six, to 
a moral authority which, without these qualities, no 
brilliancy of talents or power of reasoning could 
have acquired. No eminent speaker in Parliament 
owed so much of his success to his moral character. 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


consolation to be sure that no words of his 
promoted the growth of an impure taste, of 
an exclusive prejudice, or of a malevolent 
passion. Without derogation from his writ¬ 
ings, it may be said that his disciples were 
among his best works. He, indeed, who may 
justly be said to have cultivated an extent of 
mind which would otherwise have lain barren, 
and to have contributed to raise virtuous 
dispositions where the natural growth might 
have been useless or noxious, is not less a 
benefactor of mankind, and may indirectly be 
a larger contributor to knowledge than the 
author of great works, or even the disco¬ 
verer of important truths. The system of 
conveying scientific instruction to a large 
audience by lectures, from which the English 
universities have in a great measure de¬ 
parted, renders his qualities as a lecturer a 
most important part of his merit in a Scot¬ 
tish university which still adheres to the 
general method of European education. Pro¬ 
bably no modern ever exceeded him in that 
species of eloquence which springs from sen¬ 
sibility to literary beauty and moral excel¬ 
lence,— which neither obscures science by 
prodigal ornament, nor disturbs the serenity 
of patient attention, — but though it rather 
calms and soothes the feelings, yet exalts 
the genius, and insensibly inspires a reason¬ 
able enthusiasm for whatever is good and 
fair. 

He embraced the philosophy of Dr. Reid, 
a patient, modest, and deep thinker*, who, 


His high place was therefore honourable to his 
audience and to his country. Regret for his death 
was expressed with touching unanimity from every 
part of a divided assembly, unused to manifesta¬ 
tions of sensibility, abhorrent from theatrical dis¬ 
play, and whose tribute on such an occasion derived 
its peculiar value from their general coldness and 
sluggishness. The tears of those to whom he was 
unknown were shed over him; and at the head of 
those by whom he was “ praised, wept, and ho¬ 
noured,” was one, whose commendation would have 
been more enhanced in the eye of Mr. Horner, by 
his discernment and veracity, than by the signal 
proof of the concurrence of all orders, as well as 
parties, which was afforded by the name of Howard. 

* Those who may doubt the justice of this de¬ 
scription will do well to weigh the words of the 


101 

in "his first work (Inquiry into the Human 
Mind), deserves a commendation more de¬ 
scriptive of a philosopher than that bestowed 
upon him by Professor Cousin — of having 
made “ a vigorous protest against scepticism 
on behalf of common sense.” Reid’s ob¬ 
servations on Suggestion, on natural signs, 
on the connection between what he calls 
“ sensation ” and “ perception,” though per¬ 
haps suggested by Berkeley (whose idealism 
he had once adopted), are marked by the 
genuine spirit of original observation. As 
there are too many who seem more wise than 
they are, so it was the more uncommon fault 
with Reid to appear less a philosopher than 
he really was. Indeed his temporary adop¬ 
tion of Berkeleianism is a proof of an unpre¬ 
judiced and acute mind. Perhaps no man 
ever rose finally above the seductions of that 
simple and ingenious system, who had not 
sometimes tried their full effect by surren¬ 
dering his whole mind to them. 

But it is never with entire impunity that 
philosophers borrow vague and inappropriate 
terms from vulgar use. Never did any man 
afford a stronger instance of this danger than 


most competent of judges, who, though candid and 
even indulgent, was not prodigal of praise. “ It 
is certainly very rare that a piece so deeply philo¬ 
sophical is wrote with so much spirit, and affords 
so much entertainment to the reader. Whenever 
I enter into your ideas, no man appears to express 
himself with greater perspicuity. Your style is so 
correct and so good English, that I found not any¬ 
thing worth the remarking. I beg my compli¬ 
ments to my friendly adversaries Dr. Campbell and 
Dr. Gerard, and also to Dr. Gregory, whom I sus¬ 
pect to be of the same disposition, though he has 
not openly declared himself such.” — Letter from 
Mr. Hume to Dr. Reid: Stewart’s Biographical 
Memoirs, p. 417. The latter part of the above sen¬ 
tences (written after a perusal of Dr. Reid’s Inquiry, 
but before its publication) sufficiently shows, that 
Mr. Hume felt no displeasure against Reid and 
Campbell, undoubtedly his most formidable anta¬ 
gonists, however he might resent the language of 
Dr. Beattie, an amiable man, an elegant and tender 
poet, and a good writer on miscellaneous literature 
in prose, but who, in his Essay on Truth, (— an 
unfair appeal to the multitude on philosophical 
questions) indulged himself in the personalities 
and invectives of a popular pamphleteer. 
















102 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


Reid, in his two most unfortunate terms, 
“ common sense” and “ instinct.” Common 
sense is that average portion of understand¬ 
ing, possessed by most men, which, as it is 
nearly always applied to conduct, has ac¬ 
quired an almost exclusively practical sense. 
Instinct is the habitual power of producing 
effects like contrivances of Reason, yet so far 
beyond the intelligence and experience of 
the agent, as to be utterly inexplicable by 
reference to them. No man, if he had been 
in search of improper words, could have dis¬ 
covered any more unfit than these two, for 
denoting that law, or slate, or faculty of 
Mind, which compels us to acknowledge cer¬ 
tain simple and very abstract truths, not 
being identical propositions, to lie at the 
foundation of all reasoning, and to be the 
necessary ground of all belief. 

Long after the death of Dr. Reid, his phi¬ 
losophy was taught at Paris by M. Royer 
Collard*, who, on the restoration of free 
debate, became the most philosophical orator 
of his nation, and nowf fills, with impar¬ 
tiality and dignity, the chair, of the Chamber 
of Deputies. His ingenious and eloquent 
scholar, Professor Cousin, dissatisfied with 
what he calls “ the sage and timid ” doc¬ 
trines of Edinburgh, which he considered as 
only a vigorous protest, on behalf of common 
sense, against the scepticism of Hume, 
sought in Germany for a philosophy of 
“ such a masculine and brilliant character as 
might command the attention of Europe, 
and be able to struggle with success on a 
great theatre, against the genius of the 
adverse school.” | It may be questioned 
whether he found in Kant more than the 
same vigorous protest, under a more system¬ 
atic form, with an immense nomenclature, 
and constituting a philosophical edifice of 
equal symmetry and vastness. The prefer¬ 
ence of the more boastful system, over a 


* Fragments of his lectures have been recently 
published in a French translation of Dr. Reid, by 
M. Jonffroy: CEuvres Completes de Thomas Reid, 
vol. ir. Paris, 1828. 
f 1831. —Ed. 

j Cours de Philosophie, par M. Cousin, le<;on xii. 
Paris, 1828. 


philosophy thus chiefly blamed for its modest 
pretensions, does not seem to be entirely 
justified by its permanent authority even in 
the country which gave it birth; where, 
however powerful its influence still continues 
to be, its doctrines do not appear to have 
now many supporters. Indeed, the accom¬ 
plished professor himself has rapidly shot 
through Kantianism, and now appears to 
rest or to stop at the doctrines of Schelling 
and Hegel, at a point so high, that it is hard 
to descry from it any distinction between 
objects,—even that indispensable distinction 
between reality and illusion. As the works 
of Reid, and those of Kant, otherwise so 
different, appear to be simultaneous efforts 
of the conservative power of philosophy to 
expel the mortal poison of scepticism, so the 
exertions of M. Royer Collard and M. Cousin, 
however at variance in metaphysical princi¬ 
ples, seem to have been chiefly roused by 
the desire of delivering ethics from that 
fatal touch of personal, and, indeed, gross 
interest, which the science had received in 
France at the hands of the followers of Con¬ 
dillac,—especially Helvetius, St. Lambert, 
and Cabanis. The success of these attempts 
to render speculative philosophy once more 
popular in the country of Descartes, has 
already been considerable. The French 
youth, whose desire of knowledge and love 
of liberty afford an auspicious promise of 
the succeeding age, have eagerly received 
doctrines, of which the moral part is so 
much more agreeable to their liberal spirit 
than is the Selfish theory, generated in the 
stagnation of a corrupt, cruel, and dissolute 
tyranny. 

These agreeable prospects bring us easily 
back to our subject; for though the restor¬ 
ation of speculative philosophy in the coun¬ 
try of Descartes is due to the precise state¬ 
ment and vigorous logic of M. Royer Col¬ 
lard, the modifications introduced by him 
into the doctrine of Reid coincide with those 
of Mr. Stewart, and would have appeared 
to agree more exactly, if the forms of the 
French philosopher had not been more dia¬ 
lectical, and the composition of Mr. Stewart 
had retained less of that oratorical character 












PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 103 


which belonged to a justly celebrated speaker. 
Amidst excellencies of the highest order, 
the writings of the latter, it must be con¬ 
fessed, leave some room for criticism. He 
took precautions against offence to the feel¬ 
ings of his contemporaries, more anxiously 
and frequently than the impatient searcher 
for truth may deem necessary. For the 
sake of promoting the favourable reception 
of philosophy itself, he studies, perhaps 
too visibly, to avoid whatever might raise up 
prejudices against it. His gratitude and 
native modesty dictated a superabundant 
care in softening and excusing his dissent 
from those who had been his own instruc¬ 
tors, or who were the objects of general 
reverence. Exposed by his station, both to 
the assaults of political prejudice, and to the 
religious animosities of a country where a 
few sceptics attacked the slumbering zeal of 
a Calvinistic people, it would have been won¬ 
derful if he had not betrayed more wariness 
than would have been necessary or becom¬ 
ing in a very different position. The fulness 
of his literature seduced him too much into 
multiplied illustrations. Too many of the 
expedients happily used to allure the young 
may unnecessarily swell his volumes. Per¬ 
haps a successive publication in separate 
parts made him more voluminous than he 
would have been if the whole had been at 
once before his eyes. A peculiar suscepti¬ 
bility and delicacy of taste produced forms 
of expression, in themselves extremely beau¬ 
tiful, but of Avhich the habitual use is not 
easily reconcilable with the condensation 
desirable in works necessarily so extensive. 
If, however, it must be owned that the 
caution incident to his temper, his feelings, 
his philosophy and his station, has somewhat 
lengthened his composition, it is not less 
true, that some of the same circumstances 
have contributed towards those peculiar 
beauties which place him at the head of the 
most adorned writers on philosophy in our 
language. 

Few writers rise with more grace from a 
plain groundwork, to the passages which 
require greater animation or embellishment. 
He gives to narrative, according to the pre¬ 


cept of Bacon, the colour of the time, by a 
selection of happy expressions from original 
writers. Among the secret arts by which 
he diffuses elegance over his diction, may be 
remarked the skill which, by deepening or 
brightening a shade in a secondary term, 
and by opening partial or preparatory 
glimpses of a thought to be afterwards un¬ 
folded, unobservedly heightens the import 
of a word, and gives it a new meaning, with¬ 
out any offence against old use. It is in 
this manner that philosophical originality 
may be reconciled to purity and stability of 
speech, and that we may avoid new terms, 
which are the easy resource of the unskilful 
or the indolent, and often a characteristic 
mark of writers who love their language too 
little to feel its peculiar excellencies, or to 
study the art of calling forth its powers. 

He reminds us not unfrequently of the 
character given by Cicero to one of his con¬ 
temporaries, “who expressed refined and 
abstruse thought in soft and transparent 
diction.” His writings are a proof that the 
mild sentiments have their eloquence as well 
as the vehement passions. It would be 
difficult to name works in which so much 
refined philosophy is joined with so fine a 
fancy, — so much elegant literature, with 
such a delicate perception of the distin¬ 
guishing excellencies of great writers, and 
with an estimate in general so just of the 
services rendered to Knowledge by a suc¬ 
cession of philosophers. They are pervaded 
by a philosophical benevolence, which keeps 
up the ardour of his genius, without dis¬ 
turbing the serenity of his mind, — which is 
felt equally in the generosity of his praise, 
and in the tenderness of his censure. It is 
still more sensible in the general tone with 
which he relates the successful progress of 
the human understanding, among many 
formidable enemies. Those readers are not 
to be envied who limit their admiration to 
particular parts, or to excellencies merely 
literary, without being warmed by the glow 
of that honest triumph in the advancement 
of Knowledge, and of that assured faith in 
the final prevalence of Truth and Justice, 
which breathe through every page of them, 






104 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


and give the unity and dignity of a moral 
purpose to the whole of these classical works. 

In quoting poetical passages, some of 
which throw much light on our mental 
operations, if he sometimes prized the moral 
common-places of Thomson and the specu¬ 
lative fancy of Akenside more highly than 
the higher poetry of their betters, it was not 
to be wondered at that the metaphysician 
and the moralist should sometimes prevail 
over the lover of poetry. His natural sen¬ 
sibility was perhaps occasionally cramped by 
the cold criticism of an unpoetical age ; and 
some of his remarks may be thought to in¬ 
dicate a more constant and exclusive regard 
to diction than is agreeable to a generation 
which has been trained by tremendous 
events to a passion for daring inventions, 
and to an irregular enthusiasm, impatient of 
minute elegancies and refinements. Many of 
those beauties which his generous criticism 
delighted to magnify in the works of his con¬ 
temporaries, have already faded under the 
scorching rays of a fiercer sun. 

Mr. Stewart employed more skill in con¬ 
triving, and more care in concealing his very 
important reforms of Reid’s doctrines, than 
others exert to maintain their claims to ori¬ 
ginality. Had his well-chosen language of 
“ laws of human thought or belief” been at 
first adopted in that school, instead of “ in¬ 
stinct ” and “ common sense,” it would have 
escaped much of the reproach (which Dr. 
Reid himself did not merit) of shallowness 
and popularity. Expressions so exact, em¬ 
ployed in the opening, could not have failed 
to influence the whole system, and to have 
given it, not only in the general estimation, 
but in the minds of its framers, a more 
scientific complexion. In those parts of Mr. 
Stewart’s speculations in which he farthest 
departed from his general principles, he 
seems sometimes, as it were, to be suddenly 
driven back by what he unconsciously 
shrinks from as ungrateful apostacy, and to 
be desirous of making amends to his master, 
by more harshness, than is otherwise natural 
to him, towards the writers whom he has in¬ 
sensibly approached. Hence perhaps the 
unwonted severity of his language towards 


Tucker and Hartley. It is thus at the very 
time when he largely adopts the principle of 
Association in his excellent Essay on the 
Beautiful *, that he treats most rigidly the 
latter of these writers, to whom, though 
neither the discoverer nor the sole advocate 
of that principle, it surely owes the greatest 
illustration and support. 

In matters of far other importance, causes 
perhaps somewhat similar may have led to 
the like mistake. When he absolutely con¬ 
tradicts Dr. Reid, by truly stating that “ it 
is more philosophical to resolve the power of 
habit into the association of ideas, than to 
resolve the association of ideas into habit,” f 
he, in the sequel of the same volume re¬ 
fuses to go farther than to own, that “ the 
theory of Hartley concerning the origin of 
our affections, and of the Moral Sense, is a 
most ingenious refinement on the Selfish sys¬ 
tem , and that by means of it the force of 
many of the common reasonings against that 
system is eluded; ” though he somewhat in¬ 
consistently allows, that “ active principles 
which, arising from circumstances in which 
all the situations of mankind must agree, are 
therefore common to the whole species, at 
whatever period of life they may appear, are 
to be regarded as a part of human nature, no 
less than the instinct of suction, in the same 
manner as the acquired perception of dis¬ 
tance, by the eye, is to be ranked among the 
perceptive powers of man, no less than the 
original perceptions of the other senses.” § 
In another place also he makes a remark on 
mere beauty, which might have led him to a 
more just conclusion respecting the theory of 
the origin of the affections and of the Moral 
Sense : “ It is scarcely necessary for me to 
observe, that, in those instances where asso¬ 
ciation operates in heightening ” (or he might 


* Philosophical Essays, part ii. essay i., espe¬ 
cially chap. vi. The condensation, if not omission, 
of the discussion of the theories of Buffier, Reynolds, 
Burke, and Price, in this essay, would have les¬ 
sened that temporary appearance which is unsuit¬ 
able to a scientific work. 

f Elements of the Philosophy of the Human 
Mind (1792, 4to.), vol. i. p. 281. 

X Ibid. p. 383. § Ibid. p. 385. 















PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 105 


have said creates) “ the pleasure we receive 
from sight, the pleasing emotion continues 
still to appear, to our consciousness, simple 
and uncompounded.” * * To this remark he 
might have added, that until all the separate 
pleasures be melted into one, — as long as 
any of them are discerned and felt as distinct 
from each other, — the associations are in¬ 
complete, and the qualities which gratify are 
not called by the name of “ beauty.” In 
like manner, as has been repeatedly ob¬ 
served, it is only when all the separate feel¬ 
ings, pleasurable and painful, excited by the 
contemplation of voluntary action, are lost 
in-tlie general sentiments of approbation or 
disapprobation, —when these general feel¬ 
ings retain no trace of the various emotions 
which originally attended different actions, — 
when they are held in a state of perfect 
fusion by the habitual use of the words used 
in every language to denote them, that Con¬ 
science can be said to exist, or that we can 
be considered as endowed with a moral na¬ 
ture. The theory which thus ascribes the 
uniform formation of the Moral Faculty to 
universal and paramount laws, is not a re¬ 
finement of the Selfish system, nor is it any 
modification of that hypothesis. The parti¬ 
sans of Selfishness maintain, that in acts of 
Will the agent must have a view to the 
pleasure or happiness which he hopes to 
reap from it: the philosophers who regard 
the social affections and the Moral Senti¬ 
ments as formed by a process of association, 
on the other hand, contend that these affec¬ 
tions and sentiments must work themselves 
clear from every particle of self-regard, 
before they deserve the names of benevo¬ 
lence and of Conscience. In the actual state 
of human motives the two systems are not 
to be likened, but to be contrasted to each 
other. It is remarkable that Mr. Stewart, 
who admits the “question respecting the 
origin of the affections to be rather curious 
than important,” f should have held a directly 
contrary opinion respecting the Moral Sensej, 


* Philosophical Essays, part ii. essay i. chap. xi. 
f Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 93. 

I Outlines, p. 117. “ This is the most important 


to which these words, in his sense of them, 
seem to be equally applicable. His meaning 
in the former affirmation is, that if the affec¬ 
tions be acquired, yet they are justly called 
natural; and if their origin be personal, yet 
their nature may and does become disinter¬ 
ested. What circumstance distinguishes the 
former from the latter case ? With respect 
to the origin of the affections, it must not be 
overlooked that his language is somewhat 
contradictory. For if the theory on that 
subject from which he dissents were merely 
“a refinement on the Selfish system,” its 
truth or falsehood could not be represented 
as subordinate; since the controversy would 
continue to relate to the existence of disin¬ 
terested motives of human conduct. * It 
may also be observed, that he uniformly 
represents his opponents as deriving the 
affections from ‘ self-love,’ which, in its 
proper sense, is not the source to which they 
refer even avarice, and which is itself de¬ 
rived from other antecedent principles, some 
of which are inherent, and some acquired. 
If the object of this theory of the rise of the 
most important feelings of human nature 
were, as our philosopher supposes, “ to elude 
objections against the Selfish system,” it 
would be at best worthless. Its positive 
merits are several. It affirms the actual dis¬ 
interestedness of human motives, as strongly 
as Butler himself. The explanation of the 
mental law, by which benevolence and Con¬ 
science are formed habitually, when it is 
contemplated deeply, impresses on the mind 
the truth that they not only are but must be 
disinterested. It confirms, as it were, the 
testimony of consciousness, by exhibiting to 
the Understanding the means employed to 
insure the production of disinterestedness. 


question that can be stated with respect to the 
theory of Morals.” 

* In the Philosophy of the Active and Moral 
Powers of Man (vol. i. p. 164.), Mr. Stewart has 
done more manifest injustice to the Hartleian the¬ 
ory, by calling it “ a doctrine fundamentally the 
same with the Selfish system ,” and especially by re¬ 
presenting Hartley, who ought to be rather classed 
with Butler and Hume, as agreeing with Gay, 
Tucker, and Paley. 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


106 

It affords tlie only effectual answer to the 
prejudice against the disinterested theory, 
from the multiplication of ultimate facts and 
implanted principles, which, under all its 
other forms, it seems to require. No room 
is left for this prejudice by a representation 
of disinterestedness, which ultimately traces 
its formation to principles almost as simple 
as those of Hobbes himself. Lastly, every 
step in just generalization is an advance in 
philosophy. No one has yet shown, either 
that man is not actually disinterested, or that 
he may not have been destined to become so 
by such a process as has been described: the 
cause to which the effects are ascribed is a 
real agent, which seems adequate to the ap¬ 
pearance ; and if future observation should 
be found to require that the theory shall be 
confined within narrower limits, such a limi¬ 
tation will not destroy its value. 

The acquiescence of Mr. Stewart in Dr. 
Reid’s general representation of our mental 
constitution, led him to indulge more freely 
the natural bent of his understanding, by 
applying it to theories of character and man¬ 
ners, of life and literature, of taste and the 
arts, rather than to the consideration of 
those more simple principles which rule over 
human nature under every form. His chief 
work, as he frankly owns, is indeed rather a 
collection of such theories, pointing toward 
the common end of throwing light on the 
structure and functions of the mind, than a 
systematic treatise, such as might be ex¬ 
pected from the title of “ Elements.” It is 
in essays of this kind that he has most sur¬ 
passed other cultivators of mental philo¬ 
sophy. His remarks on the effects of casual 
associations may be quoted as a specimen of 
the most original and just thoughts, con¬ 
veyed in the best manner.* In this beautiful 
passage, he proceeds from their power of 
confusing speculation to that of disturbing 
experience and of misleading practice, and 
ends with their extraordinary effect in 
bestowing on trivial, and even ludicrous 
circumstances, some portion of the dignity 


* Elem. Philos. Hum. Mind, vol. i. pp. 340— 
352. 


and sanctity of those sublime principles 
with which they are associated. The style, 
at first only clear, afterwards admitting the 
ornaments of a calm and grave elegance, 
and at last rising to as high a strain as 
Philosophy will endure (all the parts, va¬ 
rious as their nature is, being held together 
by an invisible thread of gentle transition,) 
affords a specimen of adaptation of manner 
to matter which it will be hard to match in 
any other philosophical writing. Another 
very fine remark, which seems to be as 
original as it is just, may be quoted as a 
sample of those beauties with which his 
writings abound. “ The apparent coldness 
and selfishness of mankind may be traced, 
in a great measure, to a want of attention 
and a want of imagination. In the case of 
those misfortunes which happen to ourselves 
or our near connections, neither of these 
powers is necessary to make us acquainted 
with our situation. But without an un¬ 
common degree of both, it is impossible for 
any man to comprehend completely the 
situation of his neighbour, or to have an 
idea of the greater part of the distress which 
exists in the world. If we feel more for 
ourselves than for others, in the former case 
the facts are more fully before us than they 
can be in the latter.” * Yet several parts 
of his writings afford the most satisfactory 
proof, that his abstinence from what is com¬ 
monly called metaphysical speculation, arose 
from no inability to pursue it with signal 
success. As examples, his observations on 
“general terms,” and on “causation,” may 
be appealed to with perfect confidence. In 
the first two dissertations of the volume 
bearing the title “ Philosophical Essays,” he 
with equal boldness and acuteness grapples 
with the most extensive and abstruse ques¬ 
tions of mental philosophy, and points out 
both the sources and the uttermost bound¬ 
aries of human knowledge with a Veru- 
lamean hand. In another part of his writ¬ 
ings, he calls what are usually denominated 
first principles of experience, “ fundamental 
laws of human belief, or primary elements 


* Elem. Philos. Hum. Mind, vol. i. p. 502. 










PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 107 


of human reason; ” * which last form of ex¬ 
pression has so close a resemblance to the 
language of Kant, that it should have pro¬ 
tected the latter from the imputation of 
writing jargon. 

The excellent volume entitled “ Outlines 
of Moral Philosophy,” though composed only 
as a text-book for the use of his hearers, is 
one of the most decisive proofs that he was 
perfectly qualified to unite precision with 
ease, to be brief with the utmost clearness, 
and to write with becoming elegance in a 
style where the meaning is not overladen 
by ornaments. This volume contains his 
properly ethical 'theory j*, which is much ex¬ 
panded, but not substantially altered, in his 
Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers, 
— a work almost posthumous, and composed 
under circumstances which give it a deeper 
interest than can be inspired by any desert 
in science. Though, with his usual mo¬ 
desty, he manifests an anxiety to fasten his 
ethical theory to the kindred speculations 
of other philosophers of the “Intellectual 
school,” especially to those of Cudworth, — 
recently clothed in more modern phraseology 
by Price — yet he still shows that inde¬ 
pendence and originality which all his aver¬ 
sion from parade could not entirely conceal. 
“Right,” “duty,” “virtue,” “moral obliga¬ 
tion,” and the like or the opposite forms of 
expression, represent, according to him, 
certain thoughts, which arise necessarily and 
instantaneously in the mind, (or in the Rea¬ 
son, if we take that word in the large sense 
in which it denotes all that is not emotive) 
at the contemplation of actions, and which 
are utterly incapable of all resolution, and 
consequently of all explanation, and which 
can be known only by being experienced. 
These “ thoughts ” or “ ideas,” by whatever 
name they may be called, are followed, — 
as inexplicably as inevitably, — by pleasur¬ 
able and painful emotions, which suggest 
the conception of moral beauty ; — a quality 
of human actions distinct from their ad¬ 
herence to , or deviation from rectitude, though 


* Elem. Philos. Hum. Mind, vol. ii. p. 57. 
f Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 76—148, 


generally coinciding with it. The question 
which a reflecting reader will here put is, 
whether any purpose is served by the intro¬ 
duction of the intermediate mental process 
between the particular thoughts and the 
moral emotions ? How would the view be 
darkened or confused, or indeed in any de¬ 
gree changed, by withdrawing that process, 
or erasing the words which attempt to ex¬ 
press it? No advocate of the intellectual 
origin of the Moral Faculty has yet stated a 
case in which a mere operation of Reason or 
Judgment, unattended by Emotion, could, 
consistently with the universal opinion of 
mankind, as it is exhibited by the structure 
of language, be said to have the nature or 
to produce the effects of Conscience. Such 
an example would be equivalent to an ex- 
perimentum crucis on the side of that cele¬ 
brated theory. The failure to produce it, 
after long challenge, is at least a presump¬ 
tion against it, nearly approaching to that 
sort of decisively discriminative experiment. 
It would be vain to restate what has already 
been too often repeated, that all the objec¬ 
tions to the Selfish philosophy turn upon 
the actual nature, not upon the original 
source, of our principles of action, and that 
it is by a confusion of these very distinct 
questions alone that the confutation of 
Hobbes can be made apparently to involve 
Hartley. Mr. Stewart appears, like most 
other metaphysicians, to have blended the 
inquiry into the nature of our Moral Senti¬ 
ments with that other which only seeks a 
criterion to distinguish moral from immoral 
habits of feeling and action; for he con¬ 
siders the appearance of the Moral Senti¬ 
ments at an early age, before the general 
tendency of actions can be ascertained, as a 
decisive objection to the origin of these 
sentiments in Association, — an objection 
which assumes that, if utility be the crite¬ 
rion of Morality, associations with utility 
must be the mode by which the Moral Sen¬ 
timents are formed: but this no skilful ad¬ 
vocate of the theory of Association will ever 
allow. That the main, if not sole object 
of Conscience is to govern our voluntary 
exertions, is manifest; but how could it 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


108 


perform this great function if it did not 
impel the Will ? and how could it have the 
latter effect as a mere act of Reason, or, 
indeed, in any respect otherwise than as it 
is made up of emotions? Judgment and 
Reason are therefore preparatory to Con¬ 
science,—not properly a part of it. The 
assertion that the exclusion of Reason re¬ 
duces Virtue to be a relative quality, is 
another instance of the confusion of the two 
questions in moral theory: for though a 
fitness to excite approbation may be only a 
relation of objects to our susceptibility, yet 
the proposition that all virtuous actions are 
beneficial, is a proposition as absolute as 
any other within the range of our under¬ 
standing. 

A delicate state of health, and an ardent 
desire to devote himself exclusively to study 
and composition, induced Mr. Stewart, while 
in the full blaze of his reputation as a lec¬ 
turer, to retire, in 1810, from the labour of 
public instruction. This retirement, as he 
himself describes it, was that of a quiet but 
active life. Three quarto and two octavo 
volumes, besides the magnificent Disserta¬ 
tion prefixed to the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica, were among its happy fruits. This 
Dissertation is, perhaps, the most profusely 
ornamented of any of his compositions ; — a 
peculiarity which must in part have arisen 
from a principle of taste, which regarded 
decoration as more suitable to the history of 
philosophy than to philosophy itself. But 
the memorable instances of Cicero, of Milton, 
and still more those of Dryden and Burke, 
seem to show that there is some natural 
tendency in the fire of genius to burn more 
brightly, or to blaze more fiercely, in the 
evening than in the morning of human life. 
Probably the materials which long experi¬ 
ence supplies to the imagination, the bold¬ 
ness with which a more established reputa¬ 
tion arms the mind, and the silence of the 
low but formidable rivals of the higher 
principles, may concur in producing this un¬ 
expected and little observed effect. 

It was in the last years of his life, when 
suffering under the effects of a severe attack 
of palsy, with which he had been afflicted 


in 1822, that Mr. Stewart most plentifully 
reaped the fruits of long virtue and a well- 
ordered mind. Happily for him, his own 
cultivation and exercise of every kindly 
affection had laid up a store of that domestic 
consolation which none who deserve it ever 
want, and for the loss of which, nothing be¬ 
yond the threshold can make amends. The 
same philosophy which he had cultivated 
from his youth upward employed his dying 
hand; aspirations after higher and brighter 
scenes of excellence, always blended with his 
elevated morality, became more earnest and 
deeper as worldly passions died away, and 
earthly objects vanished from his sight. 

THOMAS BROWN.* 

A writer, as he advances in life, ought to 
speak with diffidence of systems which he 
has only begun to consider with care after 
the age in which it becomes hard for his 
thoughts to flow into new channels. A 
reader cannot be said practically to under¬ 
stand a theory, till he has acquired the power 
of thinking, at least for a short time, with 
the theorist. Even a hearer, with all the 
helps of voice in the instructor, and of coun¬ 
tenance from him and from fellow-hearers, 
finds it difficult to perform this necessary 
process, without either being betrayed into 
hasty and undistinguishing assent, or falling, 
while he is in pursuit of an impartial esti¬ 
mate of opinions, into an indifference about 
their truth. I have felt this difficulty in re¬ 
considering old opinions: but it is perhaps 
more needful to own its power, and to warn 
the reader against its effects, in the case of 
a philosopher well known to me, and witli 
whom common friendships stood in the 
stead of much personal intercourse, as a 
cement of kindness. I very early read 
Brown’s Observations on the Zoonomia of 
Dr. Darwin, —the perhaps unmatched work 
of a boy in the eighteenth year of his age.f 


* Born, 1778; died, 1820. 
f Welsh’s Life of Brown, p. 43.;—a pleasingly 
affectionate work, full of analytical spirit and me¬ 
taphysical reading,—of such merit, in short, that 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 109 


His first tract on Causation appeared to me 
to be the finest model of discussion in men¬ 
tal philosophy since Berkeley and Hume, — 
with this superiority over the latter, that its 
aim is that of a philosopher who seeks to 
enlarge knowledge, — not that of a sceptic, 
who — even the most illustrious — has no 
better end than that of displaying his powers 
in confounding and darkening truth, — and 
the happiest efforts of whose scepticism can¬ 
not be more leniently described than as bril¬ 
liant fits of mental debauchery.* * From a 
diligent perusal of his succeeding works at 
the time of their publication, I was pre¬ 
vented by pursuits and duties of a very 
different nature. These causes, together 
with ill health and growing occupation, hin¬ 
dered me from reading his Lectures with 
due attention, till it has now become a duty 
to consider with care that part of them which 
relates to Ethics. 

Dr. Brown was born of one of those fa¬ 
milies of ministers in the Scottish Church, 
who, after a generation or two of a humble 
life spent in piety and usefulness, with no 
more than needful knowledge, have more than 
once sent forth a man of genius from their 
cool and quiet shade, to make his fellows 


I could wish to have found in it no phrenology. 
Objections a priori in a case dependent on facts are, 
indeed, inadmissible: even the allowance of pre¬ 
sumptions of that nature would open so wide a door 
for prejudices, that at most they can be considered 
only as maxims of logical prudence, which fortify 
the watchfulness of the individual. The fatal ob¬ 
jection to phrenology seems to me to be, that what 
is new in it, or peculiar to it, has no approach to 
an adequate foundation in experience. 

* “ Bayle, a writer who, pervading human nature 
at his ease, struck into the province of paradox, as 
an exercise for the unwearied vigour of his mind; 
who, with a soul superior to the sharpest attacks 
of fortune, and a heart practised to the best philo¬ 
sophy, had not enough of real greatness to overcome 
that last foible of superior minds, the temptation 
of honour, which the academic exercise of wit is 
conceived to bring to its professor.” So says War- 
burton (Divine Legation, book i. sect, iv.), speaking 
of Bayle, but perhaps in part excusing himself, in 
a noble strain, of which it would have been more 
agreeable to find the repetition than the contrast 
in his language towards Hume. 


wiser or better by tongue or pen, by head 
or hand. Even the scanty endowments and 
constant residence of that Church, by keep¬ 
ing her ministers far from the objects which 
awaken turbulent passions and disperse the 
understanding on many pursuits, affords 
some of the leisure and calm of monastic 
life, without the exclusion of the charities of 
family and kindred. It may be well doubted 
whether this undissipated retirement, which 
during the eighteenth century was very 
general in Scotland, did not make full 
amends for the loss of curious and orna¬ 
mental knowledge, by its tendency to qualify 
men for professional duty; with its oppor¬ 
tunities for the cultivation of the reason for 
the many, and for high meditation, and con¬ 
centration of thought on worthy objects for 
the few who have capacity for such exer¬ 
tions.* An authentic account of the early 
exercises of Brown’s mind is preserved by 
his biographer f, from which it appears that 
at the age of nineteen he took a part with 
others (some of whom became the most me¬ 
morable men of their time), in the founda¬ 
tion of a private society in Edinburgh, under 
the name of “ the Academy of Physics.” J 


* See Sir H. Moncreiff’s Life of the Reverend 
Dr. Erskine. 

f Welsh’s Life of Brown, p. 77., and App. p. 498. 

X A part of the first day’s minutes is here bor¬ 
rowed from Mr. Welsh:—“7th January, 1797.— 
Present, Mr. Erskine, President, — Mr. Brougham, 
Mr. Reddie, Mr. Brown, Mr. Birkbeck, Mr. Leyden,” 
&c., who were afterwards joined by Lord Webb 
Seymour, Messrs. Horner, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, 
&c. Mr. Erskine, who thus appears at the head of 
so remarkable an association, and whom diffidence 
and untoward circumstances have hitherto with¬ 
held from the full manifestation of his powers, con¬ 
tinued to be the bosom friend of Brown to the last. 
He has shown the constancy of his friendship for 
others by converting all his invaluable preparations 
for a translation of Sultan Baber’s Commentaries 
(perhaps the best, certainly the most European 
work of modern Eastern prose) into the means of 
completing the imperfect attempt of Leyden, with 
a regard equally generous to the fame of his early 
friend, and to the comfort of that friend’s surviving 
relations. The review of Baber’s Commentaries, 
by M. Silvestre de Sacy, in the Journal des Savans 
for May and June, 1829, is perhaps one of the best 









110 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


The character of Dr. Brown is very at¬ 
tractive, as an example of one in whom the 
utmost tenderness of affection, and the in¬ 
dulgence of a flowery fancy, were not re¬ 
pressed by the highest cultivation, and by a 
perhaps excessive refinement of intellect. 
His mind soared and roamed through every 
region of philosophy and poetry; but his 
untravelled heart clung to the hearth of his 
father, to the children who shared it with 
him, and after them, first to the other part¬ 
ners of his childish sports, and then almost 
solely to those companions of his youthful 
studies who continued to be the friends of 
his life. Speculation seemed to keep his 
kindness at home. It is observable, that 
though sparkling with fancy, he does not 
seem to have been deeply or durably touched 
by those affections which are lighted at its 
torch, or at least tinged with its colours. 
His heart sought little abroad, but con¬ 
tentedly dwelt in his family and in his study. 
He was one of those men of genius who 
repaid the tender care of a mother by rock¬ 
ing the cradle of her reposing age. He 
ended a life spent in searching for truth, 
and exercising love, by desiring that he 
should be buried in his native parish, with 
his “ dear father and mother.” Some of his 
delightful qualities were perhaps hidden 
from the casual observer in general society, 
by the want of that perfect simplicity of 
manner which is doubtless their natural re¬ 
presentative. Manner is a better mark of 
the state of a mind, than those large and 
deliberate actions which form what is called 
conduct; it is the constant and insensible 
transpiration of character. In serious acts a 
man may display himself; in the thousand 
nameless acts which compose manner, the 
mind betrays its habitual bent. But manner is 
then only an index of disposition, when it is 


specimens extant of the value of literary commen¬ 
dation when it is bestowed with conscientious 
calmness, and without a suspicion of bias, by one 
of the greatest orientalists, in a case where he pro¬ 
nounces everything to have been done by Mr. 
Erskine “ which could have been performed by the 
most learned and the most scrupulously conscien¬ 
tious of editors and translators.” 


that of men who live at ease in the intimate 
familiarity of friends and equals. It may 
be diverted from simplicity by causes which 
do not reach so deep as the character; — by 
bad models, or by a restless and wearisome 
anxiety to shine, arising from many circum¬ 
stances, — none of which are probably more 
common than the unseasonable exertions of 
a recluse student in society, and the unfor¬ 
tunate attempts of some others, to take by 
violence the admiration of those with whom 
they do not associate with ease. The asso¬ 
ciation with unlike or superior companions 
which least distorts manners, is that which 
takes place with those classes whose secure 
dignity generally renders their own manners 
easy, — with whom the art of pleasing or of 
not displeasing each other in society is a 
serious concern, — who have leisure enough 
to discover the positive and negative parts 
of the smaller moralities, and who, being 
trained to a watchful eye on what is ludi¬ 
crous, apply the lash of ridicule to affecta¬ 
tion, the most ridiculous of faults. The 
busy in every department of life are too 
respectably occupied to form these manners : 
they are the frivolous work of polished idle¬ 
ness ; and perhaps their most serious value 
consists in the war which they wage against 
affectation, — though even there they be¬ 
tray their origin in punishing it, not as a 
deviation from nature, but as a badge of 
vulgarity. 

The prose of Dr. Brown is brilliant to 
excess : it must not be denied that its beauty 
is sometimes womanly, — that it too often 
melts down precision into elegance, — that 
it buries the main idea under a load of illus¬ 
tration, of which every part is expanded and 
adorned with such visible labour, as to with¬ 
draw the mind from attention to the thoughts 
which it professes to introduce more easily 
into the understanding. It is darkened by 
excessive brightness ; it loses ease and live¬ 
liness by over-dress; and, in the midst of 
its luscious sweetness, we wish for the strik¬ 
ing and homely illustrations of Tucker, and 
for the pithy and sinewy sense of Paley ; — 
either of whom, by a single short metaphor 
from a familiar, perhaps a low object, could 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. Ill 


at one blow set tlie two worlds of Reason and 
Fancy in movement. 

It would be unjust to censure severely tbe 
declamatory parts of his Lectures: they are 
excusable in the first warmth of compo¬ 
sition ; they might even be justifiable allure¬ 
ments in attracting young hearers to ab¬ 
struse speculations. Had he lived, he would 
probably have taken his thoughts out of the 
declamatory forms of spoken address, and 
given to them the appearance, as well as the 
reality, of deep and subtile discussion. The 
habits, indeed, of so successful a lecturer, 
and the natural luxuriance of his mind, 
could not fail to have somewhat affected all 
his compositions; but though he might still 
have fallen short of simplicity, he certainly 
would have avoided much of the diffusion, 
and even common-place, which hang heavily 
on original and brilliant thoughts : for it 
must be owned, that though, as a thinker, 
he is unusually original, yet when he falls 
among the declaimers, he is infected by 
their common-places. In like manner, he 
would assuredly have shortened, or left out, 
many of the poetical quotations which he 
loved to recite, and which hearers even 
beyond youth hear with delight. There are 
two very different sorts of passages of poetry 
to be found in works on philosophy, which 
are as far asunder from each other in value 
as in matter. A philosopher will admit 
some of those wonderful lines or words 
which bring to light the infinite varieties of 
character, the furious bursts or wily work¬ 
ings of passion, the winding approaches of 
temptation, the slippery path to depravity, 
the beauty of tenderness, and the grandeur 
of what is awful and holy in Man. In every 
such quotation, the moral philosopher, if he 
be successful, uses the best materials of his 
science; for what are they but the results 
of experiment and observation on the human 
heart, performed by artists of far other skill 
and power than his ? They are facts which 
could have only been ascertained by Homer, 
by Dante, by Shakspeare, by Cervantes, by 
Milton. Every year of admiration since the 
unknown period when the Iliad first gave 
delight, has extorted new proofs of the just¬ 


ness of the picture of human nature, from 
the responding hearts of the admirers. 
Every strong feeling which these masters 
have excited, is a successful repetition of 
their original experiment, and a continually 
growing evidence of the greatness of their 
discoveries. Quotations of this nature may 
be the most satisfactory, as well as the most 
delightful, proofs of philosophical positions. 
Others of inferior merit are not to be in¬ 
terdicted : a pointed maxim, especially when 
familiar, pleases, and is recollected. I can¬ 
not entirely conquer my passion for the 
Roman and Stoical declamation of some pas¬ 
sages in Lucan and Akenside: but quota¬ 
tions from those who have written on phi¬ 
losophy in verse, or, in other words, from 
those who generally are inferior philo¬ 
sophers, and voluntarily deliver their doc¬ 
trines in the most disadvantageous form, 
seem to be unreasonable. It is agreeable, 
no doubt, to the philosopher, and still more 
to the youthful student, to meet his ab¬ 
struse ideas clothed in the sonorous verse of 
Akenside; the surprise of the unexpected 
union of verse with science is a very lawful 
enjoyment: but such slight and momentary 
pleasures, though they may tempt the 
writer to display them, do not excuse a vain 
effort to obtrude them on the sympathy of 
the searcher after truth in after-times. It 
is peculiarly unlucky that Dr. Brown should 
have sought supposed ornament from the 
moral common-places of Thomson, rather 
than from that illustration of philosophy 
which is really to be found in his pictu¬ 
resque strokes. 

Much more need not be said of Dr. 
Brown’s own poetry, — somewhat volumi¬ 
nous as it is, — than that it indicates fancy 
and feeling, and rises at least to the rank of 
an elegant accomplishment. It may seem a 
paradox, but it appears to me that he is 
really most poetical in those poems and pas¬ 
sages which have the most properly metaphy¬ 
sical character. For every varied form of 
life and nature, when it is habitually con¬ 
templated, may inspire feeling; and the just 
representation of these feelings may be 
poetical. Dr. Brown observed Man, and 












112 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


liis wider world, with the eye of a metaphy¬ 
sician ; and the dark results of such contem¬ 
plations, when he reviewed them, often 
filled his soul with feelings which, being both 
grand and melancholy, were truly poetical. 
Unfortunately, however, few readers can be 
touched with fellow-feelings. He sings to 
few, and must be content with sometimes 
moving a string in the soul of the lonely 
visionary, who in the day-dreams of youth, 
has felt as well as meditated on the myste¬ 
ries of nature. His heart has produced 
charming passages in all his poems; but, 
generally speaking, they are only beautiful 
works of art and imitation. The choice of 
Akenside as a favourite and a model may, 
without derogation from that writer, be con¬ 
sidered as no proof of a poetically formed 
mind.* There is more poetry in many single 
lines of Cowper than in volumes of sonorous 
verses such as Akenside’s. Philosophical 
poetry is very different from versified philo¬ 
sophy : the former is the highest exertion of 
genius; the latter cannot be ranked above 
the slighter amusements of ingenuity. Dr. 
Brown’s poetry was, it must be owned, com¬ 
posed either of imitations, which, with some 
exceptions, may be produced and read with¬ 
out feeling, or of effusions of such feelings 
only as meet a rare and faint echo in the 
human breast. 

A few words only can here be bestowed 
on the intellectual part of his philosophy. 
It is an open revolt against the authority of 
Reid; and, by a curious concurrence, he 
began to lecture nearly at the moment when 
the doctrines of that philosopher came to be 
taught with applause in France. Mr. Stew¬ 
art had dissented from the language of Reid, 
and had widely departed from his opinions 
on several secondary theories: Dr. Brown 
rejected them entirely. He very justly 


* His accomplished friend Mr. Erskine confesses 
that Brown’s poems “ are not written in the lan¬ 
guage of plain and gross emotion. The string 
touched is too delicate for general sympathy. They 
are in an unknown tongue to one-half” (he might 
have said nineteen-twentieths) “of the reading 
part of the community.!’—Welsh’s Life of Brown, 
p. 431. 


considered the claim of Reid to the merit of 
detecting the universal delusion which had 
betrayed philosophers into the belief that 
ideas which were the sole objects of know¬ 
ledge had a separate existence, as a proof of 
his having mistaken their illustrative lan¬ 
guage for a metaphysical opinion *; but he 
does not do justice to the service which Reid 
really rendered to mental science, by keeping 
the attention of all future speculators in a 
state of more constant watchfulness against 
the transient influence of such an illusion. 
His choice of the term “ feeling” j* to denote 
the operations which we usually refer to the 
Understanding, is evidently too wide a de¬ 
parture from its ordinary use, to have any 
probability of general adoption. No defini¬ 
tion can strip so familiar a word of the 
thoughts and emotions which have so long 
accompanied it, so as to fit it for a technical 
term of the highest abstraction. If we can 
be said to have a feeling “ of the equality of 
the angle of forty-five to half the angle of 
ninety degrees,” j we may call Geometry and 
Arithmetic sciences of “feeling.” He has 
very forcibly stated the necessity of assum¬ 
ing “ the primary universal intuitions of 
direct belief" which, in their nature, are in¬ 
capable of all proof. They seem to be accu¬ 
rately described as notions which cannot be 
conceived separately, but without which 
nothing can be conceived. They are not 
only necessary to reasoning and to belief, 
but to thought itself. It is equally im¬ 
possible to prove or to disprove them. He 
has very justly blamed the school of Reid 
for “ an extravagant and ridiculous” multi¬ 
plication of those principles which he truly 
represents as inconsistent with sound philo¬ 
sophy. To philosophize is indeed nothing 
more than to simplify securely.§ 


* Brown’s Lectures, vol. ii. pp. 1—49. 
f Ibid. vol. i. p. 220. | Ibid. vol. i. p. 222. 

§ Dr. Brown always expresses himself best where 
he is short an d familiar. “ An hypothesis is nothing 
more than a reason for making one experiment or 
observation rather than another.”—Lectures, vol. i. 
p. 170. In 1812, as the present writer observed to 
him that Reid and Hume differed more in words 
than in opinion, he answered, “ Yes, Reid bawled 








PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 113 


The substitution of “suggestion” for the 
former phrase of “ association of ideas,” 
would hardly deserve notice in so cursory a 
view, if it had not led him to a serious mis¬ 
conception of the doctrines and deserts of 
other philosophers. The fault of the latter 
phrase is rather in the narrowness of the last 
than in the inadequacy of the first word. 
“ Association” presents the fact in the light 
of a relation between two mental acts : “ sug¬ 
gestion” denotes rather the power of the one 
to call up the other. But whether we say 
that the sight of ashes “ suggests ” fire, or that 
the ideas of fire and ashes are “ associated,” 
we mean to convey the same fact, and, in 
both cases, an exact thinker means to accom¬ 
pany the fact with no hypothesis. Dr. Brown 
has supposed the word “ association” as in¬ 
tended to affirm that there is some “ inter¬ 
mediate process”* * between the original suc¬ 
cession of the mental acts and the power 
which they acquired therefrom of calling up 
each other. This is quite as much to raise 
up imaginary antagonists for the honour of 
conquering them, as he justly reprehends 
Dr. Reid for doing in the treatment of pre¬ 
ceding philosophers. He falls into another 
more important and unaccountable error, 
in representing his own reduction of Mr. 
Hume’s principles of association (—resem¬ 
blance, contrariety, causation, contiguity in 
time or place) to the one principle of con¬ 
tiguity, as a discovery of his own, by which 
his theory is distinguished from “ the uni¬ 
versal opinion of philosophers.” f Nothing 
but too exclusive a consideration of the doc¬ 
trines of the Scottish School could have led 
him to speak thus of what was hinted by 
Aristotle, distinctly laid down by Hobbes, 
and fully unfolded both by Hartley and 
Condillac. He has, however, extremely en¬ 
larged the proof and the illustration of this 
law of mind, by the exercise of “ a more 


out, we must believe an outward world, but added 
in a whisper, we can give no reason for our belief: 
Hume cries out, we can give no reason for such 
a notion, and whispers, I own we cannot get rid 
of it.” 

* Brown’s Lectures, vol. ii. pp. 335—347. 
f Ibid. vol. ii. p. 349. 


subtile analysis” and the disclosure of “a 
finer species of proximity.” * As he has thus 
aided and confirmed, though he did not dis¬ 
cover, the general law, so he has rendered a 
new and very important service to mental 
science, by drawing attention to what he 
properly calls “secondary laws of Sugges¬ 
tion’^ or Association, which modify the 
action of the general law, and must be dis¬ 
tinctly considered, in order to explain its 
connection with the phenomena. The enu¬ 
meration and exposition are instructive, and 
the example is worthy of commendation. 
For it is in this lower region of the science 
that most remains to be discovered; it is 
that which rests most on observation, and 
least tempts to controversy: it is by im¬ 
provements in this part of our knowledge 
that the foundations are secured, and the 
whole building so repaired as to rest steadily 
on them. The distinction of common lan¬ 
guage between the head and the heart, which, 
as we have seen, is so often overlooked or 
misapplied by metaphysicians, is, in the 
system of Brown, signified by the terms 
“ mental states” and “ emotions.” It is un¬ 
lucky that no single word could be found 
for the former, and that the addition of the 
generic term “feeling” should disturb its 
easy comprehension, when it is applied more 
naturally. 

In our more proper province Brown fol¬ 
lowed Butler (who appears to have been 
chiefly known to him through the writings 
of Mr. Stewart), in his theory of the social 
affections. Their disinterestedness is en¬ 
forced by the arguments of both these phi¬ 
losophers, as well as by those of Hutcheson. J 
It is observable, however, that Brown ap¬ 
plies the principle of Suggestion, or Asso¬ 
ciation, boldly to this part of human nature, 
and seems inclined to refer to it even Sym¬ 
pathy itself. § It is hard to understand how, 
with such a disposition on the subject of a 
principle so generally thought ultimate as 
Sympathy, he should, inconsistently with 


* Brown’s Lectures, vol. ii. p. 218. 
f Ibid. vol. ii. p. 270. % Ibid. vol. iii. p. 248. 

§ Ibid. vol. iv. p. 82. 


I 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


114 

himself, follow Mr. Stewart in representing 
the theory which derives the affections from 
Association as “ a modification of the Selfish 
system.” * He mistakes that theory when he 
states, that it derives the affections from our 
experience that our own interest is connected 
with that of others; since, in truth, it con¬ 
siders our regard to our own interest as 
formed from the same original pleasures by 
association, which, by the like process, may 
and do directly generate affections towards 
others, without passing through the channel 
of regal’d to our general happiness. But, 
says he, this is only an hypothesis, since the 
formation of these affections is acknowledged 
to belong to a time of which there is no 
remembrancef;—an objection fatal to every 
theory of any mental functions, — subver¬ 
sive, for example, of Berkeley’s discovery of 
acquired visual perception, and most strangely 
inconsistent in the mouth of a philosopher 
whose numerous simplifications of mental 
theory are and must be founded on occur¬ 
rences which precede experience. It is in 
all other cases, and it must be in this, suffi¬ 
cient that the principle of the theory is really 
existing, — that it explains the appearances, 
—that its supposed action resembles what we 
know to be its action in those similar cases 
of which we have direct experience. Lastly, 
he in express words admits that, according 
to the theory to which he objects, we have 
affections which are at present disinterested. J 
Is it not a direct contradiction in terms to 
call such a theory “ a modification of the 
Selfish system ? ” His language in the sequel 
clearly indicates a distrust of his own state¬ 
ment, and a suspicion that he is not only 
inconsistent with himself, but altogether 
mistaken. § 

As we enter farther into the territory of 
Ethics, we at length discover a distinction, 
originating with Brown, the neglect of which 

O O 7 o 

by preceding speculators we have more than 
once lamented as productive of obscurity 
and confusion. “ The moral affections,” says 


* Brown’s Lectures, vol. iii. p. 282. 
t Ibid. vol. iv. p. 87. J Ibid. vol. iv. p. 87. 
§ Ibid. vol. iv. pp. 94—97. 


he, “which I consider at present, I con¬ 
sider rather physiologically” (or, as he 
elsewhere better expresses it, “psycholo¬ 
gically,”) “ than ethically, as parts of our 
mental constitution , not as involving the ful¬ 
filment or violation of duties .” * He imme¬ 
diately, however, loses sight of this distinc¬ 
tion, and reasons inconsistently with it, 
instead of following its proper consequences 
in his analysis of Conscience. Perhaps, in¬ 
deed (for the words are capable of more 
than one sense), he meant to distinguish the 
virtuous affections from those sentiments 
which have Morality exclusively in view, 
rather than to distinguish the theory of 
Moral Sentiment from the attempt to ascer¬ 
tain the characteristic quality of right action. 
Friendship is conformable in its dictates to 
Morality; but it may, and does exist, with¬ 
out any view to it: he who feels the affec¬ 
tions, and performs the duties of friendship, 
is the object of that distinct emotion which 
is called “ moral approbation.” 

It is on the subject of Conscience that, in 
imitation of Mr. Stewart, and with the ar¬ 
guments of that philosopher, he makes his 
chief stand against the theory which con¬ 
siders the formation of that master faculty 
itself as probably referable to the necessary 
and universal operation of those laws of 
human nature to which he himself ascribes 
almost every other state of mind. On both 
sides of this question the supremacy of Con¬ 
science is alike held to be venerable and 
absolute. Once more, be it remembered, 
that the question is purely philosophical, 
and is only whether, from the impossibility 
of explaining its formation by more general 
laws, we are reduced to the necessity of 
considering it as an original fact in human 
nature, of which no further account can be 
given. Let it, however, be also remembered, 
that we are not driven to this supposition 
by the mere circumstance, that no satisfac¬ 
tory explanation has yet appeared; for 
there are many analogies in an unexplained 
state of mind to states already explained, 
which may justify us in believing that the 


* Brown’s Lectures, vol. iii. p. 231. 










PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 115 


explanation requires only more accurate 
observation, and more patient meditation 
to be brought to that completeness which it 
probably will attain. 


SECTION VII. 

GENERAL REMARKS. 

The oft-repeated warning with which the 
foregoing section concluded being again 
premised, it remains that we should offer a 
few observations, which naturally occur on 
the consideration of Dr. Brown’s argument 
in support of the proposition, that moral 
approbation is not only in its mature state 
independent of, and superior to, any other 
principle of human nature (regarding which 
there is no dispute), but that its origin is 
altogether inexplicable, and that its exist¬ 
ence is an ultimate fact in mental science. 
Though these observations are immediately 
occasioned by the writings of Brown, they 
are yet, in the main, of a general nature, 
and might have been made without refer¬ 
ence to any particular writer. 

The term “ suggestion,” which might be 
inoffensive in describing merely intellectual 
associations, becomes peculiarly unsuitable 
when it is applied to those combinations of 
thought with emotion, and to those unions of 
feeling which compose the emotive nature 
of Man. Its common sense of a sign recall¬ 
ing the thing signified, always embroils the 
new sense vainly forced upon it. No one 
can help owning, that if it were consistently 
pursued, so as that we were to speak of 
“ suggesting a feeling” or “passion,” the 
language would be universally thought ab¬ 
surd. To “ suggest love ” or “ hatred ” is a 
mode of expression so manifestly incongru¬ 
ous, that most readers would choose to un¬ 
derstand it as suggesting reflections on the 
subject of these passages. “ Suggest ” would 
not commonly be understood as synonymous 
with “ revive ” or “ rekindle.” Defects of 
the same sort may indeed be found in the 


parallel phrases of most, if not all, philoso¬ 
phers; and all of them proceed from the 
erroneous but prevalent notion, that the 
law of Association produces only such a 
close union of a thought and a feeling, as 
gives one the power of reviving the other; 
—the truth being that it forms them into a 
new compound, in which the properties of 
the component parts are no longer discover¬ 
able, and which may itself become a sub¬ 
stantive principle of human nature. They 
supposed the condition, produced by the 
power of that law, to resemble that of mate¬ 
rial substances in a state of mechanical 
separation; whereas in reality it may be 
better likened to a chemical combination of 
the same substances, from which a totally 
new product arises. Their language in¬ 
volves a confusion of the question which 
relates to the origin of the principles of 
human activity, with the other and far more 
important question which relates to their 
nature; and as soon as this distinction is 
hidden, the theorist is either betrayed into 
the Selfish system by a desire of clearness 
and simplicity, or tempted to the needless 
multiplication of ultimate facts by mistaken 
anxiety for what he supposes to be the 
guards of our social and moral nature. The 
defect is common to Brown with his prede¬ 
cessors, but in him it is less excusable; for 
he saw the truth and recoiled from it. It is 
the main defect of the term “ association ” 
itself, that it does not, till after long use, 
convey the notion of a perfect union, but 
rather leads to that of a combination which 
may be dissolved, if not at pleasure, at least 
with the help of care and exertion; which is 
utterly and dangerously false in the im¬ 
portant cases where such unions are con¬ 
sidered as constituting the most essential 
principles of human nature. Men can no 
more dissolve these unions than they can 
dssuse their habit of judging of distance by 
the eye, and often by the ear. But “ sug¬ 
gestion ” implies, that what suggests is sepa¬ 
rate from what is suggested, and conse¬ 
quently negatives that unity in an active 
principle which the whole analogy of nature, 
as well as our own direct consciousness, 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


116 


shows to be perfectly compatible with its 
origin in composition. 

Large concessions are, in the first place, 
to be remarked, which must be stated, be¬ 
cause they very much narrow the matter in 
dispute. Those who, before Brown, con¬ 
tended against “ beneficial tendency ” as the 
standard of Morality, have either shut their 
eyes on the connection of Virtue with ge¬ 
neral utility, or carelessly and obscurely 
allowed, without further remark, a connec¬ 
tion which is at least one of the most re¬ 
markable and important of ethical fatfts. 
He acts more boldly, and avowedly dis¬ 
cusses “the relation of Virtue to Utility.” 
He was compelled by that discussion to 
make those concessions which so much 
abridge this controversy. “ Utility and 
Virtue are so related, that there is perhaps 
no action generally felt to be virtuous, 
which it would not be beneficial that all 
men in similar circumstances should imi¬ 
tate.” * “ In every case of benefit or in¬ 

jury willingly done, there arise certain emo¬ 
tions of moral approbation or disapproba¬ 
tion.” f “ The intentional produce of evil, 
as pure evil, is always hated, and that of 
good, as pure good, always loved.” j All 
virtuous acts are thus admitted to be uni¬ 
versally beneficial; Morality and the ge¬ 
neral benefit are acknowledged always to 
coincide. It is hard to say, then, why they 
should not be reciprocally tests of each 
other, though in a very different way; — 
the virtuous feelings, fitted as they are by 
immediate appearance, by quick and power¬ 
ful action, to be sufficient tests of Morality 
in the moment of action, and for all prac¬ 


* Lectures, vol. iv. p. 45. The unphilosophical 
word “perhaps” must be struck out of the propo¬ 
sition, unless the whole be considered as a mere 
conjecture; it limits no affirmation, but destroys 
it, by converting it into a guess. See the like con¬ 
cession, vol. iv. p. 33., with some words interlarded, 
which betray a sort of reluctance and fluctuation, 
indicative of the difficulty with which Brown 
struggled to withhold his assent from truths which 
he unreasonably dreaded. 

f Brown’s Lectures, vol. iii. p. 567. 

X Ibid. vol. iii. p. 621. 


tical purposes; while the consideration of 
tendency of those acts to contribute to ge¬ 
neral happiness, a more obscure and slowly 
discoverable quality, should be applied in 
general reasoning, as a test of the senti¬ 
ments and dispositions themselves. In cases 
where such last-mentioned test has been 
applied, no proof has been attempted that 
it has ever deceived those who used it in 
the proper place. It has uniformly served 
to justify our moral constitution, and to 
show how reasonable it is for us to be guided 
in action by our higher feelings. At all 
events it should be, but has not been con¬ 
sidered, that from these concessions alone it 
follows, that beneficial tendency is at least 
one constant property of Virtue. Is not this, 
in effect, an admission that beneficial ten¬ 
dency does distinguish virtuous acts and dis¬ 
positions from those which we call vicious ? 
If the criterion be incomplete or delusive, 
let its faults be specified, and let some other 
quality be pointed out, which, either singly 
or in combination with beneficial tendency, 
may more perfectly indicate the distinction. 
But let us not be assailed by arguments 
which leave untouched its value as a test, 
and are in truth directed only against its 
fitness as an immediate incentive and guide 
to right action. To those who contend for 
its use in the latter character, it must be 
left to defend, if they can, so untenable a 
position: but all others must regard as pure 
sophistry the use of arguments against it as 
a test, which really show nothing more than 
its acknowledged unfitness to be a motive. 

When voluntary benefit and voluntary 
injury are pointed out as the main, if not 
the sole objects of moral approbation and 
disapprobation,—when we are told truly, 
that the production of good, as good, is 
always loved, and that of evil, as such, 
always hated, can we require a more clear, 
short, and unanswerable proof, that bene¬ 
ficial tendency is an essential quality of 
Virtue? It is indeed an evidently neces¬ 
sary consequence of this statement, that if 
benevolence be amiable in itself, our affec¬ 
tion for it must increase with its extent, and 
that no man can be in a perfectly right state 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 117 


of mind, wlio, if he consider general happi¬ 
ness at all, is not ready to acknowledge that 
a good man must regard it as being in its 
own nature the most desirable of all objects, 
however the constitution and circumstances 
of human nature may render it unfit or im¬ 
possible to pursue it directly as the object of 
life. It is at the same time apparent that 
no such man can consider any habitual dis¬ 
position, clearly discerned to be in its whole 
result at variance with general happiness, 
as not unworthy of being cultivated, or as 
not fit to be rooted out. It is manifest that, 
if it were otherwise, he would cease to be 
benevolent. As soon as we conceive the 
sublime idea of a Being who not only fore¬ 
sees, but commands, all the consequences of 
the actions of all voluntary agents, this 
scheme of reasoning appears far more clear. 
In such a case, if our moral sentiments re¬ 
main the same, they compel us to attribute 
His whole government of the world to be¬ 
nevolence. The consequence is as neces¬ 
sary as in any process of reason; for if our 
moral nature be supposed, it will appear 
self-evident, that it is as much impossible 
for us to love and revere such a Being, if we 
ascribe to Him a mixed or imperfect bene¬ 
volence, as to believe the most positive con¬ 
tradiction in terms. Now, as Religion, con¬ 
sists in that love and reverence, it is evident 
that it cannot subsist without a belief in 
benevolence as the sole principle of divine 
government. It is nothing to tell us that 
this is not a process of reasoning, or, to 
speak more exactly, that the first proposi¬ 
tions are assumed. The first propositions 
in every discussion relating to intellectual 
operations must likewise be assumed. Con¬ 
science is not Reason, but it is not less an 
essential part of human nature. Principles 
which are essential to all its operations are 
as much entitled to immediate and implicit 
assent, as those principles which stand in 
the same relation to the reasoning faculties. 
The laws prescribed by a benevolent Being 
to His creatures must necessarily be founded 
on the principle of promoting their happi¬ 
ness. It would be singular indeed, if the 
proofs of the goodness of God, legible in 


every part of Nature, should not, above all 
others, be most discoverable and conspicuous 
in the beneficial tendency of His moral 
laws. But we are asked, if tendency to ge¬ 
neral welfare be the standard of Virtue, 
why is it not always present to the contem¬ 
plation of every man who does or prefers a 
virtuous action? Must not Utility be in 
that case “ the felt essence of Virtue ? ” * 
Why are other ends, besides general happi¬ 
ness, fit to be morally pursued ? 

These questions, which are all founded 
on that confusion of the theory of actions 
with the theory of sentiments , against which 
the reader was so early warned f, might be 
dismissed with no more than a reference to 
that distinction, from the forgetfulness of 
which they have arisen. By those advo¬ 
cates of the principle of Utility, indeed, who 
hold it to be a necessary part of their system, 
that some glimpse at least of tendency to 
personal or general well-being is an essen¬ 
tial part of the motives which render an 
action virtuous, these questions cannot be 
satisfactorily answered. Against such they 
are arguments of irresistible force; but 
against the doctrine itself, rightly under¬ 
stood and justly bounded, they are alto¬ 
gether powerless. The reason why there 
may, and must be many ends morally more 
fit to be pursued in practice than general 
happiness, is plainly to be found in the 
limited capacity of Man. A perfectly good 
Being, who foresees and commands all the 
consequences of action, cannot indeed be 
conceived by us to have any other end in 
view than general well-being. Why evil 
exists under that perfect government, is a 
question towards the solution of which the 
human understanding can scarcely advance 
a single step. But all who hold the evil to 
exist only for good, and own their inability 
to explain why or how, are perfectly exempt 
from any charge of inconsistency in their 
obedience to the dictates of their moral 
nature. The measure of the faculties of 
Man renders it absolutely necessary for him 


* Lectures, vol. iv. p. 38. 
f See supra , p. 6. 








118 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


to have many other practical ends; the pur¬ 
suit of all of which is moral, when it actually 
tends to general happiness, though that last 
end never entered into the contemplation of 
the agent. It is impossible for us to calcu¬ 
late the effects of a single action, any more 
than the chances of a single life. But let it 
not be hastily concluded, that the calculation 
of consequences is impossible in moral sub¬ 
jects. To calculate the general tendency of 
every sort of human action, is a possible, 
easy, and common operation. The general 
good effects of temperance, prudence, forti¬ 
tude, j ustice, benevolence, gratitude, veracity, 
fidelity, of the affections of kindred, and of 
love for our country, are the subjects of 
calculations which, taken as generalities, are 
absolutely unerring. They are founded on 
a larger and firmer basis of more uniform 
experience, than any of those ordinary cal¬ 
culations which govern prudent men in the 
whole business of life. An appeal to these 
daily and familiar transactions furnishes at 
once a decisive answer, both to those advo¬ 
cates of Utility who represent the consider¬ 
ation of it as a necessary ingredient in 
virtuous motives, as well as moral appro¬ 
bation, and to those opponents who turn the 
unwarrantable inferences of unskilful advo¬ 
cates into proofs of the absurdity into which 
the doctrine leads. 

The cultivation of all the habitual senti¬ 
ments from which the various classes of 
virtuous actions flow, the constant practice 
of such actions, the strict observance of rules 
in all that province of Ethics which can be 
subjected to rules, the watchful care of all 
the outworks of every part of duty, and of 
that descending series of useful habits which, 
being securities to Virtue, become them¬ 
selves virtues, — are so many ends which it 
is absolutely necessary for man to pursue 
and to seek for their own sake. “ I saw 
D’Alembert,” says a very late writer, “ con¬ 
gratulate a young man very coldly, who 
brought him a solution of a problem. The 
young man said, ‘ I have done this in order 
to have a seat in the Academy.’ ‘ Sir,’ an- 
1 swered D’Alembert, 1 with such dispositions 
i you never will earn one Science must be 

f— 


loved for its own sake, and not for the ad¬ 
vantage to be derived. No other principle 
will enable a man to make progress in the 
sciences.’ ” * It is singular that D’Alembert 
should not perceive the extensive application 
of this truth to the whole nature of Man. 
No man can make progress in a virtue who 
does not seek it for its own sake. No man 
is a friend, a lover of his country, a kind 
father, a dutiful son, who does not consider 
the cultivation of affection and the perform¬ 
ance of duty in all these cases, respectively, 
as incumbent on him for their own sake, and 
not for the advantage to be derived from 
them. Whoever serves another with a view 
of advantage to himself, is universally ac¬ 
knowledged not to act from affection. But 
the more immediate application of this truth 
to our purpose is, that in the case of those 
virtues which are the means of cultivating 
and preserving other virtues, it is necessary 
to acquire love and reverence for the se¬ 
condary virtues for their own sake, without 
which they never will be effectual means of 
sheltering and strengthening those intrin¬ 
sically higher qualities to which they are 
appointed to minister. Every moral act 
must be considered as an end, and men must 
banish from their practice the regard to the 
most naturally subordinate duty as a means. 
Those who are perplexed by the supposition 
that secondary Virtues, making up by the 
extent of their beneficial tendency for what 
in each particular instance they may want in 
magnitude , may become of as great import¬ 
ance as the primary virtues themselves, 
would do well to consider a parallel though 
very homely case. A house is useful for 
many purposes: many of these purposes are 
in themselves, for the time, more important 
than shelter. The destruction of the house 
may, nevertheless, become a greater evil 
than the defeat of several of these purposes, 
because it is permanently convenient, and 
indeed necessary to the execution of most of 
them. A floor is made for warmth, for dry¬ 
ness,— to support tables, chairs, beds, and 
all the household implements which contri- 


* Mfmoircs dc Monllosier, vol. i. p. 50. 










PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 119 


bute to accommodation and to pleasure. The 
floor is valuable only as a means; but, as the 
only means by which many ends are at¬ 
tained, it may be much more valuable than 
some of them. The table might be, and 
generally is, of more valuable timber than 
the floor ; but the workman who should for 
that reason take more pains in making the 
table strong, than the floor secure, would not 
long be employed by customers of common 
sense. 

The connection of that part of Morality 
which regulates the intercourse of the sexes 
with benevolence, affords the most striking 
instance of the very great importance which 
may belong to a virtue, in itself secondary, but 
on which the general cultivation of the highest 
virtues permanently depends. Delicacy and 
modesty may be thought chiefly worthy of 
cultivation, because they guard purity; but 
they must be lqved for them own sake, with¬ 
out which they cannot flourish. Purity is 
the sole school of domestic fidelity, and do¬ 
mestic fidelity is the only nursery of the 
affections between parents and children, 
from children towards each other, and, 
through these affections, of all the kindness 
which renders the world habitable. At each 
step in the progress, the appropriate end 
must be loved for its own sake; and it is 
easy to see how the only means of sowing 
the seeds of benevolence, in all its forms, 
may become of far greater importance than 
many of the modifications and exertions even 
of benevolence itself. To those who will 
consider this subject, it will not long seem 
strange that the sweetest and most gentle 
affections grow up only under the apparently 
cold and dark shadow of stern duty. The 
obligation is strengthened, not weakened, by 
the consideration that it arises from human 
imperfection; which only proves it to be 
founded on the nature of man. It is enough 
that the pursuit of all these separate ends 
leads to general well-being, the promotion 
of which is the final purpose of the Cre¬ 
ation. 

The last and most specious argument 
against beneficial tendency, even as a test, is 
conveyed in the question, Why moral appro¬ 


bation is not bestowed on every thing bene¬ 
ficial, instead of being confined, as it con¬ 
fessedly is, to voluntary acts ? It may plau¬ 
sibly be said, that the establishment of the 
beneficial tendency of all those voluntary 
acts which are the objects of moral appro¬ 
bation, is not sufficient; — since, if such 
tendency be the standard, it ought to follow, 
that whatever is useful should also be 
morally approved. To answer, as has before 
been done *, that experience gradually limits 
moral, approbation and disapprobation to 
voluntary acts, by teaching us that they in¬ 
fluence the Will, but are wholly wasted if 
they be applied to any other object,—though 
the fact be true, and contributes somewhat 
to the result, — is certainly not enough. It 
is at best a partial solution. Perhaps, on 
reconsideration, it is entitled only to a se¬ 
condary place. To seek a foundation for 
universal, ardent, early, and immediate feel¬ 
ings, in processes of an intellectual nature, 
has, since the origin of philosophy, been the 
grand error of ethical inquirers into human 
nature. To seek for such a foundation in 
Association, — an early and insensible pro¬ 
cess, which confessedly mingles itself with 
the composition of our first and simplest 
feelings, and which is common to both parts 
of our nature, is not liable to the same ani¬ 
madversion. If Conscience be uniformly 
produced by the regular and harmonious 
co-operation of many processes of associa¬ 
tion, the objection is in reality a challenge to 
produce a complete theory of it, founded on 
that principle, by exhibiting such a full ac¬ 
count of all these processes as may satisfac¬ 
torily explain why it proceeds thus far and 
no farther. This would be a very arduous 
attempt, and perhaps it may be premature. 
But something may be more modestly tried 
towards an outline , which, though it may 
leave many particulars unexplained, may 
justify a reasonable expectation that they 
are not incapable of explanation, and may 
even now assign such reasons for the limit¬ 
ation of approbation to voluntary acts, as 
may convert the objection derived from that 


* See supra, p. 69. 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


120 

fact into a corroboration of the doctrines 
to which it has been opposed as an insur¬ 
mountable difficulty. Such an attempt will 
naturally lead to the close of the present 
Dissertation. The attempt has indeed been 
already made*, but not without great ap¬ 
prehensions on the part of the author that 
he has not been clear enough, especially in 
those parts which appeared to himself to 
owe most to his own reflection. He will 
now endeavour, at the expense of some re¬ 
petition, to be more satisfactory. 

There must be primary pleasures, pains, 
and even appetites, which arise from no prior 
state of mind, and which, if explained at all, 
can be derived only from bodily organisation; 
for if there were not, there could be no se¬ 
condary desires. What the number of the 
underived principles may be, is a question 
to which the answers of philosophers have 
been extremely various, and of which the 
consideration is not necessary to our present 
purpose. The rules of philosophising, how¬ 
ever, require that causes should not be mul¬ 
tiplied without necessity. Of two explana¬ 
tions, therefore, which give an equally 
satisfactory account of appearances, that 
theory is manifestly to be preferred which 
supposes the smaller number of ultimate and 
inexplicable principles. This maxim, it is 
true, is subject to three indispensable con¬ 
ditions : — 1 st, That the principles employed 
in the explanation should be known really 
to exist; in which consists the main distinc¬ 
tion between hypothesis and theory. Gra¬ 
vity is a principle universally known to 
exist; ether and a nervous fluid are mere 
suppositions. — 2dly, That these principles 
should be known to produce effects like those 
which are ascribed to them in the theory. 
This is a further distinction between hypo¬ 
thesis and theory; for there are an infinite 
number of degrees of likeness , from the faint 
resemblances which have led some to fancy 
that the functions of the nerves depend on 
electricity, to the remarkable coincidences 
between the appearances of projectiles on 
earth, and the movements of the heavenly 


* See supra, p. 78. et seq. 


bodies, which constitutes the Newtonian 
system, — a theory now perfect, though ex¬ 
clusively founded on analogy, and in which 
one of the classes of phenomena brought to¬ 
gether by it is not the subject of direct ex¬ 
perience. — 3dly, That it should correspond, 
if not with all the facts to be explained, at 
least with so great a majority of them as to 
render it highly probable that means will in 
time be found of reconciling it to all. It is 
only on this ground that the Newtonian sys¬ 
tem justly claimed the title of a legitimate 
theory during that long period when it was 
unable to explain many celestial appearances, 
before the labours of a century, and the 
genius of Laplace, at length completed it by 
adapting it to all the phenomena. A theory 
may be just before it is complete. 

In the application of these canons to the 
theory which derives most of the principles 
of human action from the transfer of a small 
number of pleasures, perhaps organic ones, 
by the law of Association to a vast variety 
of new objects, it cannot be denied, 1st, 
That it satisfies the first of the above con¬ 
ditions, inasmuch as Association is really 
one of the laws of human nature; 2dly, 
That it also satisfies the second, for Asso¬ 
ciation certainly produces effects like those 
which are referred to it by this theory; — 
otherwise there would be no secondary de¬ 
sires, no acquired relishes and dislikes, — 
facts universally acknowledged, which are, 
and can be, explained only by the principle 
called by Hobbes “ Mental Discourse,” 
— by Locke, Hume, Hartley, Condillac, 
and the majority of speculators, as well as in 
common speech, “Association,”—by Tucker, 
“ Translation,” — and by Brown, “ Sugges¬ 
tion.” The facts generally referred to the 
principle resemble those which are claimed 
for it by the theory in this important par¬ 
ticular, that in both cases equally pleasure 
becomes attached to perfectly new things, — 
so that the derivative desires become per¬ 
fectly independent on the primary. The 
great dissimilarity of these two classes of 
passions has been supposed to consist in this? 
that the former always regards the interest 
of the individual, while the latter regards 

1 O 








PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 121 


the welfare of others. The philosophical 
world has been almost entirely divided into 
two sects, — the partisans of Selfishness, 
comprising mostly all the predecessors of 
Butler, and the greater part of his suc¬ 
cessors, and the advocates of Benevolence, 
who have generally contended that the 
reality of Disinterestedness depends on its 
being a primary principle. Enough has been 
said by Butler against the more fatal heresy of 
Selfishness : something also has already been 
said against the error of the advocates of Dis¬ 
interestedness, in the progress of this attempt 
to develope ethical truths historically, in 
the order in which inquiry and controversy 
brought them out with increasing bright¬ 
ness. The analogy of the material world is 
indeed faint, and often delusive; yet we 
dare not utterly reject that on which the 
whole technical language of mental and 
moral science is necessarily grounded. The 
whole creation teems with instances where 
the most powerful agents and the most last¬ 
ing bodies are the acknowledged results of 
the composition, sometimes of a few, often 
of many elements. These compounds often 
in their turn become the elements of other 
substances; and it is with them that we are 
conversant chiefly in the pursuits of know¬ 
ledge, and solely in the concerns of life. Ho 
man ever fancied, that because they were 
compounds, they were therefore less real. It 
is impossible to confound them with any of 
the separate elements which contribute to¬ 
wards their formation. But a much more 
close resemblance presents itself: every se¬ 
condary desire, or acquired relish, involves 
in it a transfer of pleasure to something 
which was before indifferent or disagreeable. 
Is the new pleasure the less real for being 
acquired ? Is it not often preferred to the 
original enjoyment ? Are not many of these 
secondary pleasures indestructible? Do not 
many of them survive primary appetites? 
Lastly, the important principle of regard to 
our own general welfare, which disposes us 
to prefer it to immediate pleasure (unfortu¬ 
nately called “ Self-love,” — as if, in any 
intelligible sense of the term “ love,” it were 
possible for a man to love himself), is per¬ 


fectly intelligible, if its origin be ascribed to 
Association, but utterly incomprehensible, if 
it be considered as prior to the appetites and 
desires, which alone furnish it with materials. 
As happiness consists of satisfactions, Self- 
love presupposes appetites and desires which 
are to be satisfied. If the order of time were 
important, the affections are formed at an 
earlier period than many self-regarding pas¬ 
sions, and they always precede the formation 
of Self-love. 

Many of the later advocates of the Dis¬ 
interested system, though recoiling from an 
apparent approach to the Selfishness into 
which the purest of their antagonists had 
occasionally fallen, were gradually obliged 
to make concessions to the Derivative sys¬ 
tem, though clogged with the contradictory 
assertion, that it was only a refinement of 
Selfishness: and we have seen that Brown, 
the last and not the least in genius of them, 
has nearly abandoned the greater, though 
not indeed the most important, part of the 
territory in dispute, and scarcely contends 
for any underived principle but the Moral 
Faculty. This being the state of opinion 
among the very small number in great Bri¬ 
tain who still preserve some remains of a 
taste for such speculations, it is needless here 
to trace the application of the law of Asso¬ 
ciation to the formation of the secondary 
desires, whether private or social. For our 
present purposes, the explanation of their 
origin may be assumed to be satisfactory. 
In what follows, it must, however, be steadily 
borne in mind, that this concession involves 
an admission that the pleasure derived from 
low objects may be transferred to the most 
pure, — that from a part of a self-regarding 
appetite such a pleasure may become a por¬ 
tion of a perfectly disinterested desire, — 
and that the disinterested nature and abso¬ 
lute independence of the latter are not in 
the slightest degree impaired by the consider¬ 
ation, that it is formed by one of those grand 
mental processes to which the formation of 
the other habitual states of the human mind 
have been, with great probability, ascribed. 

When the social affections are thus formed, 
they are naturally followed in every instance 






122 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


by the will to do whatever can promote their 
object. Compassion excites a voluntary 
determination to do whatever relieves the 
person pitied: the like process must occur 
in every case of gratitude, generosity, and 
affection. Nothing so uniformly follows the 
kind disposition as the act of Will, because 
it is the only means by which the benevolent 
desire can be gratified. The result of what 
Brown justly calls “ a finer analysis,” shows 
a mental contiguity of the affection to the 
volition to be much closer than appears on 
a coarser examination of this part of our 
nature. No wonder, then, that the strongest 
association, the most active power of reci¬ 
procal suggestion, should subsist between 
them. As all the affections are delightful, 
so the volitions, — voluntary acts which are 
the only means of their gratification, — be¬ 
come agreeable objects of contemplation to 
the mind. The habitual disposition to per¬ 
form them is felt in ourselves, and observed 
in others, with satisfaction. As these feel¬ 
ings become more lively, the absence of them 
may be viewed in ourselves with a pain, — 
in others with an alienation capable of in¬ 
definite increase. They become entirely 
independent sentiments, — still, however, 
receiving constant supplies of nourishment 
from their parent affections, — which, in 
well-balanced minds, reciprocally strengthen 
each other ;—unlike the unkind passions, 
which are constantly engaged in the most 
angry conflicts of civil war. In this state 
we desire to experience these beneficent voli¬ 
tions, to cultivate a disposition towards them, 
and to do every correspondent voluntary 
act: they are for their own sake the objects 
of desire. They thus constitute a large por¬ 
tion of those emotions, desires, and affec¬ 
tions, which regard certain dispositions of 
the mind and determinations of the Will as 
their sole and ultimate end. These are 
what are called the “ Moral Sense,” the 
“ Moral Sentiments,” or best, though most 
simply, by the ancient name of Conscience, 
— which has the merit, in our language, of 
being applied to no other purpose, — which 
peculiarly marks the strong working of these 
feelings on conduct, — and which, from its 


solemn and sacred character, is well adapted 
to denote the venerable authority of the 
highest principle of human nature. 

Nor is this all: it has already been seen 
that not only sympathy with the sufferer, but 
indignation against the wrong-doer, contri¬ 
butes a large and important share towards 
the moral feelings. We are angry at those 
. who disappoint our wish for the happiness of 
others; we make the resentment of the 
innocent person wronged our own: our 
moderate anger approves all well-propor¬ 
tioned punishment of the wrong-doer. We 
hence approve those dispositions and actions 
of voluntary agents which promote such 
suitable punishment, and disapprove those 
which hinder its infliction, or destroy its 
effect; at the head o'f which may be placed 
that excess of punishment beyond the average 
feelings of good men which turns the indig¬ 
nation of the calm by-stander against the 
culprit into pity. In this state, when anger 
is duly moderated,—when it is proportioned 
to the wrong, — when it is detached from 
personal considerations, — when dispositions 
and actions are its ultimate objects , it becomes 
a sense of justice, and is so purified as to be 
fitted to be a new element of Conscience. 
There is no part of Morality which is so 
directly aided by a conviction of the necessity 
of its observance to the general interest, as 
justice. The connection between them is 
discoverable by the most common under¬ 
standing. All public deliberations profess 
the public welfare to be their object; all laws 
propose it as their end. This calm principle 
of public utility serves to mediate between 
the sometimes repugnant feelings which arise 
in the punishment of criminals, by repress¬ 
ing undue pity on one hand, and reducing 
resentment to it3 proper level on the other. 
Hence the unspeakable importance of crimi¬ 
nal laws as a part of the moral education of 
mankind. Whenever they carefully conform 
to the Moral Sentiments of the age and 
country, — when they are withheld from 
approaching the limits within which the dis¬ 
approbation of good men would confine 
punishment, they contribute in the highest 
degree to increase the ignominy of crimes, 















PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 123 

to make men recoil from the first sugges¬ 
tions of criminality, and to nourish and 
mature the sense of justice, which lends new 
vigour to the conscience with which it has 
been united. 

Other contributary streams present them¬ 
selves : qualities which are necessary to 
Virtue, but may be subservient to Vice, may, 
independently of that excellence, or of that 
defect, be in themselves admirable: courage, 
energy, decision, are of this nature. In their 
wild state they are often savage and destruc¬ 
tive : when they are tamed by the society of 
the affections, and trained up in obedience to 
the Moral Faculty, they become virtues of 
the highest order, and, by their name of 
“ magnanimity,” proclaim the general sense 
of mankind that they are the characteristic 
qualities of a great soul. They retain what¬ 
ever was admirable in their unreclaimed 
state, together with all that they borrow from 
their new associate and their high ruler. 
Their nature, it must be owned, is prone to 
evil; but this propensity does not hinder 
them from being rendered capable of being 
ministers of good, when in a state where the 
gentler virtues require to be vigorously 
guarded against the attacks of daring de¬ 
pravity. It is thus that the strength of the 
well-educated elephant is sometimes em¬ 
ployed in vanquishing the fierceness of the 
tiger, and sometimes used as a means of de¬ 
fence against the shock of his brethren of the 
same species. The delightful contemplation, 
however, of these qualities, when purely ap¬ 
plied, becomes one of the sentiments of which 
the dispositions and actions of voluntary 
agents are the direct and final object. By 
this resemblance they are associated with 
the other moral principles, and with them 
contribute to form Conscience, which, as 
the master faculty of the soul, levies such 
large contributions on every province of 
human nature. 

It is important in this point of view, to 
consider also the moral approbation which is 
undoubtedly bestowed on those dispositions 
and actions of voluntary agents which termi¬ 
nate in their own satisfaction, security, and 
well-being. They have been called “ duties 

to ourselves,” as absurdly as a regard to our 
own greatest happiness is called “ self-love.’’ 
But it cannot be reasonably doubted, that 
intemperance, improvidence, timidity, — 
even when considered only in relation to the 
individual, — are not only regretted as im¬ 
prudent, but blamed as morally wrong. It 
was excellently observed by Aristotle, that a 
man is not commended as temperate , so long 
as it costs him efforts of self-denial to perse-' 
vere in the practice of temperance, but only 
when he prefers that virtue for its own sake. 
He is not meek, nor brave, as long as the 
most vigorous self-command is necessary to 
bridle his anger or his fear. On the same 
principle, he may be judicious or prudent, 
but he is not benevolent, if he confers bene¬ 
fits with a view to his own greatest happi¬ 
ness. In like manner, it is ascertained by 
experience, that all the masters of science 
and of art, — that all those who have suc¬ 
cessfully pursued Truth and Knowledge, 
love them for their own sake, without regard 
to the generally imaginary dower of interest, 
or even to the dazzling crown which Fame 
may place on their heads. * But it may still 
be reasonably asked, why these useful quali¬ 
ties are morally improved, and how they 
become capable of being combined with 
those public and disinterested sentiments 

* See the Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficul¬ 
ties, a discourse forming the first part of the third 
volume of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, 
London, 1829. The author of this essay, for it can 
be no other than Mr. jBrougham, •will by others be 
placed at the head of those who, in the midst of 
arduous employments, and surrounded by all the 
allurements of society, yet find leisure for exerting 
the unwearied vigour of their minds in every mode 
of rendering permanent service to the human spe¬ 
cies ; more especially in spreading a love of know¬ 
ledge, and diffusing useful truth among all classes 
of men. These voluntary occupations deserve our 
attention still less as examples of prodigious power 
than as proofs of an intimate conviction, which 
binds them by unity of purpose with his public 
duties, that (to use the almost dying words of an 
excellent person) “ man can neither be happy 
without virtue, nor actively virtuous without li¬ 
berty, nor securely free without rational know¬ 
ledge.”—Close of Sir W. Jones’s last Discourse to 
the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


124 


which principally constitute Conscience ? 
The answer is, because they are entirely 
conversant with volitions and voluntary ac¬ 
tions, and in that respect resemble the other 
constituents of Conscience, with which they 
are thereby fitted to mingle and coalesce. 
Like those other principles, they may be 
detached from what is personal and outward, 
and fixed on the dispositions and actions, 
which are the only means of promoting their 
ends. The sequence of these principles and 
acts of Will become so frequent, that the 
association between both may be as firm as 
in the former cases. All those sentiments of 
which the final object is a state of the Will, 
become thus intimately and inseparably 
blended; and of that perfect state of solution 
(if such words may be allowed) the result is 
Conscience—the judge and arbiter of human 
conduct — which, though it does not super¬ 
sede ordinary motives of virtuous feelings and 
habits (equally the ordinary motives of good 
actions), yet exercises a lawful authority 
even over them, and ought to blend with 
them. Whatsoever actions and dispositions 
are approved by Conscience, acquire the 
name of virtues or duties : they are pro¬ 
nounced to deserve commendation; and we 
are justly considered as under a moral obli¬ 
gation to practise the actions and cultivate 
the dispositions. 

The coalition of the private and public 
feelings is very remarkable in two points of 
view, from which it seems hitherto to have 
been scarcely observed. 1st. It illustrates 
very forcibly all that has been here offered 
to prove, that the peculiar character of the 
Moral Sentiments consists in their exclusive 
reference to states of Will, and that every 
feeling which has that quality, when it is 
purified from all admixture with different 
objects, becomes capable of being absorbed 
into Conscience, and of being assimilated to 
it, so as to become a part of it. For no 
feelings can be more unlike each other in 
their object than the private and the social; 
and yet, as both employ voluntary actions as 
their sole immediate means, both may be 
transferred by association to states of the 
Will, in which case they are transmuted into 


moral sentiments. No example of the coa¬ 
lition of feelings in their general nature less 
widely asunder could afford so much support 
to this position. 2nd. By raising qualities 
useful to ourselves to the rank of virtues, it 
throws a strong light on the relation of 
Virtue to individual interest; very much as 
Justice illustrates the relation of Morality to 
general interest. The coincidence of Mo¬ 
rality with individual interest is an import¬ 
ant truth in Ethics: it is most manifest in 
that part of the science which we are now 
considering. A calm regard to our general 
interest is indeed a faint and infrequent 
motive of action. Its chief advantage is, 
that it is regular, and that its movements 
may be calculated. In deliberate conduct it 
may often be relied on, though perhaps never 
safely without knowledge of the whole temper 
and character of the agent. But in moral 
reasoning, at least, the fore-named coin¬ 
cidence is of unspeakable advantage. If 
there be a miserable man who has cold 
affections, a weak sense of justice, dim per¬ 
ceptions of right and wrong, and faint feel¬ 
ings of them, — if, still more wretched, his 
heart be constantly torn and devoured by 
malevolent passions — the vultures of the 
soul, we have one resource still left, even in 
cases so dreadful. Even he still retains a 
human principle, to which we can speak: he 
must own that he has some wish for his own 
lasting welfare. We can prove to him that 
his state of mind is inconsistent with it. It 
may be impossible indeed to show, that while 
his disposition continues the same, he can 
derive any enjoyment from the practice of 
virtue; but it may be most clearly shown, 
that every advance in the amendment of that 
disposition is a step towards even temporal 
happiness. If he do not amend his charac¬ 
ter, we may compel him to own that he is at 
variance with himself, and offends against a 
principle of which even he must recognise 
the reasonableness. 

The formation of Conscience from so many 
elements, and especially from the combination ’ 
of elements so unlike as the private desires 
and the social affections, early contributes to 
give it the appearance of that simplicity and 






PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


independence which in its mature state really 
distinguish it. It becomes, from these cir¬ 
cumstances, more difficult to distinguish its 
separate principles; and it is impossible to 
exhibit them in separate action. The affinity 
of these various passions to each other, which 
consists in their having no object but states 
of the Will , is the only common property 
which strikes the mind. Hence the facility 
with which the general terms, first probably 
limited to the relations between ourselves 
and others, are gradually extended to all 
voluntary acts and dispositions. Prudence 
and temperance become the objects of moral 
approbation. When imprudence is imme¬ 
diately disapproved by the by-stander, with¬ 
out deliberate consideration of its conse¬ 
quences, it is not only displeasing, as being 
pernicious, but'it is blamed as wrong , though 
with a censure so much inferior to that be¬ 
stowed on inhumanity and injustice, as may 
justify those writers who use the milder term 
“ improper .” At length, when the general 
words come to signify the objects of moral 
approbation, and the reverse, they denote 
merely the power to excite feelings, which 
are as independent as if they were unde¬ 
rived, and which coalesce the more perfectly, 
because they are detached from objects so 
various and unlike as to render their return 
to their primitive state very difficult. 

The question*, Why we do not morally 
approve the useful qualities of actions which 
are altogether involuntary f may now be 
shortly and satisfactorily answered: — be¬ 
cause Conscience is in perpetual contact, as 
it were, with all the dispositions and actions 
of voluntary agents, and is by that means 
indissolubly associated with them exclu¬ 
sively. It has a direct action on the Will, 
and a constant mental contiguity to it. It 
has no such mental contiguity to involuntary 
changes. It has never perhaps been ob¬ 
served, that an operation of the conscience 
precedes all acts deliberate enough to be in 
the highest sense voluntary, and does so as 
much when it is defeated as when it prevails. 
In either case the association is repeated. 


* See supra , p. 119. 


125 

It extends to the whole of the active man. 
All passions have a definite outward object 
to which they tend, and a limited sphere 
within which they act. But Conscience has 
no object but a state of Will; and as an act 
of Will is the sole means of gratifying any 
passion, Conscience is co-extensive with the 
whole man, and without encroachment curbs 
or aids every feeling, — even within the 
peculiar province of that feeling itself. As 
Will is the universal means, Conscience, 
which regards Will, must be a universal 
principle. As nothing is interposed between 
Conscience and the Will when the mind is 
in its healthy state, the dictate of Conscience 
is followed by the determination of the Will, 
with a promptitude and exactness which very 
naturally is likened to the obedience of an 
inferior to the lawful commands of those 
whom he deems to be rightfully placed over 
him. It therefore seems clear, that on the 
theory which has been attempted, moral ap¬ 
probation must be limited to voluntary ope¬ 
rations, and Conscience must be universal, 
independent, and commanding. 

One remaining difficulty may perhaps be 
objected to the general doctrines of this 
Dissertation, though it does not appear at 
any time to have been urged against other 
modifications of the same principle. “ If 
moral approbation,” it may be said, “ in¬ 
volve no perception of beneficial tendency, 
whence arises the coincidence between that 
principle and the Moral Sentiments ? ” It 
may seem at first sight, that such a theory 
rests the foundation of Morals upon a coin¬ 
cidence altogether mysterious, and appa¬ 
rently capricious and fantastic. Waving all 
other answers, let us at once proceed to 
that which seems conclusive. It is true 
that Conscience rarely contemplates so dis¬ 
tant an object as the welfare of all sentient 
beings; — but to what point is every one of 
its elements directed ? What, for instance, 
is the aim of all the social affections ? — 
Nothing but the production of larger or 
smaller masses of happiness among those of 
our fellow creatures who are the objects of 
these affections. In every case these affec¬ 
tions promote happiness, as far as their fore- 








126 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


sight and their power extend. What can 
be more conducive, or even necessary, to 
the being and well-being of society, than 
the rules of justice? Are not the angry 
passions themselves, as far as they are 
ministers of Morality, employed in removing 
hinderances to the welfare of ourselves and 
others, and so in indirectly promoting it ? 
The private passions terminate indeed in 
the happiness of the individual, which, how¬ 
ever, is a part of general happiness, and the 
part over which we have most power. Every 
principle of which Conscience is composed 
has some portion of happiness for its object: 
to that point they all converge. General 
happiness is not indeed one of the natural 
objects of Conscience, because our voluntary 
acts are not felt and perceived to affect it. 
But how small a step is left for Reason! It 
only casts up the items of the account. It 
has only to discover that the acts of those 
who labour to promote separate portions of 
happiness must increase the amount of the 
whole. It may be truly said, that if obser¬ 
vation and experience did not clearly as¬ 
certain that beneficial tendency is the con¬ 
stant attendant and mark of all virtuous 
dispositions and actions, the same great 
truth would be revealed to us by the voice 
of Conscience. The coincidence, instead of 
being arbitrary, arises necessarily from the 
laws of human nature, and the circumstances 
in which mankind are placed. We perform 
and approve virtuous actions, partly be¬ 
cause Conscience regards them as right, 
partly because we are prompted to them by 
good affections. All these affections con¬ 
tribute towards general well-being, though 
it is not necessary, nor would it be fit, that 
the agent should be distracted by the con¬ 
templation of that vast and remote object. 

The various relations of Conscience to 
Religion we have already been led to con¬ 
sider on the principles of Butler, of Berkeley, 
of Paley, and especially of Hartley, who was 
brought by his own piety to contemplate as 
the last and highest stage of virtue and hap¬ 
piness, a sort of self-annihilation, which, 
however unsuitable to the present condition 
of mankind, yet places in the strongest light 


the disinterested character of the system, of 
which it is a conceivable, though perhaps 
not attainable, result. The completeness 
and rigour acquired by Conscience, when all 
its dictates are revered as the commands of 
a perfectly wise and good Being, are so 
obvious, that they cannot be questioned by 
any reasonable man, however extensive his 
incredulity may be. It is thus that she can 
add the warmth of an affection to the in¬ 
flexibility of principle and habit. It is true 
that, in examining the evidence of the 
divine original of a religious system, in esti¬ 
mating an imperfect religion, or in compar¬ 
ing the demerits of religions of human 
origin, hers must be the standard chiefly ap¬ 
plied : but it follows with equal clearness, 
that those who have the happiness to find 
satisfaction and repose in divine revelation 
are bound to consider all those precepts for 
the government of the Will, delivered by 
her, which are manifestly universal, as the 
rules to which all their feelings and actions 
should conform. The true distinction be¬ 
tween Conscience and a taste for moral 
beauty has already been pointed out * ; — a 
distinction which, notwithstanding its sim¬ 
plicity, has been unobserved by philosophers, 
perhaps on account of the frequent co¬ 
operation and intermixture of the two 
feelings. Most speculators have either de¬ 
nied the existence of the taste, or kept it out 
of view in their theory, or exalted it to the 
place which is rightfully filled only by Con¬ 
science. Yet it is perfectly obvious that, 
like all the other feelings called “ pleasures 
of imagination,” it terminates in delightful 
contemplation, while the Moral Faculty 
always aims exclusively at voluntary action. 
Nothing can more clearly show that this last 
quality is the characteristic of Conscience, 
than its being thus found to distinguish 
that faculty from the sentiments which most 
nearly resemble it, most frequently attend 
it, and are most easily blended with it. 


Some attempt has now been made to 
develope the fundamental principles of 

* See supra, p. 80. 








PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


127 


Ethical theory, in that historical order in 
which meditation and discussion brought 
them successively into a clearer light. That 
attempt, as far as it regards Great Britain, 
is at least chronologically complete. The 
spirit of bold speculation, conspicuous among 
the English of the seventeenth century, 
languished after the earlier part of the 
eighteenth, and seems, from the time of 
Hutcheson, to have passed into Scotland, 
where it produced Hume, the greatest of 
sceptics, and Smith, the most eloquent of 
modern moralists; besides giving rise to 
that sober, modest, perhaps timid philo¬ 
sophy which is commonly called Scotch, 
and which has the singular merit of having 
first strongly and largely inculcated the ab¬ 
solute necessity of admitting certain prin¬ 
ciples as the foundation of all reasoning, 
and the indispensable conditions of thought 
itself. In the eye of the moralist all the 
philosophers of Scotland, — Hume and 
Smith as much as Reid, Campbell, and 
Stewart, — have also the merit of having 
avoided the Selfish system, and of having, 
under whatever variety of representation, 
alike maintained the disinterested nature of 
the social affections and the supreme au¬ 
thority of the Moral Sentiments. Brown 
reared the standard of revolt against the 
masters of the Scottish School, and in 
reality still more than in words, adopted 
those very doctrines against which his pre¬ 
decessors, after their war against scepticism, 
uniformly combated. The law of Associa¬ 
tion, though expressed in other language, 
became the nearly universal principle of his 
system; and perhaps it would have been 
absolutely universal, if he had not been re¬ 
strained rather by respectful feelings than 
by cogent reasons. With him the love of 
speculative philosophy, as a pursuit, appears 
to have expired in Scotland. There are 
some symptoms, yet however very faint, of 
the revival of a taste for it among the En¬ 
glish youth : while in France instruction in 
it has been received with approbation from 
M. Royer Collard, the scholar of Stewart 
more than of Reid, and with enthusiasm 
from his pupil and successor M. Cousin, 


who has clothed the doctrines of the Schools 
of Germany in an unwonted eloquence, 
which always adorns, but sometimes dis¬ 
guises them. 

The history of political philosophy, even 
if its extent and subdivisions were better 
defined, would manifestly have occupied 
another dissertation, at least equal in length 
to the present. The most valuable parts of 
it belong to civil history. It has too much 
of the spirit of faction and turbulence in¬ 
fused into it to be easily combined with the 
calmer history of the progress of Science, or 
even with that of the revolutions of specu¬ 
lation. In no age of the world were its 
principles so interwoven with political events, 
and so deeply imbued with the passions 
and divisions excited by them, as in the 
eighteenth century. 

It was at one time the purpose, or rather 
perhaps the hope, of the writer, to close this 
discourse by an account of the Ethical 
systems which have prevailed in Germany 
during the last half century;—which, main¬ 
taining the same spirit amidst great changes 
of technical language, and even of specu¬ 
lative principle, have now exclusive posses¬ 
sion of Europe to the north of the Rhine, — 
have been welcomed by the French youth 
with open arms, — have roused in some mea¬ 
sure the languishing genius of Italy, but are 
still little known, and unjustly estimated by 
the mere English reader. He found him¬ 
self, however, soon reduced to the necessity 
of either being superficial, and by conse¬ 
quence uninstructive, or of devoting to that 
subject a far longer time than he can now 
spare, and a much larger space than the 
limits of this work would probably allow. 
The majority of readers will, indeed, be 
more disposed to require an excuse for the 
extent of what has been done, than for the 
relinquishment of projected additions. All 
readers must agree that this is peculiarly a 
subject on which it is better to be silent 
than to say too little. 

A very few observations, however, on the 
German philosophy, as far as relates to its 
ethical bearings and influence, may perhaps 
be pardoned. These remarks are not so 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


128 


much intended to be applied to the moral 
doctrines of that school, considered in them¬ 
selves, as to those apparent defects in the 
prevailing systems of Ethics throughout 
Europe, which seem to have suggested the 
necessity of their adoption. Kant has him¬ 
self acknowledged that his whole theory of 
the percipient and intellectual faculty was 
intended to protect the first principles of 
human knowledge against the assaults of 
Hume. In like manner, his Ethical system 
is evidently framed for the purpose of 
guarding certain principles, either directly 
governing, or powerfully affecting practice, 
which seemed to him to have been placed on 
unsafe foundations by their advocates, and 
which were involved in perplexity and con¬ 
fusion, especially by those who adapted the 
results of various and sometimes contra¬ 
dictory systems to the taste of multitudes, 
—more eager to know than prepared to be 
taught. To the theoretical Reason the for¬ 
mer superadded the Practical Reason, which 
had peculiar laws and principles of its own, 
from which all the rules of Morals may be 
deduced. The Practical Reason cannot be 
conceived without these laws; therefore they 
are inherent It perceives them to be ne¬ 
cessary and universal. Hence, by a process 
not altogether dissimilar, at least in its gross 
results, to that which was employed for the 
like purpose by Cudworth and Clarke, by 
Price, and in some degree by Stewart, he 
raises the social affections, and still more the 
Moral Sentiments, above the sphere of en¬ 
joyment, and beyond that series of enjoy¬ 
ments which is called happiness. The per¬ 
formance of duty, not the pursuit of happi¬ 
ness, is in this system the chief end of 
man. By the same intuition we discover 
that Virtue deserves happiness; and as this 
desert is not uniformly so requited in the 
present state of existence, it compels us to 
believe a moral government of the world, 
and a future state of existence, in which all 
the conditions of the Practical Reason 
will be realised;—truths, of which, in the 
opinion of Kant, the argumentative proofs 
were at least very defective, but of which 
the revelations of the Practical Reason 


afforded a more conclusive demonstration 
than any process of reasoning could supply. 
The Understanding, he owned, saw nothing 
in the connection of motive with volition 
different from what it discovered in every 
other uniform sequence of a cause and an 
effect. But as the moral law delivered by 
the Practical Reason issues peremptory and 
inflexible commands, the power of always 
obeying them is implied in their very na¬ 
ture. All individual objects, all outward 
things, must indeed be viewed in the rela¬ 
tion of cause and effect; these last are ne¬ 
cessary conditions of all reasoning. But the 
acts of the faculty which wills, of which we 
are immediately conscious, belong to another 
province of mind, and are not subject to 
these laws of the theoretical Reason. The 
mere intellect must still regard them as ne¬ 
cessarily connected; but the Practical Rea¬ 
son distinguishes its own liberty from the 
necessity of nature, conceives volition with¬ 
out at the same time conceiving an ante¬ 
cedent to it, and regards all moral beings as 
the original authors of their own actions. 

Even those who are unacquainted with 
this complicated and comprehensive system, 
will at once see the slightness of the above 
sketch: those who understand it, will own 
that so brief an outline could not be other¬ 
wise than slight. It will, however, be suffi¬ 
cient for the present purpose, if it render 
what follows intelligible. 

With respect to what is called the “ Prac¬ 
tical Reason,” the Kantian system varies 
from ours, in treating it as having more re¬ 
semblance to the intellectual powers than 
to sentiment and emotion:—enough has 
already been said on that question. At the 
next step, however, the difference seems to 
resolve‘itself into a misunderstanding. The 
character and dignity of the human race 
surely depend, not on the state in which 
they are born, but on that which they are 
all destined to attain, or to approach. No 
man would hesitate in assenting to this ob¬ 
servation, when applied to the intellectual 
faculties. Thus, the human infant comes 
into the world imbecile and ignorant; but a 
vast majority acquire some vigour of reason 






PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 129 


and extent of knowledge. Strictly, the 
human infant is born neither selfish nor 
social; but a far greater part acquire some 
provident regard to their own welfare, and 
a number, probably not much smaller, feel 
some sparks of affection towards others. On 
our principles, therefore, as much as on 
those of Kant, human nature is capable of 
disinterested sentiments. For we too allow 
and contend that our Moral Faculty is a 
necessary part of human nature,—that it 
universally exists in human beings, — and 
that we cannot conceive any moral agents 
without qualities which are either like, or 
produce the like effects. It is necessarily 
regarded by us as co-extensive with human, 
and even with moral nature. In what other 
sense can universality be predicated of any 
proposition not identical? Why should it 
be tacitly assumed that all these great cha¬ 
racteristics of Conscience should necessarily 
presuppose its being unformed and unde¬ 
rived ? What contradiction is there be¬ 
tween them and the theory of regular and 
uniform formation ? 

In this instance it would seem that a ge¬ 
neral assent to truth is chiefly, if not solely, 
obstructed by an inveterate prejudice, 
arising from the mode in which the ques¬ 
tions relating to the affections and the Moral 
Faculty have been discussed among ethical 
philosophers. Generally speaking, those who 
contend that these parts of the mind are 
acquired, have also held that they are, in 
their perfect state, no more than modifica¬ 
tions of self-love. On the other hand, philo¬ 
sophers “ of purer fire,” who felt that Con¬ 
science is sovereign, and that affection is 
disinterested, have too hastily fancied that 
their ground was untenable, without con¬ 
tending that these qualities were inherent 
or innate, and absolutely underived from 
any other properties of Mind. If a choice 
were necessary between these two systems 
as masses of opinion, without any freedom 
of discrimination and selection, I should un¬ 
questionably embrace that doctrine which 
places in the clearest light the reality of 
benevolence and the authority of the Moral 
Faculty. But it is surely easy to apply a 


test which may be applied to our concep¬ 
tions as effectually as a decisive experiment 
is applied to material substances. Does not 
he who, whatever he may think of the origin 
of these parts of human nature, believes 
that actually Conscience is supreme, and 
affection terminates in its direct object, 
retain all that for which the partisans of the 
underived principles value and cling to their 
system ? “ But they are made,” these philo¬ 
sophers may say, “ by this class of our an¬ 
tagonists, to rest on insecure foundations: 
unless they are underived, we can see no 
reason for regarding them as independent.” 
In answer, it may be asked, how is connec¬ 
tion between these two qualities established? 
It is really assumed. It finds its way easily 
into the mind under the protection of 
another coincidence, which is of a totally 
different nature. The great majority of 
those speculators who have represented the 
moral and social feelings as acquired, have 
also considered them as being mere modi¬ 
fications of self-love, and sometimes as being 
casually formed and easily eradicated, like 
local and temporary prejudices. But when 
the nature of our feelings is thoroughly ex¬ 
plored, is it not evident that this coincidence 
is the result of superficial confusion ? The 
better moralists observed accurately, and 
reasoned justly, on the province of the 
Moral Sense and the feelings in the formed 
and mature man: they reasoned mistakenly 
on the origin of these principles. But the 
Epicureans were by no means right, even 
on the latter question; and they were to¬ 
tally wrong on the other, and far more mo¬ 
mentous, part of the subject: their error is 
more extensive, and infinitely more inju¬ 
rious. But what should now hinder an 
inquirer after truth from embracing, but 
amending their doctrine where it is par¬ 
tially true, and adopting without any change 
the just description of the most important 
principles of human nature which we owe 
to their more enlightened as well as more 
generous antagonists ? 

Though unwilling to abandon the argu¬ 
ments by which, from the earliest times, the 
existence of the Supreme and Eternal Mind 
— 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


130 


has been established, we, as well as the Ger¬ 
man philosophers, are entitled to call in the 
help of our moral nature to lighten the bur¬ 
den of those tremendous difficulties which 
cloud His moral government. The moral 
nature is an actual part of man, as much on 
our scheme as on theirs. 

Even the celebrated questions of Liberty 
and Necessity may perhaps be rendered 
somewhat less perplexing, if we firmly bear 
in mind that peculiar relation of Conscience 
to the Will which we have attempted to 
illustrate. It is impossible for Reason to 
consider occurrences otherwise than as bound 
together by the connection of cause and 
effect; and in this circumstance consists the 
strength of the Necessitarian system. But 
Conscience, which is equally a constituent 
part of the mind, has other laws. It is com¬ 
posed of emotions and desires , which contem¬ 
plate only those dispositions which depend on 
the Will. Now, it is the nature of an emo¬ 
tion to withdraw the mind from the contem¬ 
plation of every idea but that of the object 
which excites it: while every desire exclu¬ 
sively looks at the object which it seeks. 
Every attempt to enlarge the mental vision 
alters the state of mind, weakens the emo¬ 
tion, or dissipates the desire, and tends to 
extinguish both. If a man, while he was 
pleased with the smell of a rose, were to 
reflect on the chemical combinations from 
which it arose, the condition of his mind 
would be changed from an enjoyment of the 
senses to an exertion of the Understanding. 
If, in the view of a beautiful scene, a man 
were suddenly to turn his thoughts to the 
disposition of water, vegetables, and earths, 
on which its appearance depended, he might 
enlarge his knowledge of Geology, but he 
must lose the pleasure of the prospect. The 
anatomy and analysis of the flesh and blood 
of a beautiful woman necessarily suspend 
admiration and affection. Many analogies 
here present themselves. When life is in 
danger either in a storm or a battle, it is 
certain that less fear is felt by the com¬ 
mander or the pilot, and even by the private 
soldier actively engaged, or the common 
seaman laboriously occupied, than by those 


who are exposed to the peril, but not em¬ 
ployed in the means of guarding against it. 
The reason is not that the one class believe 
the danger to be less: they are likely, in 
many instances, to perceive it more clearly. 
But having acquired a habit of instantly 
turning their thoughts to the means of coun- 
teracting the danger, their minds are thrown 
into a state which excludes the ascendency 
of fear. Mental fortitude entirely depends 
on this habit. The timid horseman is 
haunted by the fear of a fall: the bold and 
skilful thinks only about the best way of 
curbing or supporting his horse. Even when 
all means of avoiding danger are in both 
cases evidently unavailable, the brave man 
still owes to his fortunate habit that he does 
not suffer the agony of the coward. Many 
cases have been known where fortitude has 
reached such strength that the faculties, in¬ 
stead of being confounded by danger, are 
never raised to their highest activity by a 
less violent stimulant. The distinction be¬ 
tween such men and the coward does not 
depend on difference of opinion about the 
reality or extent of the danger, but on a 
state of mind which renders it more or less 
accessible to fear. Though it must be owned 
that the Moral Sentiments are very different 
from any other human faculty, yet the above 
observations seem to be in a great measure 
applicable to every state of mind. The 
emotions and desires which compose Con¬ 
science, while they occupy the mind, must 
exclude all contemplation of the cause in 
which the object of these feelings may have 
originated. To their eye the voluntary dis¬ 
positions and actions, their sole object, must 
appear to be the first link of a chain: in the 
view of Conscience these have no foreign 
origin, and her view, constantly associated 
as she is with all volitions , becomes habitual. 
Being always possessed of some, and capable 
of intense warmth, it predominates over the 
habits of thinking of those few who are 
employed in the analyses of mental occu¬ 
pations. 

The reader who has in any degree been 
inclined to adopt the explanations attempted 
above, of the imperative character of Con- 






PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 131 


science, may be disposed also to believe that 
they afford some foundation for that convic¬ 
tion of the existence of a power to obey its 
commands, which (it ought to be granted to 
the German philosophers) is irresistibly sug¬ 
gested by the commanding tone of all its 
dictates. If such an explanation should be 
thought worthy of consideration, it must be 
very carefully distinguished from that illu¬ 
sive sense by which some writers have 
laboured to reconcile the feeling of liberty 
with the reality of necessity.* In this case 
there is no illusion ; nothing is required but 
the admission, that every faculty observes its 
own laws, and that when the action of the 
one fills the mind, that of every other is 
suspended. The ear cannot see, nor can the 
eye hear: why then should not the greater 
powers of Reason and Conscience have dif¬ 
ferent habitual modes of contemplating 
voluntary actions ? How strongly do ex¬ 
perience and analogy seem to require the 
arrangement of motive and volition under 
the class of causes and effects ! With what 
irresistible power, on the other hand, do all 
our moral sentiments remove extrinsic 
agency from view, and concentrate all feel¬ 
ing in the agent himself! The one manner 
of thinking may predominate among the 
speculative few in their short moments of 
abstraction; the other will be that of all 
other men, and of the speculator himself 
when he is called upon to act, or when his 
feelings are powerfully excited by the 
amiable or odious dispositions of his fellow- 
men. In these workings of various faculties 
there is nothing that can be accurately 
described as contrariety of opinion. An in¬ 
tellectual state, and a feeling, never can be 
contrary to each other : they are too utterly 
incapable of comparison to be the subject of 
contrast; they are agents of a perfectly dif¬ 
ferent nature, acting in different spheres. A 
feeling can no more be called true or false, 
than a demonstration, considered simply in 
itself, can be said to be agreeable or dis¬ 


* Lord Karnes, in his Essays on Morality and 
Natural Religion, and in his Sketches of the His¬ 
tory of Man. 


agreeable. It is true, indeed, that in conse¬ 
quence of the association of all mental acts 
with each other, emotions and desires may 
occasion habitual errors of judgment; but 
liability to error belongs to every exercise of 
human reason ; it arises from a multitude of 
causes; it constitutes, therefore, no difficulty 
peculiar to the case before us. Neither truth 
nor falsehood can be predicated of the per¬ 
ceptions of the senses, but they lead to false 
opinions. An object seen through different 
mediums may, by the inexperienced, be 
thought to be no longer the same. All men 
long concluded falsely, from what they saw, 
that the earth was stationary, and the sun in 
perpetual motion around it: the greater part 
of mankind still adopt the same error. New¬ 
ton and Laplace used the same language 
with the ignorant, and conformed, — if we 
may not say to their opinion, — at least to 
their habits of thinking on all ordinary oc¬ 
casions, and during the far greater part of 
their lives. Nor is this all: the language 
which represents various states of mind is 
very vague. The word which denotes a 
compound state is often taken from its prin¬ 
cipal fact, — from that which is most con¬ 
spicuous, most easily called to mind, most 
warmly felt, or most frequently recurring. 
It is sometimes borrowed from a separate, 
but, as it were, neighbouring condition of 
mind. The grand distinction between 
thought and feeling is so little observed, 
that we are peculiarly liable to confusion on 
this subject. Perhaps when we use language 
which indicates an opinion concerning the 
acts of the Will, we may mean little more 
than to express strongly and warmly the 
moral sentiments which voluntary acts alone 
call up. It would argue disrespect for the 
human understanding, vainly employed for 
so many centuries in reconciling contra¬ 
dictory opinions, to propose such suggestions 
without peculiar diffidence ; but before they 
are altogether rejected, it may be well to 
consider, whether the constant success of the 
advocates of Necessity on one ground, and 
of the partisans of Free Will on another, 
does not seem to indicate that the two par¬ 
ties contemplate the subject from different 








MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


132 


points of view, that neither habitually sees 
more than one side of it, and that they look 
at it through the medium of different states 
of mind. 

It should be remembered that these hints 
of a possible reconciliation between seem¬ 
ingly repugnant opinions are proposed, not 
as perfect analogies, but to lead men’s minds 
into the inquiry, whether that which certainly 
befalls the mind, in many cases on a small 
scale, may not, under circumstances favour¬ 
able to its development, occur with greater 
magnitude and more important consequences. 
The coward and brave man, as has been 
stated, act differently at the approach of 
danger, because it produces exertion in the 
one, and fear in the other. But very brave 
men must, by force of the term, be few : 
they have little aid in tjjeir highest acts, 
therefore, from fellow-feeling. They are 
often too obscure for the hope of praise; 
and they have seldom been trained to cul¬ 
tivate courage as a virtue. The very re¬ 
verse occurs in the different view taken by 
the Understanding and by Conscience, of 
the nature of voluntary actions. The con¬ 
scientious view must, in some degree, pre¬ 
sent itself to all mankind; it is therefore 
unspeakably strengthened by general sym¬ 
pathy. All men respect themselves for 
being habitually guided by it: it is the ob¬ 
ject of general commendation; and moral 
discipline has no other aim but its cultiva¬ 
tion. Whoever does not feel more pain 
from his crimes than from his misfortunes, 
is looked on with general aversion. And 
when it is considered that a Being of per¬ 
fect wisdom and goodness estimates us ac¬ 
cording to the degree in which Conscience 
governs our voluntary acts, it is surely no 
wonder that, in this most important discre¬ 
pancy between the great faculties of our 
nature, we should consider the best habi¬ 
tual disposition to be that which the coldest 
Reason shows us to be most conducive to 
well-doing and well-being. 

On every other point, at least, it would 
seem that, without the multiplied supposi¬ 
tions and immense apparatus of the German 
school, the authority of Morality may be 


vindicated, the disinterestedness of human 
nature asserted, the first principles of know¬ 
ledge secured, and the hopes and consola¬ 
tions of mankind preserved. Ages may yet 
be necessary to give to ethical theory all the 
forms and language of a science, and to 
apply it to the multiplied and complicated 
facts and rules which are within its pro¬ 
vince. In the mean time, if the opinions 
here unfolded, or intimated, shall be proved 
to be at variance with the reality of social 
affections, and with the feeling of moral dis¬ 
tinction, the author of this Dissertation will 
be the first to relinquish a theory which 
will then show itself inadequate to explain 
the most indisputable, as well as by far the 
most important, parts of human nature. If 
it shall be shown to lower the character of 
Man, to cloud his hopes, or to impair his 
sense of duty, he will be grateful to those 
who may point out his error, and deliver 
him from the poignant regret of adopting 
opinions which lead to consequences so per¬ 
nicious. 


NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Note A. page 14. 

The remarks of Cicero on the Stoicism of Cato are 
perhaps the most perfect specimen of that refined 
raillery which attains the object of the orator with¬ 
out general injustice to the person whose authority 
is for the moment to be abated: — 

“ Accessit his tot doctrina non moderata, nec 
mitis, sed, ut mihi videtur, paulo asperior et durior 
quam aut veritas aut natura patiatur.” After an 
enumeration of the Stoical paradoxes, he adds: 
“ Hsec homo ingeniosissimus, M. Cato, auctoribus 
eruditissimis inductus, arripuit; neque disputandi 

causa, ut magna pars, sed ita vivendi.Nostri 

autem isti (fatebor enim, Cato, me quoque in ado- 
lescentia diffisum ingenio meo quaesisse adjumenta 
doctrime) nostri, inquam, illi a Platone atque Aris- 
totele moderati homines et temperati aiunt apud 
sapientem valere aliquando gratiam; viri boni esse 
misereri; . . . omnes virtutes mediocritate quadam 
esse moderatas. Hos ad magistros si qua te fortuna, 
Cato, cum ista natura detulisset, non tu quidem 
vir melior esses, nec fortior, nec temperantior, nec 
justior (neque enim esse potes), sed paulo ad leni- 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


tatem propensior.” — Pro Murena. — Cap. xxix— 
xxxi. 

Note B. page 18. 

The greater part of the following extract from 
Grotius’s History of the Netherlands is inserted as 
the best abridgment of the ancient history of these 
still subsisting controversies known in our time. I 
extract also the introduction as a model of the 
manner in which an historian may state a religious 
dispute which has influenced political affairs; but 
far more because it is an unparalleled example of 
equity and forbearance in the narrative of a con¬ 
test of which the historian was himself a vic¬ 
tim : — 

“ Habuit hie annus (1608) liaud spemendi quo- 
que mali semina, vix ut anna desierant, exorto 
publicse religionis dissidio, latentibus initiis, sed ut 
paulatim in majus erumperet. Lugduni sacras 
literas docebant viri eruditione praestantes Gomarus 
et Arminius; quorum ille aeterna Dei lege fixum 
memorabat, cui liominum salus destinaretur, quis 
in exitium tenderet; inde alios ad pietatem trahi, 
et tractos custodiri ne elabantur; relinqui alios 
communi humanitatis vitio et suis criminibus in¬ 
volutes: liic vero contrii integrum judicem, sed 
eundem optimum patrem, id reorum fecisse dis- 
crimen, ut peccandi pertaesis fiduciamque in Chris¬ 
tum reponentibus veniam ac vitam daret, contuma- 
cibus poenam; Deoque gratum, ut omnes resipis- 
cant, ac meliora edocti retineant; sed cogi neminem. 
Accusabantque invicem; Arminius Gomarum, 
quod peccandi causas Deo ascriberet, ac fati 
persuasione teneret immobiles animos; Gomarus 
Arminium, quod longius ipsis Romanensium scitis 
hominem arrogantia impleret, nec pateretur soli 
Deo acceptam ferri, rem maximum , bonarn mentem. 
Constat his queis cura legere veterum libros, anti¬ 
ques Christianorum tribuisse hominum voluntati 
vim liberam, tarn in acceptanda, quam in retinenda 
discipline; unde sua praemiis ac suppliciis aequitas. 
Neque iidem tamen omisere cuncta divinam ad 
bonitatem referre, cujus munere salutare semen ad 
nos pervenisset, ac cujus singulari auxilio pericula 
nostra indigerent. Primus omnium Augustinus, 
ex quo ipsi cum Pelagio et eum secutis certamen 
(iiani ante aliter et ipse sensere.t'), acer disputandi, ita 
libertatis vocem relinquere, ut ei decreta quaedam 
Dei praeponeret, qua; vim ipsam destruere videren- 
tur. At per Graeciam quidem Asiamque retenta 
vetus ilia ac simplicior sententia. Per Occidentem 
magnum Augustini nomen multos traxit in con- 
sensum, repertis tamen per Galliam et alibi qui se 
opponerent, posterioribus sseculis, cum schola non 
alio magis quam Augustino doctore uteretur, quis 
ipsi sensus, quis dexter pugnare visa conciliandi 
modus, diu inter Francisci et Dominici familiam 


133 

disputato, doctissimi Jesuitarum, cum exaction 
subtilitate nodum solvere laborassent, Romae ac- 
cusati aegrk damnationem effugere. At Protestan- 
tium princeps, Lutherus, egressus monasterio quod 
Augustini ut nomen, ita sensus sequebatur, parte 
Augustini arrepta, id quod is reliquerat, libertatis 
nomen, coepit exscindere; quod tarn grave Erasmo 
visum, ut cum caitera ipsius aut probaret aut 
silentio transmitteret, hie objiciat sese: cujus 
arguments motus Philippus Melanchthon, Lutheri 
adjutor, quae prius scripserat immutavit, auctorque 
fuit Luthero, quod multi volunt, certe quod constat 
Lutheranis, deserendi decreta rigida et conditionem 
respuentia; sic tamen ut libertatis vocabulum 
quam rem magis perhorreseerent. At in altera 
Protestantium parte dux Calvinus, primis Lutheri 
dictis in hac controversial inhaerescens, novis ea 
fulsit praesicliis, addiditque intactum Augustino, ve- 
ram ac salutarem fidem rem esse perpetuam et amitti 
nesciam: cujus proinde qui sibi essent conscii, eos 
aeternae felicitatis jam nunc certos esse, quos interim 
in crimina, quantumvis gravia, prolabi posse non 
diffltebatur. Auxit sententiae rigorem Genevae 
Beza, per Germaniam Zancliius, Ursinus, Piscator, 
saepe eo usque provecti, ut, quod alii anxie vitave- 
rant, apertius nonnunquam traderent, etiarn pec¬ 
candi necessitatem a prima causa pendere: quae 
ampla Lutheranis criminandi materia.” — Lib. xvii. 
p. 552. 

Note C. page 18. 

The Calvinism, or rather Augustinianism, of 
Aquinas is placed beyond all doubt by the following 
passages:—“Praedestinatio est causa gratiae et glo- 
riae.”—Opera (Paris, 1664), vol. vii. p. 356. “Nu- 
merus praedestinatorum certus est.”— p. 363. “ Prae- 
scientia meritorum nullo modo est causa praedes- 
tinationis divinae.” — p. 370. “Liberum arbitrium 
est facultas qua bonum eligitur, gratia assistente, 
vel malum, eadem desistente.” — vol. viii. p.222. 
“ Deus inclinat ad bonum administrando virtu tem 
agendi et monendo ad bonum. Sed ad malum di- 
citur inclinare in quantum gratiam non praebet, 
per quam aliquis a malo retraheretur.”—p. 364. 
On the other side: “ Accipitur fides pro eo quo 
creditur, et est virtus, et pro eo quod creditur, et 
non est virtus. Fides qua creditur, si cum caritate 
sit, virtus est.” — vol. ix. p. 236. “ Divina bonitas 

est primum principium communicationis totius 
quam Deus creaturis largitur.” “ Quamvis omne 
quod Deus vult justum sit, non tamen ex hoc justum 
dicitur quod Deus illud vult.”—p. 697. 

Note D. page 18. 

The Augustinian doctrine is, with some hesita¬ 
tion and reluctance, acquiesced in by Scotus, in 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


134 


that milder form which ascribes election to an ex¬ 
press decree, and considers the rest of mankind as 
only left to the deserved penalties of their trans¬ 
gressions. “ In hujus qusestionis solutione mallem 
alios audire quam docere.” — Opera, Lugd. 1639, 
vol. v. p. 1329. This modesty and prudence is 
foreign to the dogmatical genius of a Schoolman; 
and these qualities are still more apparent in the 
very remarkable language which he applies to the 
tremendous doctrine of reprobation. “ Eorem au- 
tem non miseretur (scil. Deus) quibus gratiam non 
prcebendam esse cequitate occvltissima et ab humanis 
sensibus remotissima judicat .”— p. 1329. In the 
commentary on Scotus which follows, it appears 
that his acute disciple Ockham disputed very freely 
against the opinions of his master. “ Mala fieri 
bonum est ” is a startling paradox, quoted by Scotus 
from Augustin. — p. 1381. It appears that Ockham 
saw no difference between election and reprobation, 
and considered those who embraced only the former 
as at variance with themselves. — p. 1313. Scotus, 
at great length, contends that our thoughts (con¬ 
sequently our opinions) are not subject to the will. 
— vol. vi. pp. 1054—1056. One step more would 
have led him to acknowledge that all erroneous 
judgment is involuntary, and therefore inculpable 
and unpunishable, however pernicious. His attempt 
to reconcile foreknowledge with contingency (vol. v. 
pp. 1300—1327.), is a remarkable example of the 
power of human subtlety to keep up the appearance 
of a struggle where it is impossible to make one 
real effort. But the most dangerous of all the 
deviations of Scotus from the system of Aquinas is, 
that he opened the way to the opinion that the 
distinction of right and wrong depends on the mere 
will of the Eternal Mind. The absolute power of 
the Deity, according to him, extends to all but 
contradictions. His regular power ( ordinata ) is 
exercised conformably to an order established by 
himself: “si placet voluntati, sub qua libera est, 
recta est lex.” — p. 1368. et seq. 


Note E. page 18. 

’AXX« ’i/vyry ys 'Icrf/Av xxovtrxv •z'xirxv rroLv xyveovirxv. 

Plat. Op. (Bipont. 1781), vol. ii. p. 224. — n xa-xv 
ixovtrioy otf&xdietv nvxi. — p. 227. Plato is quoted on 
this subject by Marcus Aurelius, in a manner which 
sIioavs, if there had been any doubt, the meaning 
to be, that all error is involuntary. Uxirx 'J/vyv 
xxovffx rngiirxi rijs xXyBt/xs, us Xtyu II Xxruy. Every 
mind is turwillingly led from truth. — Epict. Dis¬ 
sert. lib. i. cap. xxviii. Augustin closes the long 
line of ancient testimony to the involuntary cha¬ 
racter of error: “ Quis est qui velit decipi ? Fall ere 
nolunt boni; falli autem nec boni volunt nec mali.” 
— Sermo de YerbO. 


Note F. page 19. 

From a long, able, and instructive dissertation 
by the commentator on Scotus, it appears that this 
immoral dogma was propounded in terms more 
bold and startling by Ockham, who openly affirmed, 
that “ moral evil Avas only evil because it was pro¬ 
hibited.” “ — Ochamus, qui putat quod nihil pos¬ 
set esse malum sine voluntate prohibitiva Dei, 
hancque voluntatem esse liberam; sic ut posset 
earn non habere, et consequenter ut posset fieri quod 
nulla prorsus essent mala.” — Scot. Op. vol. vii. 
p. 859. But, says the commentator, “ Dico primo 
legem naturalem non consistere in jussione ulla quae 
sit actus voluntatis Dei. Haec est communissima 
theologorum sententia.” — p. 858. And indeed the 
reason urged against Ockham completely justifies 
this approach to unanimity. “ For,” he asks, “ why 
is it right to obey the will of God ? Is it because 
our moral faculties perceive it to be right ? But 
they equally perceive and feel the authority of all 
the primary principles of morality; and if this 
answer be made, it is obvious that those who make 
it do in effect admit the independence of moral dis¬ 
tinctions on the will of God.” “If God,” said 
Ockham, “ had commanded his creatures to hate 
himself, hatred of God would have been praise¬ 
worthy.”— Domin. Soto de Justitia et Jure, lib. ii. 
quaest. 3. “ Utrum prcecepta Decalogi sint dispetisa- 
bilia; ” — a book dedicated to Don Carlos, the son 
of Philip II. Suarez, the last scholastic philo¬ 
sopher, rejected the Ockhamical doctrine, but al¬ 
lowed will to be a part of the foundation of Morality. 
“ Voluntas Dei non est tota ratio bonitatis aut 
malitiae.” — De Legibus (Lond. 1679), p. 71. As 
the great majority of the Schoolmen supported 
their opinion of this subject by the consideration of 
eternal and immutable ideas of right and wrong in 
the Divine Intellect, it was natural that the No¬ 
minalists, of whom Ockham was the founder, who 
rejected all general ideas, should also have rejected 
those moral distinctions which were then supposed 
to originate in such ideas. Gerson was a celebrated 
Nominalist; and he was the more disposed to follow 
the opinions of his master because they agreed in 
maintaining the independence of the State on the 
Church, and the superiority of the Church over the 
Pope. 

Note G. page 19. 

It must be premised that Charitas among the 
ancient divines corresponded Avith E ? us of the Pla- 
tonists, and Avith the tfikix of later philosophers, as 
comprehending the love of all that is loveworthy 
in the Creator or his creatures. It is the theological 
virtue of charity, and corresponds with no term in 
use among modern moralists. “Cum objectum 






PftOGKESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


amoris sit bonum, dupliciter potest aliquis tendere 
in bonum alicujus rei; uno modo, quod bonum illius 
rei ad alterum referat , sicut amat quis vinum in 
quantum dulcedinem vini peroptat; et hie amor 
vocatur a quibusdam amor concupiscentiae. Amor 
autem iste non terminatin' ad rem quae, dicitur amari , 
sed refiectitur ad rem illam cui optatur bonum illius 
rei. Alio modo amor fortior in bonum alicujus rei, 
ita quod ad rem ipsarn terminatur; et hie est amor 
benevolent!*. Qua bonum nostrum in Deo per- 
fectum est, sicut in caus& universali bonorum; 
ideo bonum in ipso esse magis naturaliter complacet 
quam in nobis ipsis: et ideo etiam amore amicitiae 
naturaliter Deus ab liomine plus seipso diligitur.” 
The above quotations from Aquinas will probably 
be sufficient for those who are acquainted with these 
questions, and they will certainly be thought too 
large by those who are not. In the next question 
he inquires, whether in the love of God there can 
be any view to reward. He appears to consider 
himself as bound by authority to answer in the 
affirmative; and he employs much ingenuity in 
reconciling a certain expectation of reward with 
the disinterested character ascribed by him to piety 
in common with all the affections which terminate 
in other beings. “ Nihil aliud est merces nostra 
quam perfrui Deo. Ergo charitas non solum non 
excludit, sed etiam facit habere oculum ad merce- 
dem.” In this answer he seems to have anticipated 
the representations of Jeremy Taylor (Sermon on 
Growth in Grace), of Lord Shaftesbury (Inquiry 
concerning Virtue, book i. part iii. sect. 3.), of Mi*. 
T. Erskine (Freeness of the Gospel, Edin. 1828), 
and more especially of Mr. John Smith (Discourses, 
Lond. 1660). No extracts could convey a just 
conception of the observations which follow, unless 
they were accompanied by a longer examination 
of the technical language of the Schoolmen than 
would be warranted on this occasion. It is clear 
that he distinguishes well the affection of piety from 
the happy fruits, which, as he cautiously expresses 
it, “ are in the nature of a reward; ” —just as 
the consideration of the pleasures and advantages 
of friendship may enter into the affection and 
strengthen it, though they are not its objects, and 
never could inspire such a feeling. It seems to me 
also that he had a dimmer view of another doctrine, 
by which we are taught, that though our own 
happiness be not the end which we pursue in loving 
others, yet it may be the final cause of the insertion 
of disinterested affections into the nature of man. 
“ Ponere mercedem aliquam finem amoris ex parte 
amati, est contra rationem amicitiae. Sed ponere 
mercedem esse finem amoris ex parte amantis, non 
tamen ultimam, prout scilicet ipse amor est quaedam 
operatio amantis, non est contra rationem amiciti*. 
Possum operationem amoris amare propter aliquid 
aliud, salva amicitia. Potest habeas charitatem ha- 


135 


here oculum ad mercedem , uti ponat beatitudinem 
creatam finem amoris, non autem finem amati.” Upon 
the last words my interpretation chiefly depends. 
The immediately preceding sentence must be owned 
to have been founded on a distinction between 
viewing the good fruits of our own affections as 
enhancing their intrinsic pleasures, and feeling love 
for another on account of the advantage to be de¬ 
rived from him; which last is inconceivable. 

Note H. p. 19. 

“ Potestas spirituals et secularis utraque deduci- 
tur a potestate divina; ideo in tantum secularis est 
sub spirituali, in quantum est a Deo supposita; 
scilicet, in his quae ad salutem animse pertinent. 
In his autem quae ad bonum civile spectant, est 
magis obediendum potestati seculari; sicut illud 
Matthaei, ‘Reddite quae sunt Caesaris Caesari.’” 
What follows is more doubtful. “. .. Nisi forte 
potestati spirituali etiam potestas secularis conjun- 
gatur, ut in Papa, qui utriusque potestatis apicem 
tenet.” — Op. vol. viii. p. 435. Here, says the 
French editor, it may be doubted whether Aquinas 
means the Pope’s temporal power in his own do¬ 
minions, or a secular authority indirectly extending 
over all for the sake of religion. My reasons for 
adopting the more rational construction are shortly 
these: — 1. The text of Matthew is so plain an 
assertion of the independence of both powers, that 
it would be the height of extravagance to quote it 
as an authority for the dependence of the state. At 
most it could only be represented as reconcilable 
with such a dependence in one case. 2. The word 
* forte’ seems manifestly to refer to the territorial 
sovereignty acquired by the Popes. If they have 
a general power in secular affairs, it must be because 
it is necessary to their spiritual authority; and in 
that case to call it fortuitous would be to ascribe to 
it an adjunct destructive of its nature. 3. His 
former reasoning on the same question seems to be 
decisive. The pow T er of the Pope over bishops, he 
says, is not founded merely in his superior nature, 
but in their authority being altogether derived 
from his, as the proconsular power from the im¬ 
perial. Therefore he infers that this case is not 
analogous to the relation between the civil and 
spiritual power, which are alike derived from God. 
4. Had an Italian monk of the twelfth century 
really intended to affirm the Pope’s temporal au¬ 
thority, he probably would have laid it down in 
terms more explicit and more acceptable at Rome. 
Hesitation and ambiguity are here indications of 
unbelief. Mere veneration for the apostolical see 
might present a more precise determination against 
it, as it caused the quotation which follows, re¬ 
specting the primacy of Peter.—A mere abridg¬ 
ment of these very curious passages might excite 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


136 


a suspicion that I had tinctured Aquinas uncon¬ 
sciously with a colour of my own opinions. Ex¬ 
tracts arc very difficult, from the scholastic method 
of stating objections and answers, as well as from 
the mixture of theological authorities with philo¬ 
sophical reasons. 

Note I. page 21. 

The debates in the first assembly of the Council 
of Trent (a. d. 1546) between the Dominicans who 
adhered to Aquinas, and the Franciscans who fol¬ 
lowed Scotus on original sin, justification, and 
grace, are to be found in Fra Paolo (Istoria del 
Concilio Tridentino, lib. ii.). They show how much 
metaphysical controversy is hid in a theological 
form; how many disputes of our times are of no 
very ancient origin, and how strongly the whole 
Western Church, through all the divisions into 
which it has been separated, has manifested the 
same unwillingness to avow the Augustinian 
system, and the same fear of contradicting it. To 
his admirably clear and short statement of these 
abstruse controversies, must be added that of his 
accomplished opponent Cardinal Pallavicino (Isto¬ 
ria, &c. lib. vii. et viii.), who shows still more evi¬ 
dently the strength of the Augustinian party, and 
the disposition of the Council to tolerate opinions 
almost Lutheran, if not accompanied by revolt 
from the Church. A little more compromising 
disposition in the Reformers might have betrayed 
reason to a prolonged thraldom. We must esteem 
Erasmus and Melancthon, but we should reserve 
our gratitude for Luther and Calvin. The Scotists 
maintained their doctrine of merit of congruity, 
waived by the Council, and soon after condemned 
by the Church of England; by which they meant 
that" they who had good dispositions always re¬ 
ceived the Divine grace, not indeed as a reward of 
which they were worthy, but as aid which they 
were fit and willing to receive. The Franciscans 
denied that belief was in the power of man. “ I 
Francescani lo negavano seguendo Scoto, qual vuole 
che siccome dalle dimostrazioni per necessita nasce 
la scienza, cosi dalle persuasioni nasea la fede; e 
ch’ essa b nell’ intelletto, il quale b agente naturale, 
e mosso naturalmente dall’ oggetto. Allegavano 
P esperienza, che nessuno pub credere quello che 
vuole, ma quello che gli par vero.”—Fra Paolo, 
Istoria, &c. Helmstadt, 1763, 4to.), vol. i. p. 193. 
Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino, a learned and very 
able Jesuit, was appointed, according to his own 
account, in 1651, many years after the death of 
Fra Paolo, to write a true history of the Council of 
Trent, as a corrective of the misrepresentations of 
the celebrated Venetian. Algernon Sidney, who 
knew this court historian at Rome, and who may 
be believed when he speaks well of a Jesuit and a I 


cardinal, commends the work in a letter to his 
father, Lord Leicester. At the end of Pallavicino’s 
work is a list of three hundred and sixty errors in 
matters of fact, which the Papal party pretend to 
have detected in the independent historian, whom 
they charge with heresy or infidelity, and, in either 
case, with hypocrisy. 

Note K. page 23 

“ Hoc tempore, Ferdinando et Isabella regnanti- 
bus, in academia Salmantina jacta sunt robustioris 
tlieologne semina; ingentis enim faime vir Fran- 
ciscus de Victoria, non tarn lucubrationibus editis, 
quamvis htec non magnas molis aut magni pretii 
sint, sed doctissimorum theologorum educatione, 
quamdiu fuerit sacrae sciential lionos inter mortales, 
vehementer laudabitur.” — Antonio, Bibliotheca 
Hispanica Nova, (Madrid, 1783,) in praef. “ Si ad 
morum instructores respicias, Sotus iterum no- 
minabitur.” — Ibid. 

Note L. page 24. 

The title of the published account of the confer¬ 
ence at Valladolid is, “ The controversy between 
the Bishop of Chiapa and Dr. Sepulveda ; in which 
the Doctor contended that the conquest of the 
Indies from the natives was lawful, and the Bishop 
maintained that it was unlawful, tyrannical, and 
unjust, in the presence of many theologians, 
lawyers, and other learned men assembled by his 
Majesty.” Bibl. Hisp. Nova, tom. i. p. 192. 

Las Casas died in 1566, in the 92d year of his 
age; Sepulveda died in 1571, in his 82d year. 
Sepulveda was the scholar of Pomponatius, and 
a friend of Erasmus, Cardinal Pole, Aldus Ma- 
nutius, &c. In his book “ De Justis Belli Causis 
contra Indos suscepti,” he contended only that 
the king ought justly “ ad ditionem Indos, non 
herilem sed regiam et civilem, lege belli redigere.” 
—Antonio, voce Sepulveda, Bibl. Hisp. Nova, tom. i. 
p. 703. But this smooth and specious language 
concealed poison. Had it entirely prevailed, the 
cruel consequence of the defeat of the advocate of 
the oppressed would alone have remained; the 
limitations and softenings employed by their oppo¬ 
nent to obtain success would have been speedily 
disregarded and forgotten. Covarruvias, another 
eminent Jurist, was sent by Philip II. to the 
Council of Trent, at its renewal in 1560, and, with 
Cardinal Buoncampagni, drew up the decrees 
of reformation. Francis Sanchez, the father of 
philosophical grammar, published his Minerva at 
Salamanca in 1587 ; — so active was the cultiva¬ 
tion of philosophy in Spain in the age of Cer¬ 
vantes. 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


Note M. page 37. 

“ Alors en repassant dans mon esprit les diverses 
opinions qui m’avoient tour-a-tour entraine depuis 
v ma naissance, je vis que bien qu’aucune d’elles ne 
fut assez evidente pour produire immediatement la 
conviction, elles avoient divers degres de vraisem- 
blance, et que l’assentiment interieur s’y prbtoit ou 
s’y refusoit a differentes mesures. Sur cette pre¬ 
miere observation, comparant entr’elles toutes ces 
differentes idees dans le silence des prejuges, je 
trouvai que la premiere, et la plus commune, etoit 
aussi la plus simple et la plus raissonnable; et qu’il 
ne lui manquoit, pour reunir tous les suffrages, que 
d’avoir ete proposee la demibre. Imaginez tous 
vos pliilosophes anciens et modernes, ayant d’abord 
e'puise leur bizarres systemes de forces, de chances, 
de fatalite, de necessite, d’atomes, de monde anime, 
de matibre vivante, de materialisme de toute 
espece; et aprbs eux tous l’illustre Clarke, eclair- 
ant le monde, annon^ant enfin l’Etre des etres, 
et le dispensateur des choses. Avec quelle univer- 
selle admiration, avec quel applaudissement una- 
nime n’eut point ete re<;u ce nouveau systbme si 
grand, si consolant, si sublime, si propre a elever 
l’ame, a donner une base h la vertu, et en merae 
terns si frappant, si lumineux, si simple, et, ce me 
semble, offrant moins de choses incomprehensibles 
h l’esprit humain, qu’il n’en trouve d’absurdes en 
tout autre systbme! Je me disois, les objections 
insolubles sont communes a tous, parceque l’esprit 
de 1’homme est trop borne pour les resoudre; elles 
ne prouvent done rien contre aucun par preference: 
mais quelle difference entre les preuves directes! ” 
—Rousseau. (Euvres, tome ix. p. 25. 

Note N. page 48. 

“ Est autem jus quaedam potentia moralis, et 
obligatio necessitas moralis. Moralem autem intel- 
ligo, quae apud virum bonum aequipollet naturali: 
Nam ut praeclare jurisconsultus Romanus ait, 
quee contra bonos mores sunt, ea nec facere nos posse 
credendum est. Vir bonus autem est, qui amat 
omnes, quantum ratio permittit. Justitiam igitur, 
quae virtus est hujus affectus rectrix, quern 
$i\avPpi»! 7 ia.)i Grseci vocant, commodissimb, ni fajlor, 
definiemus caritatem sapientis, hoc est, sequentem 
sapientiae dictata. Itaque, quod Carneades dixisse 
fertur, justitiam esse summam stultitiam, quia 
alienis utilitatibus consuli jubeat, neglectis propriis, 
ex ignorata ejus definitione natum est. Caritas est 
benevolentia universalis, et bencvolentia amandi 
sive diligendi habitus. Amare autem sive diligere 
est felicitate alterius delectari, vel, quod eodern 
redit, felicitatem alienam adsciscere in suam. Unde 
difficilis nodus solvitur, magni etiam in Theologia 
momenti, quomodo amor non mercenarius detur, 


137 

qui sit a spe metuque et omni utilitatis respectu 
separatus: scilicet, quorum utilitas delectat, eorum 
felicitas nostrum ingreditur; nam qua; delectant, 
per se expetuntur. Et uti pulchrorum contem- 
platio ipsa jucunda est, pictaque tabula Baphaclis 
intelligentem aflicit, etsi nullos census ferat, adeo 
ut in oculis deliciisque feratur, quodam simulacro 
amoris; ita quum res pulchra simul etiam felici- 
tatis est capax, transit affectus in verum amorem. 
Superat autem divinus amor alios amores, quos 
Deus cum maximo successu amare potest, quando 
Deo simul et felicius nihil est, et nihil pulchrius 
felicitateque dignius intelligi potest. Et quum 
idem sit potentiae sapientiaeque sunnnae, felicitas 
ejus non tan turn ingreditur nostrum (si sapimus, id 
est, ipsum aniamus), sed et facit. Quia autem 
sapientia caritatem dirigere debet, hujus quoque 
definitione opus erit. Arbitror autem notioni ho- 
minum optimb satisfied, si sapientiam nihil aliud 
esse dicamus, quam ipsam scientiam felicitatis.” — 
Leibnitii Opera, vol. iv. pars iii. p. 294. “ Et 
jus quidem merum sive strictum nascitur ex prin- 
cipio, servandae pacis; aequitas sive caritas ad 
majus aliquid contendit, ut, dum quisque alteri 
prodest, quantum potest, felicitatem suam augeat in 
aliena; et, ut verbo dicam, jus strictum miseriam 
vitat, jus superius ad felicitatem tendit, sed qualis 
in hanc mortalitatem cadit. Quod verb ipsam 
vitam, et quicquid hanc vitam expetendam facit, 
magno commodo alieno posthabere debeamus, ita 
ut maximos etiam dolores in aliorum gratiam per- 
ferre oporteat; magis pulchre praecipitur a philo- 
sophis quam solidb demonstratur. Nam decus et 
gloriam, et animi sui virtute gaudentis sensum, ad 
quae sub honestatis nomine provocant, cogitationis 
sive mentis bona esse constat, magna quidem, sed 
non omnibus, nec omni malorum acerbitati prceva- 
litura, quando non omnes aeque imaginando affici- 
untur; praesertim quos neque educatio liberalis, 
neque consuetudo vivendi ingenua, vel vitae sec- 
taeve disciplina ad honoris aestimationem, vel animi 
bona sentienda assuefecit. Ut verb universali de¬ 
monstration! conficiatur, omne honestum esse utile, 
et omne turpe damnosum, assumenda est innnorta- 
litas animae, et rector universi Deus. Ita fit, ut 
omnes in civitate perfectissima vivere intelligamur, 
sub monarcha, qui nec ob sapientiam falli, nec ob 
potentiam vitari potest; idemque tarn amabilis 
est, ut felicitas sit tali domino servire. Iluic igitur 
qui animam impendit, Christo docente, earn lucra- 
tur. Hujus potentia providentiaque efficitur, ut 
omne jus in factum transeat, ut nemo laedatur nisi 
a se ipso, ut nihil rectb gestuin sine prcemio sit, 
nullum peccatum sine poena.” — p. 296. 

Note 0. p. 51. 

The writer of this Discourse was led, on a former 
occasion, by a generally prevalent notion, to con- 







MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


found the theological doctrine of Predestination 
with the philosophical opinion which supposes the 
determination of the Will to he, like other events, 
produced by adequate causes. (See a criticism on 
Mr. Stewart’s Dissertation, Edinb. Review, vol. 
xxxvi. p. 225.) More careful reflection has cor¬ 
rected a confusion common to him with most 
writers on the subject. What is called ‘ Sublap- 
sarian Calvinism,’ which was the doctrine of the 
most eminent men, including Augustin and Calvin 
himself, ascribed to God, and to man before the Fall, 
what is called ‘ free-will,’ which they even own still 
to exist in all the ordinary acts of life, though it be 
lost with respect to religious morality. The decree 
of election, on this scheme, arises from God’s fore¬ 
knowledge that man was to fall, and that all men 
became thereby with justice liable to eternal pun¬ 
ishment. The election of some to salvation was an 
act of Divine goodness, and the pretention of the 
rest was an exercise of holiness and justice. This 
Sublapsarian predestination is evidently irrecon¬ 
cilable with the doctrine of Necessity, which con¬ 
siders free-will, or volitions not caused by motives, 
as absolutely inconsistent with the definition of an 
intelligent being, — which is, that he acts from a 
motive, or, in other words, with a purpose. The 
Supralapsarian scheme, which represents the Fall 
itself as fore-ordained, may indeed be built on ne¬ 
cessitarian principles. But on that scheme original 
sin seems wholly to lose that importance which 
the former system gives it as a revolution in the 
state of the world, requiring an interposition of 
Divine power to remedy a part of its fatal effects. 
It becomes no more than the first link in the chain 
of predestined offences. Yet both Catholic and 
Protestant predestinarians have borrowed the argu¬ 
ments and distinctions of philosophical necessita¬ 
rians. One of the propositions of Jansenius, con¬ 
demned by the bull of Innocent X. in 1653, is, that 
“ to merit or demerit in a state of lapsed nature, it 
is not necessary that there should be in man a 
liberty free from necessity; it is sufficient that 
there be a liberty free from constraint.” — Dupin, 
Histoire de l’Eglise en abrege, livre iv. chap. viii. 
Luther, in his once famous treatise De Servo Ar- 
bitrio against Erasmus (printed in 1526), expresses 
himself as follows: “ Hie est fidei summus gradus, 
credere ilium esse clementem qui tarn paucos salvat, 
tam multos damnat; credere justum qui sua vo- 
luntate nos necessario damnabiles facit, ut videatur, 
ut Erasmus refert, delectari cruciatibus miserorum, 
et odio potius quam amore dignus.” (My copy of 
this stern and abusive book is not paged.) In an¬ 
other passage, he states the distinction between co¬ 
action and necessity as familiar a hundred and 
thirty years before it was proposed by Hobbes, or 
condemned in the Jansenists. “ Necessario dico, 
non coactfc, sed, ut illi dicunt, necessitate immuta- 


bilitatis, non coactionis; hoc est, homo, cum vocat 
Spiritus Dei, non quidem violentia, velut raptus 
obtorto collo, nolens facit malum, quemadmodum 
fur aut latro nolens ad poenam ducitur, sed sponte 
et libera voluntate facit.” He uses also the illus¬ 
tration of Hobbes, from the difference between a 
stream forced out of its course and freely flowing in 
its channel. 

[The following is the whole of the passage in 
the Edinburgh Review referred to above: the 
reader, while bearing in mind the modification of 
opinion there announced, may still find sufficient 
interest in the general statement of the argument 
to justify its admission here.—E d.] 

“ ... It would be inexcusable to revive the 
mention of such a controversy as that which re¬ 
lates to Liberty and Necessity, for any other pur¬ 
pose than to inculcate mutual candour, and to 
censure the introduction of invidious topics. If 
there were any hope of terminating that endless 
and fruitless controversy, the most promising ex¬ 
pedient would be a general agreement to banish 
the technical terms hitherto employed on both sides 
from philosophy, and to limit ourselves rigorously 
to a statement of those facts in which all men 
agree, expressed in language perfectly purified from 
all tincture of system. The agreement in facts 
would then probably be found to be much more 
extensive than is often suspected by either party. 
Experience is, and indeed must be, equally ap¬ 
pealed to by both. All mankind feel and own, 
that their actions are at least very much affected 
by their situation, their opinions, their feelings, 
and their habits; yet no man would deserve the 
compliment of confutation, who seriously professed 
to doubt the distinction between right and wrong, 
the reasonableness of moral approbation and dis¬ 
approbation, the propriety of praising and cen¬ 
suring voluntary actions, and the justice of re¬ 
warding or punishing them according to their in¬ 
tention and tendency. No reasonable person, in 
whatever terms he may express himself concern¬ 
ing the Will, has ever meant to deny that man 
has powers and faculties which justify the moral 
judgments of the human race. Every advocate of 
Free Will admits the fact of the influence of mo¬ 
tives, from which the Necessarian infers the truth 
of his opinion. Every Necessarian must also admit 
those attributes of moral and responsible agency, 
for the sake of which the advocate o( Liberty con¬ 
siders his own doctrine as of such unspeakable im¬ 
portance. Both parties ought equally to own, 
that the matter in dispute is a question of fact re¬ 
lating to the mind, which must be ultimately de¬ 
cided by its own consciousness. The Necessarian 
is even bound to admit, that no speculation is 
tenable on this subject, which is not reconcilable 
to the general opinions of mankind, and which 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


does not afford a satisfactory explanation of that 
part of common language which at first sight ap¬ 
pears to be most at variance with it. 

“ After the actual antecedents of volition had 
been thus admitted by one party, and its moral 
consequences by another, the subject of contention 
would be reduced to the question,—What is the 
state of the mind in the interval which passes be¬ 
tween motive and action ? or, to speak with still 
more strict propriety, By what words is that state 
of the mind most accurately described? If this 
habit of thinking could be steadily and long pre¬ 
served, so evanescent a subject of dispute might 
perhaps in the end disappear, and the contending 
parties might at length discover that they had 
been only looking at opposite sides of the same 
truth. But the terms “ Liberty ” and “ Necessity” 
embroil the controversy, inflame the temper of dis¬ 
putants, and involve them in clouds of angry zeal, 
which render them incapable not only of perceiving 
their numerous and important coincidences, but 
even of clearly discerning the single point in which 
they differ. Every generous sentiment, and every 
hostile passion of human nature, have for ages been 
connected with these two words. They are the 
badges of the oldest, the widest, and the most ob¬ 
stinate warfare waged by metaphysicians. Who¬ 
ever refuses to try the experiment of renouncing 
them, at least for a time, can neither be a peace¬ 
maker nor a friend of dispassionate discussion; and, 
if he stickles for mere words, he may be justly sus¬ 
pected of being almost aware that he is contending 
for nothing but words. 

“ But if projects of perpetual' peace should be as 
Utopian in the schools as in the world, it is the 
more necessary to condemn the use of weapons 
which exasperate animosity, without contributing 
to decide the contest. Of this nature, in our opinion, 
are the imputations of irreligion and immorality 
which have for ages been thrown on those divines 
and philosophers who have espoused Necessarian 
opinions. Mr. Stewart, though he anxiously acquits 
individuals of evil intention, has too much lent the 
weight of his respectable opinion to these useless 
and inflammatory charges. We are at a loss to 
conceive how he could imagine that there is the 
slightest connexion between the doctrine of Neces¬ 
sity and the system of Spinoza, That the world 
is governed by a Supreme Mind, which is invariably 
influenced by the dictates of its own wisdom and 
goodness, seems to be the very essence of theism; 
and no man who substantially dissents from that 
proposition, can deserve the name of a pure theist. 
But this is precisely the reverse of the doctrine of 
Spinoza, which, in spite of all its ingenious dis¬ 
guises, undoubtedly denies the supremacy of mind. 
This objection, however, has already been answered, 
not only by the pious and profound Jonathan 


139 


Edwards (Inquiry, part iv. chap. 7.), an avowed 
Necessarian, but by Mr. Locke (whose opinions, 
however, about this question are not very distinct), 
and even by Dr. Clarke himself, the ablest and 
most celebrated of the advocates of liberty. (De¬ 
monstration of the Being and Attributes of God.) 

“ The charge of immoral tendency, however, de¬ 
serves more serious consideration, as it has been 
repeatedly enforced by Mr. Stewart, and brought 
forward also by Dr. Copplestone * (Discourses, 
Lond, 1821), — the only writer of our time who 
has equally distinguished himself in paths so dis¬ 
tant from each other as classical literature, political 
economy, and metaphysical philosophy. His ge¬ 
neral candour and temperance give weight to his 
accusation; and it is likely to be conveyed to pos¬ 
terity by a volume, which is one of the best models 
of philosophical style that our age has produced, — 
a Sermon of Archbishop King, republished by Mr. 
Whateley f, an ingenious and learned member of 
Oriel College. The Sermons of Dr. Copplestone do 
indeed directly relate to theology: but, in this 
case, it is impossible to separate that subject from 
philosophy. Necessity is a philosophical opinion 
relating to the human will: Predestination is a 
theological doctrine, concerning the moral govern¬ 
ment of the world. But since the writings of Leib¬ 
nitz and Jonathan Edwards, all supporters of Pre¬ 
destination endeavour to show its reasonableness 
by the arguments of the Necessarian. It is possible, 
and indeed very common, to hold the doctrine of 
Necessity, without adopting many of the dogmas 
which the Calvinist connects with it: but it is not 
possible to make any argumentative defence of 
Calvinism, which is not founded on the principle of 
Necessity. The moral consequences of both (what¬ 
ever they may be) must be the same; and both 
opinions are, accordingly, represented by their op¬ 
ponents as tending, in a manner very similar, to 
weaken the motives to virtuous action. 

“ There is no topic which requires such strong 
grounds to justify its admission into controversy, 
as that of moral consequences; for, besides its in¬ 
curable tendency to inflame the angry passions, and 
to excite obloquy against individuals, which ren¬ 
ders it a practical restraint on free inquiry, the 
employment of it in dispute seems to betray appre¬ 
hensions derogatory from the dignity of Morals, 
and not consonant either to the dictates of reason 
or to the lessons of experience. The rules of Mo¬ 
rality are too deeply rooted in human nature, to be 
shaken by every veering breath of metaphysical 
I theory. Our Moral Sentiments spring from no 
theory: they are as general as any part of our 


* Afterwards Bishop of Llandaff.— Ed. 
f Afterwards Archbishop of Dublin.— Ed. 

















MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


140 


nature; the causes which generate, or unfold and 
nourish them, lie deep in the unalterable interests 
of society, and in those primitive feelings of the 
human heart which no circumstances can eradicate. 
The experience of all ages teaches, that these deep- 
rooted principles are far less affected than is com¬ 
monly supposed, by the revolutions of philosophical 
opinion, which scarcely penetrate beyond the sur¬ 
face of human nature. Exceptions there doubtless 
are: the most speculative opinions are not pre¬ 
tended to be absolutely indifferent in their moral 
tendency; and it is needless to make an express 
exception of those opinions which directly relate 
to practice, and which may have a considerable 
moral effect. But, in general, the power of the 
moral feelings, and the feebleness of speculative 
opinions, are among the most striking phenomena 
in the history of mankind. What teacher, either 
philosophical or religious, has ever been successful 
in spreading his doctrines, who did not reconcile 
them to our moral sentiments, and even recom¬ 
mend them by pretensions to a purer and more 
severe morality? Wherever there is a seeming, 
or a real repugnance between speculative opinions 
and moral rules, the speculator has always been 
compelled to devise some compromise which, with 
whatever sacrifice of consistency, may appease the 
alarmed conscience of mankind. The favour of a 
few is too often earned by flattering their vicious 
passions; but no immoral system ever acquired 
popularity. Wherever there is a contest, the spe¬ 
culations yield, and the principles prevail. The 
victory is equally decisive, whether the obnoxious 
doctrine be renounced, or so modified as no longer 
to dispute the legitimate authority of Conscience. 

“ Nature has provided other guards for Virtue 
against the revolt of sophistry and the inconstancy 
of opinion. The whole system of morality is of 
great extent, and comprehends a variety of prin¬ 
ciples and sentiments, — of duties and virtues. 
Wherever new and singular speculation has been 
at first sight thought to weaken some of the motives 
of moral activity, it has almost uniformly been 
found, by longer experience, that the same specu¬ 
lation itself makes amends, by strengthening other 
inducements to right conduct. There is thus a 
principle of compensation in the opinions, as in the 
circumstances of man; which, though not sufficient 
to level distinction and to exclude preference, 
has yet such power, that it ought to appease our 
alarms, and to soften our controversies. A moral 
nature assimilates every speculation which it 
does not reject. If these general reasonings be 
just, with what increased force do they prove the 
innocence of error, in a case where, as there seems 
to be no possibility of difference about facts, the 
mistake of either party must be little more than 
verbal! 


“ We have much more ample experience respect¬ 
ing the practical tendency of religious than of phi¬ 
losophical opinions. The latter were formerly con¬ 
fined to the schools, and are still limited to persons 
of some education. They are generally kept apart 
from our passions and our business, and are enter¬ 
tained, as Cicero said of the Stoical paradoxes, 
* more as a subject of dispute than as a rule of 
life.’ Religious opinions, on the contrary, are 
spread over ages and nations; they are felt perhaps 
most strongly by the more numerous classes of 
mankind; wherever they are sincerely entertained, 
they must be regarded as the most serious of all 
concerns; they are often incorporated with the 
warmest passions of which the human heart is 
capable; and, in this state, from their eminently 
social and sympathetic nature, they are capable of 
becoming the ruling principle of action in vast 
multitudes. Let us therefore appeal to experience 
on the moral influence of Necessarian opinions in 
their theological form. By doing so, we shall have 
an opportunity of contemplating the principle in 
its most active state, operating upon the greatest 
masses, and for the longest time. Predestination, 
or doctrines much inclining towards it, have, on 
the whole, prevailed in the Christian churches of 
the West since the days of Augustine and Aquinas. 
Who were the first formidable opponents of these 
doctrines in the Church of Rome? The Jesuits — 
the contrivers of courtly casuistry, and the founders 
of lax morality. Who, in the same Church, in¬ 
clined to the stem theology of Augustine ? The 
Jansenists — the teachers and the models of austere 
morals. What are we to think of the morality of 
Calvinistic nations, especially of the most numerous 
classes of them, who seem, beyond all other men, 
to be most zealously attached to their religion, and 
most deeply penetrated with its spirit ? Here, if 
any where, we have a practical and a decisive test 
of the moral influence of a belief in Necessarian 
opinions. In Protestant Switzerland, in Holland, 
in Scotland, among the English Nonconformists, 
and the Protestants of the north of Ireland, in the 
New-England States, Calvinism long was the pre¬ 
valent faith, and is probably still the faith of a 
considerable majority. Their moral education was 
at least completed, and their collective character 
formed, during the prevalence of Calvinistic opi¬ 
nions. Yet where are communities to be found of 
a more pure and active virtue? Perhaps these, 
and other very striking facts, might justify specu¬ 
lations of a somewhat singular nature, and even 
authorize a retort upon our respectable antagonists. 
But we have no such purpose. It is sufficient for 
us to do what in us lies to mitigate the acrimony 
of controversy, to teach disputants on both sides 
to respect the sacred neutrality of Morals, and to 
show that the provident and parental care of Nature 






PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


141 


has sufficiently provided for the permanent security 
of the principles of Virtue. 

“ If we were to amuse ourselves in remarks on 
the practical tendency of opinions, we might with 
some plausibility contend, that there was a ten¬ 
dency in infidelity to produce Toryism. In England 
alone, we might appeal to the examples of Hobbes, 
Bolingbroke, Hume, and Gibbon; and to the op¬ 
posite cases of Milton, Locke, Addison, Clarke, and 
even Newton himself; for the last of these great 
men was also a Whig. The only remarkable ex¬ 
ample which now occurs to us of a zealous believer 
who was a bigoted Tory, is that of Dr. Johnson; 
and we may balance against him the whole, or the 
greater part of the life of his illustrious friend, 
Mr. Burke. We would not, however, rest much 
on observations founded on so small an experience, 
that the facts may arise from causes wholly inde¬ 
pendent of the opinion. But another unnoticed 
coincidence may serve as an introduction to a few 
observations on the scepticism of the eighteenth 
century. 

“ The three most celebrated sceptics of modern 
times have been zealous partisans of high authority 
in government. It would be rash to infer, from 
the remarkable examples of this coincidence, in 
Montaigne, Bayle, and Hume, that there is a na¬ 
tural connexion between scepticism and Toryism; 
or, even, if there were a tendency to such a con¬ 
nexion, that it might not be counteracted by more 
powerful circumstances, or by stronger principles 
of human nature. It is more worth while, there¬ 
fore, to consider the particulars in the history of 
these three eminent persons, which may have 
strengthened or created this propensity. 

“ Montaigne, who was methodical in nothing, 
does not indeed profess systematic scepticism. He 
was a freethinker who loosened the ground about 
received opinions, and indulged his humour in 
arguing on both sides of most questions. But the 
sceptical tendency of his writings is evident; and 
there is perhaps nowhere to be found a more vigor¬ 
ous attack on popular innovations, than in the 
latter part of the 22d Essay of his first book. But 
there is no need of any general speculations to ac¬ 
count for the repugnance to change, felt by a man 
who was wearied and exasperated by the horrors 
of forty years’ civil war. 

“ The case of Bayle is more remarkable. Though 
banished from France as a Protestant, he published, 
without his name, a tract, entitled, ‘ Advice to the 
Refugees,’ in the year 1690, which could be con¬ 
sidered in no other light than that of an apology 
for Louis XIV., an attack on the Protestant cause, 
and a severe invective against his companions in 
exile. He declares, in this unavowed work, for 
absolute power and passive obedience, and inveighs, 
with an intemperance scarcely ever found in his 


avowed writings, against ‘ the execrable doctrines 
of Buchanan,’ and the ‘ pretended sovereignty of 
the people,’ without sparing even the just and 
glorious Revolution, which had at that moment 
preserved the constitution of England, the Pro¬ 
testant religion, and the independence of Europe. 
It is no wonder, therefore, that he was considered 
as a partisan of France, and a traitor to the Pro¬ 
testant cause; nor can we much blame King Wil¬ 
liam for regarding him as an object of jealous 
policy. Many years after, he was represented to 
Lord Sunderland as an enemy of the Allies, and a 
detractor of their great captain, the Duke of Marl¬ 
borough. The generous friendship of the illustrious 
author of the Characteristics, — the opponent of 
Bayle on almost every question of philosophy, go¬ 
vernment, and, we may add, religion, — preserved 
him, on that occasion, from the sad necessity of 
seeking a new place of refuge in the very year of 
his death. The vexations which Bayle underwent 
in Holland from the Calvinist ministers, and his 
long warfare against their leader Jurieu, who was 
a zealous assertor of popular opinions, may have 
given this bias to his mind, and disposed him to 
‘ fly from petty tyrants to the throne.’ His love 
of paradox may have had its share; for passive 
obedience was considered as a most obnoxious pa¬ 
radox in the schools and societies of the oppressed 
Calvinists. His enemies, however, did not fail to 
impute his conduct to a design of paying his court 
to Louis XIV., and to the hope of being received 
with open arms in France;—motives which seem 
to be at variance both with the general integrity 
of his life, and with his favourite passion for the 
free indulgence of philosophical speculation. The 
scepticism of Bayle must, however, be distinguished 
from that of Hume. The former of these celebrated 
writers examined many questions in succession, 
and laboured to show that doubt was, on all of 
them, the result of examination. His, therefore, is 
a sort of inductive scepticism, in which general 
doubt was an inference from numerous examples 
of uncertainty in particular cases. It is a kind of 
appeal to experience, whether so many failures in 
the search of truth ought not to deter wise men 
from continuing the pursuit. Content with proving, 
or seeming to himself to prove, that we have not 
attained certainty, he does not attempt to prove 
that we cannot reach it. 

“ The doctrine of Mr. Hume, on the other hand, 
is not that we have not reached truth, but that we 
never can reach it. It is an absolute and universal 
system of scepticism, professing to be derived from 
the very structure of the Understanding, which, if 
any man could seriously believe it, would render it 
impossible for him to form an opinion upon any 
subject, — to give the faintest assent to any pro¬ 
position,— to ascribe any meaning to the words 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


142 


‘ truth’ and ‘falsehood,’—to believe, to inquire, or 
to reason, and, on the very same ground, to disbe¬ 
lieve, to dissent, or to doubt, — to adhere to his own 
principle of universal doubt, and, lastly, if he be 
consistent with himself, even to think. It is not 
easy to believe that speculations so shadowy, which 
never can pretend to be more than the amusements 
of idle ingenuity, should have any influence on the 
opinions of men of great understanding, concerning 
the most important concerns of human life. But 
perhaps it may be reasonable to allow, that the 
same character which disposes men to scepticism, 
may dispose them also to acquiesce in considerable 
abuses, and even oppressions, rather than to seek 
redress in forcible resistance. Men of such a cha¬ 
racter have misgivings in every enterprise; their 
acuteness is exercised in devising objections, — in 
discovering difficulties,—in foreseeing obstacles; 
they hope little from human wisdom and virtue, 
and are rather secretly prone to that indolence and 
indifference which forbade the Epicurean sage to 
hazard his quiet for the doubtful interests of a con¬ 
temptible race. They do not lend a credulous ear 
to the Utopian projector; they doubt whether the 
evils of change will be so little, or the benefits of 
reform so great, as the sanguine reformer foretells 
that they will be. The sceptical temper of Mr. 
Hume may have thus insensibly moulded his po¬ 
litical opinions. But causes still more obvious and 
powerful had probably much more share in render¬ 
ing him so zealous a partisan of regal power. In 
his youth, the Presbyterians, to whose enmity his 
opinions exposed him, were the zealous and only 
friends of civil liberty in Scotland; and the close 
connexion of liberty with Calvinism, made both 
more odious to him. The gentry in most parts of 
Scotland, except in the west, were then Jacobites; 
and his early education was probably among that 
party. The prejudices which he perhaps imbibed 
in France against the literature of England, ex¬ 
tended to her institutions; and in the state of 
English opinion, when his history was published, 
if he sought distinction by paradox, he could not 
so effectually have obtained his object by the most 
startling of his metaphysical dogmas, as by his 
doubts of the genius of Shakespeare, and the virtue 
of Hampden.” 

Note P. page 64. 

Though some parts of the substance of the fol¬ 
lowing letter have already appeared in various 
forms, perhaps the account of Mr. Hume’s illness, 
in the words of his friend and physician Dr. Cuilen, 
will be acceptable to many readers. I owe it to 
the kindness of Mrs. Baillie, who had the goodness 
to copy it from the original, in the collection of her 
late learned and excellent husband, Dr. Baillie. 


Some portion of what has been formerly published 
I do not think it necessary to reprint. 

From Dr. Cullen to Dr. Hunter. 

“ My dear Friend, — I was favoured noth 
yours by Mr. Halket on Sunday, and have answered 
some part of it by a gentleman whom I was other¬ 
wise obliged to write by; but as I was not certain 
how soon that might come to your hand, I did not 
answer your postscript; in doing which, if I can 
oblige you, a part of the merit must be that of the 
information being early, and I therefore give it you 
as soon as I possibly could. You desire an account 
of Mr. Hume’s last days, and I give it you with 
some pleasure; for though I could not look upon 
him in his illness without much concern, yet the 
tranquillity and pleasantry which he constantly 
discovered did even then give me satisfaction, and, 
now that the curtain is dropped, allows me to in¬ 
dulge the less allayed reflection. He was truly an 
example des grands homines qui sont morts en plai- 
santant. .. . For many weeks before his death he 
was very sensible of his gradual decay; and his 
answer to inquiries after his health was, several 
times, that he was going as fast as his enemies 
could wish, and as easily as his friends could desire. 
He was not, however, without a frequent recurrence 
of pain and uneasiness; but he passed most part of 
the day in his drawing-room, admitted the visits 
of his friends, and, with his usual spirit, conversed 
with them upon literature, politics, or whatever 
else was accidentally started. In conversation he 
seemed to be perfectly at ease, and to the last 
abounded with that pleasantry, and those curious 
and entertaining anecdotes, which ever distin¬ 
guished him. This, however, I always considered 
rather as an effort to be agreeable; and he at length 
acknowledged that it became too much for his 
strength. For a few days before his death, he be¬ 
came more averse to receive visits; speaking be¬ 
came more and more difficult for him, and for 
twelve hours before his death his speech failed 
altogether. His senses and judgment did not fail 
till the last hour of his life. He constantly dis¬ 
covered a strong sensibility to the attention and 
care of his friends; and, amidst great uneasiness 
and languor, never betrayed any peevishness or 
impatience. This is a general account of his last 
days; but a particular fact or two may perhaps 

convey to you a still better idea of them. 

£ “ + * * * * 

“ About a fortnight before his death, he added a 
codicil to his will, in which he fully discovered his 
attention to his friends, as well as his own plea¬ 
santry. What little wine he himself drank was 
generally port, a wine for which his friend the poet 
[John Home] had ever declared the strongest 









PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 143 


aversion. David bequeaths to his friend John one 
bottle of port; and, upon condition of his drinking 
this even at two down-sittings, bestows upon him 
twelve dozen of his best claret. He pleasantly 
adds, that this subject of wine was the only one 
upon which they had ever differed. In the codicil 
there are several other strokes of raillery and plea¬ 
santry, highly expressive of the cheerfulness which 
he then enjoyed. He even turned his attention to 
some of the simple amusements with which he had 
been formerly pleased. In the neighbourhood of 
his brother’s house in Berwickshire is a brook, by 
which the access in time of floods is frequently in¬ 
terrupted. Mr. Hume bequeaths 100Z. for building 
a bridge over this brook, but upon the express 
condition that none of the stones for that purpose 
shall be taken from a quarry in the neighbourhood, 
which forms part of a romantic scene in which, in 
his earlier days, Mr. Hume took particular delight: 
— otherwise the money to go to the poor of the 
parish. 

“ These are a few particulars which may perhaps 
appear trifling; but to me no particulars seem 
trifling that relate to so great a man. It is perhaps 
from trifles that we can best distinguish the tran¬ 
quillity and cheerfulness of the philosopher, at a 
time when the most part of mankind are under 
disquiet, anxiety, and sometimes even horror.... 
I had gone so far when I was called to the country; 
and I have returned only so long before the post 
as to say, that I am most affectionately yours, 

“ William Cullen. 

“ Edinburgh , 17 th September, 1776.” 


Note Q. page 64. 

Pyrrho was charged with carrying his scepticism 
so far as not to avoid a carriage if it was driven 
against him iEnesidemus, the most famous of 
ancient sceptics, with great probability, vindicates 
the more ancient doubter from such lunacy, of 
which indeed his having lived to the age of ninety 
seems sufficient to acquit him. A ivscliy/Aos is <frw 
(pikotrotfslv [tsv otvTOv xostoc tov t%s ixoxrs Xoyov, [oy [asvtoi 
ys ot,x£oo£ce.TU{ 'sxourTot, x^uttuv. — Diogenes Laertius, 
lib. ix. sect. 62. Brief and imperfect as our ac¬ 
counts of ancient scepticism are, it does appear that 
their reasoning on the subject of causation had 
some resemblance to that of Mr. Hume. *Av«/§«v<r< 

Ss to ostTiov Si s’ to ottrtov tuv x(o; Tt stti, x^ot yk$ t a 

KITIXTU IffTf TOO is X£OS Tt IplVOUTOU fAOVOV VXX^X^ 

OV' XCtt TO OtITIOV CUV IxiVOOtTO civ [ COVOV. - Ibid. sect. 97. 

It is perhaps impossible to translate the important 
technical expression roc x^os n. It comprehends 
two or more things as related to each other; both 
the relative and correlative being taken together 
as such. Fire considered as having the power of 


burning wood is to xtfs n. The words of Laertius 
may therefore be nearly rendered into the language 
of modern philosophy as follows: “ Causation they 
take away thus. A cause is so only in relation to 
an effect. What is relative is only conceived, but 
does not exist. Therefore cause is a mere concep¬ 
tion.” The first attempt to prove the necessity of 
belief in a Divine revelation, by demonstrating that 
natural reason leads to universal scepticism, was 
made by Algazel, a professor at Bagdad, in the 
beginning of the twelfth century of our era; whose 
work entitled the “ Destruction of the Philosopher” 
is known to us only by the answer of Averroes, 
called “ Destruction of the Destruction.” He de¬ 
nied a necessary connexion between cause and 
effect; for of two separate things, the affirmation 
of the existence of one does not necessarily contain 
the affirmation of the existence of the other; and 
the same may be said of denial. It is curious enough 
that this argument was more especially pointed 
against those Arabian philosophers who, from the 
necessary connexion of causes and effects, reasoned 
against the possibility of miracles; — thus antici¬ 
pating one doctrine of Mr. Hume, to impugn an¬ 
other.— Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophic, 
vol. viii. p. 387. The same attempt was made by 
the learned but unphilosophical Huet, bishop of 
Avranches. — (Qusestiones Alnetanae, Caen, 1690, 
and Traite de la Foiblesse de 1’Esprit Humain, 
Amsterdam, 1723.) A similar motive urged Berke¬ 
ley to his attack on Fluxions. The attempt of 
Huet has been lately renewed by the Abbe Lamen- 
nais, in his treatise on Religious Indifference; — 
a fine w r riter, whose apparent reasonings amount 
to little more than well-varied assertions, and well- 
disguised assumptions of the points to be proved. 
To build religion upon scepticism is the most ex¬ 
travagant of all attempts; for it destroys the proofs 
of a divine mission, and leaves no natural means 
of distinguishing between revelation and imposture. 
The Abbe Lamennais represents authority as the 
sole ground of belief. Why ? If any reason can 
be given, the proposition must be false; if none, 
it is obviously a mere groundless assertion. 

Note R. page 68. 

Casanova, a Venetian doomed to solitary impri¬ 
sonment in the dungeons at Venice in 1755, thus 
speaks of the only books which for a time he was 
allowed to read. The title of the first was “La 
Cite Mystique de Sceur Marie de Jesus, appellee 
d’Agrada.” “J’y lus tout ce que peut enfanter 
F imagination exaltee d’une vierge Espagnole ex- 
travagamment devote, cloitree, melancholique, 
ayant des directeurs de conscience, ignorans, faux, 
et devots. Amoureuse et amie trks intime de la 
Sainte Vierge, elle avait re<?u ordre de Dieu memo 






MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


144 


d’eerire la vie de sa divine mere. Les instructions ne- 
cessaires lui avaient ete fournies par le Saint Esprit. 
EUe commencoit la vie de Marie, non pas du jour 
de sa naissance, mais du moment de son immaculee 
conception dans le sein de sa mbre Anne. A pres 
avoir narre en detail tout ce que sa divine heroine 
fit les neuf mois qu’ elle a passe dans le sein ma- 
ternel, elle nous apprend qu’a 1’age de trois ans 
elle balayoit la maison, aidee par neuf cents do- 
mestiques, tous anges, commandes par leur propre 
Prince Michel. Ce qui frappe dans ce livre est 
1’ assurance que tout est dit de bonne foi. Ce sont 
les visions d’ un esprit sublime, qui, sans aucune 
ombre d’ orgueil, ivre de Dieu, croit ne reveler que 
ce que V Esprit Saint lui inspire.”—Memoires de 
Casanova (Leipsic, 1827), vol. iv. p. 343. A week’s 
confinement to this volume produced such an effect 
on Casanova, an unbeliever and a debauchee, but 
who was then enfeebled by melancholy, bad air, 
and bad food, that his sleep was haunted, and his 
waking hours disturbed by its horrible visions. 
Many years after, passing through Agrada in Old 
Castile, he charmed the old priest of that village 
by speaking of the biographer of the virgin. The 
priest showed him all the spots which were con¬ 
secrated by her presence, and bitterly lamented 
that the Court of Rome had refused to canonize 
her. It is the natural reflection of Casanova that 
the book was well qualified to turn a solitary pri¬ 
soner mad, or to make a man at large an atheist. 
It ought not to be forgotten, that the inquisitors of 
state at Venice, who proscribed this book, were 
probably of the latter persuasion. It is a striking 
instance of the infatuation of those who, in their 
eagerness to rivet the bigotry of the ignorant, use 
means which infallibly tend to spread utter unbe¬ 
lief among the educated. The book is a disgusting, 
but in its general outline seemingly faithful, picture 
of the dissolute manners spread over the Continent 
of Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century. 


Note S. page 70. 

“ The Treatise on the Law of War and Peace, 
the Essay on Human Understanding, the Spirit of 
Laws, and the Inquiry into the Causes of the Wealth 
of Nations, are the works which have most directly 
influenced the general opinion of Europe during 
the two last centuries. They are also the most con¬ 
spicuous landmarks in the progress of the sciences 
to which they relate. It is remarkable that the 
defects of all these great works are very similar. 
The leading notions of none of them can, in the 
strictest sense, be said to be original, though Locke 
and Smith in that respect surpass their illustrious 
rivals. All of them employ great care in ascer¬ 
taining those laws which are immediately deduced 


from experience, or directly applicable to practice; 
but apply metaphysical and abstract principles 
with considerable negligence. Not one pursues the 
order of science, beginning with first elements, and 
advancing to more and more complicated conclu¬ 
sions ; though Locke is perhaps less defective in 
method than the rest. All admit digressions which, 
though often intrinsically excellent, distract atten¬ 
tion, and break the chain of thought. Not one of 
them is happy in the choice, or constant in the 
use, of technical terms; and in none do we find 
much of that rigorous precision which is the first 
beauty of philosophical language. Grotius and 
Montesquieu were imitators of Tacitus, — the first 
with more gravity, the second with more vivacity; 
but both were tempted to forsake the simple diction 
of science, in pursuit of the poignant brevity which 
that great historian has carried to a vicious excess. 
Locke and Smith chose an easy, clear, and free, 
but somewhat loose and verbose style, — more con¬ 
cise in Locke, — more elegant in Smith, — in both 
exempt from pedantry, but not void of ambiguity 
and repetition. Perhaps all these apparent defects 
contributed in some degree to the specific usefulness 
of these great works; and, by rendering their con¬ 
tents more accessible and acceptable to the majority 
of readers, have more completely blended their 
principles with the common opinions of mankind.” 
— Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxvi. p. 244. [This 
is a further extract from the article alluded to at 
p. 138.— Ed.] 


Notes T, U. pages 75, 76. 


Aa S’ oStuz, 6u<rsrii> iv y^aojujuartiou a fjoy^iv vrra.^yii ivreXi- 
%t*ct yiy^auuivov' eVsrsj cjufioclvu ini tov vov. —Aristotle. 

“ De Anima,” Opera (Paris, 1639), tome ii. p. 50. 
A little before, in the same treatise, appears a great 
part of the substance of the famous maxim, Nil est 
in intellectu quod non prius fuit in sensu. "HS= <p«vra- 
trla. xivvicriz ns hoxu tivoti, xoci ovx civiv oo’ur9r 1 o‘io)s yiyvarQou. 


— Ibid. p. 47. In the tract on Memory and Re¬ 
miniscence we find his enumeration of the principles 
of association. A lot xoc) TO ££s£'/j? By^ivojjciv, vorifovvns 
kero tov vvv ocXXov tivos, xoti enf’ o/jooiov »j iveevr/ov, v) tov 


trCviyyvs. — Ibid. p. 86. If the latter word be applied 
to time as well as space, and considered as com¬ 
prehending causation, the enumeration will coincide 
with that of Hume. The term B-^tvoo is as signifi¬ 
cant as if it had been chosen by.Hobbes. But it 
is to be observed, that these principles are applied 
only to explain memory. 

Something has been said on the subject, and 
something on the present writer, by Mr. Coleridge, 
in his unfortunately unfinished work called “ Bio- 
graphia Literaria,” chap, v., which seems to justify, 
if not to require, a few remarks. That learned 
gentleman seems to have been guilty of an over- 







PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 


sight in quoting as a distinct work the “Parva 
Naturalia,” which is the collective name given by 
the scholastic translators to those treatises of Aris¬ 
totle which form the second volume of Duval’s 
edition of his works, published at Paris in 1639. 
I have already acknowledged the striking resem¬ 
blance of Mr. Hume’s principles of association to 
those of Aristotle. In answer, however, to a remark 
of Mr. Coleridge, I must add, that the manuscript 
of a part of Aquinas which I bought many years 
ago (on the faith of a bookseller’s catalogue) as 
being written by Mr. Hume, was not a copy of the 
Commentary on the “ Parva Naturalia,” but of 
Aquinas’s own “ Secunda Secundae; ” and that, on 
examination, it proves not to be the handwriting 
of Mr. Hume, and to contain nothing written by 
him. It is certain that, in the passages imme¬ 
diately preceding the quotation, Aristotle explains 
recollection as depending on a general law, — that 
the idea of an object will remind us of the objects 
which immediately preceded or followed when ori¬ 
ginally perceived. But what Mr. Coleridge has 
not told us is, that the Stagyrite confines the ap¬ 
plication of this law exclusively to the phenomena of 
recollection alone , without any glimpse of a more 
general operation extending to all connections of 
thought and feeling, — a wonderful proof, indeed, 
even so limited, of the sagacity of the great philo¬ 
sopher, but which for many ages continued barren 
of further consequences. The illustrations of Aqui¬ 
nas throw light on the original doctrine, and show 
that it was unenlarged in his time. “ When we 
recollect Socrates, the thought of Plato occurs * as 
like him.’ When we remember Hector, the thought 
of Achilles occurs ‘as contrary.’ The idea of a 
father is followed by that of a son ‘ as near.’ ” — 
Opera, vol. i. pars ii. p. 62. et seq. Those of Lu- 
dovicus Vives, as quoted by Mr. Coleridge, extend 
no farther. But if Mr. Coleridge will compare the 
parts of Hobbes on Human Nature which relate 
to this subject, with those which explain general 
terms, he will- perceive that the philosopher of 
Malmesbury builds on these two foundations a ge¬ 
neral theory of the human understanding, of which 
reasoning is only a particular case. In consequence 
of the assertion of Mr. Coleridge, that Hobbes was 
anticipated by Descartes in his excellent and in¬ 
teresting discourse on Method, I have twice re¬ 
perused the latter’s work in quest of this remarkable 
anticipation, though, as I thought, well acquainted 
by my old studies with the writings of that great 
philosopher. My labour has, however, been vain: 
I have discovered no trace of that or of any similar 
speculation. My edition is in Latin by Elzevir, 
at Amsterdam, in 1650, the year of Descartes’s 
death. I am obliged, therefore, to conjecture, that 
Mr. Coleridge, having mislaid his references, has, 
by mistake, quoted the discourse on Method, in¬ 


145 


stead of another work; which would affect his 
inference from the priority of Descartes to Hobbes. 
It is not to be denied, that the opinion of Aristotle, 
repeated by so many commentators, may have 
found its way into the mind of Hobbes, and also of 
Hume; though neither might be aware of its source, 
or even conscious that it was not originally his 
own. Yet the very narrow view of Association 
taken by Locke, his apparently treating it as a 
novelty, and the silence of common books respecting 
it, afford a presumption that the Peripatetic doc¬ 
trine was so little known, that it might have es¬ 
caped the notice of these philosophei-s;—one of 
whom boasted that he was unread, while the other 
is not liable to the suspioion of unacknowledged 
borrowing. 

To Mr. Coleridge, who distrusts his own power 
of building a bridge by which his ideas may pass 
into a mind so differently trained as mine, I ven¬ 
ture to suggest, with that sense of his genius which 
no circumstance has hindered me from seizing 
every fit occasion to manifest, that more of my 
early years were employed in contemplations of an 
abstract nature, than of those of the majority of 
his readers,—that there are not, even now, many 
of them less likely to be repelled from doctrines by 
singularity or uncouthness; or many more willing 
to allow that every system has caught an advan¬ 
tageous glimpse of some side or corner of the 
truth; or many more desirous of exhibiting this 
dispersion of the fragments of wisdom by attempts 
to translate the doctrine of one school into the lan¬ 
guage of another; or many who when they cannot 
discover a reason for an opinion, consider it more 
important to discover the causes of its adoption by 
the philosopher;—believing, as I do, that one of 
the most arduous and useful offices of mental phi¬ 
losophy is to explore the subtile illusions which 
enable great minds to satisfy themselves by mere 
words, before they deceive others by payment in 
the same counterfeit coin. My habits, together 
with the natural influence of my age and avoca¬ 
tions, lead me to suspect that in speculative philo¬ 
sophy I am nearer to indifference than to an exclu¬ 
sive spirit. I hope that it can neither be thought 
presumptuous nor offensive in me to doubt, whether 
the circumstance of its being found difficult to 
convey a metaphysical doctrine to a person who, 
at one part of his life, made such studies his chief 
pursuit, may not imply either error in the opinion, 
or defect in the mode of communication. 


Note Y. page 92. 

A very late writer, who seems to speak for Mr. 
Bentham with authority, tells us that “the first 
time the phrase of ‘the principle of utility’ was 


L 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


146 


brought decidedly into notice, was in the ‘ Essays,’ 
by David Hume, published about the year 1742. 
In that work it is mentioned as the name of a prin¬ 
ciple which might be made the foundation of a sys¬ 
tem of morals, in opposition to a system then in vogue, 
which teas founded on what was called the ‘ moral 
sense.’ The ideas, however, there attached to it, 
are vague, and defective in practical application.” — 
Westminster Review, vol. xi. p. 258. If these few 
sentences were scrutinised with the severity and 
minuteness of Bentham’s Fragment on Govern¬ 
ment, they would be found to contain almost as 
many misremembrances as assertions. The prin¬ 
ciple of Utility is not “ mentioned,” but fully dis¬ 
cussed, in Mr. Hume’s discourse. It is seldom 
spoken of by “ name .” Instead of charging the 
statements of it with “ vagueness,” it would be more 
just to admire the precision which it combines with 
beauty. Instead of being “ defective in practical 
application,” perhaps the desire of rendering it 
popular has crowded it with examples and illus¬ 
trations taken from life. To the assertion that “ it 
was opposed to the moral sense,” no reply can be 
needful but the following words extracted from the 
discourse itself: “ I am apt to suspect that reason 
and sentiment concur in almost all moral deter¬ 
minations and conclusions. The final sentence which 
pronounces characters and actions amiable or odious, 
probably depends on some internal sense or feeling, 
which nature has made universal in the whole species.” 
— Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, 
sect. i. The phrase “ made universal,” which is 
here used instead of the more obvious and common 
word “ implanted,” shows the anxious and perfect 
precision of language, by which a philosopher avoids 
the needless decision of a controversy not at the 
moment before him. 

[Dr. Whewell puts the case against the present 
ms-denomination assumed by the disciples of Mr. 
Bentham thus neatly: — “If the word from which 
Deontology is derived had borrowed its meaning 
from the notion of utility alone, it is not likely that 
it would have become more intelligible by being 
translated out of Latin into Greek. But the term 
‘Deontology’ expresses moral science (and ex¬ 
presses it well), precisely because it signifies the 
science of duty, and contains no reference to Utility. 
Mackintosh, who held that to hiov — what men 
ought to do — was the fundamental notion of mo¬ 
rality, might very probably have termed the science 
‘ Deontology.’ The system of which Mr. Bentham 


is the representative, — that of those who make 
morality dependent on the production of happiness 
— has long been designated in Germany by the 
term ‘ Eudemonism ,’ derived from the Greek word 
for happiness ( ivScaaodoi ). If we were to adopt this 
term, we should have to oppose the Deontological 
to the Eudemonist school; and we must necessarily 
place those who hold a peculiar moral faculty, — 
Butler, Stewart, Brown, and Mackintosh, — in the 
former, and those who are usually called Utilitarian 
philosophers in the latter class.” — Preface to this 
Dissertation, 8vo., Edinburgh, 1837. Ed.] 

Note W. page 93. 

A writer of consummate ability, who has failed 
in little but the respect due to the abilities and cha¬ 
racter of his opponents, has given too much coun¬ 
tenance to the abuse and confusion of language 
exemplified in the well-known verse of Pope, 

“ Modes of self-love the Passions we may call.” 

“We know,” says he, “no universal proposition 
respecting human nature which is true but one, — 
that men always act from self-interest.” — Edin¬ 
burgh Review, vol. xlix. p. 185. It is manifest 
from the sequel, that the writer is not the dupe of 
the confusion; but many of his readers may be so. 
If, indeed, the word ‘ self-interest ’ could with pro¬ 
priety be used for the gratification of every preva¬ 
lent desire, he has clearly shown that this change 
in the signification of terms would be of no ad¬ 
vantage to the doctrine which he controverts. It 
would make as many sorts of self-interest as there 
are appetites, and it is irreconcilably at variance 
with the system of association embraced by Mr. 
Mill. To the word “ self-love,” Hartley properly 
assigns two significations: — 1. gross self-love, 
which consists in the pursuit of the greatest plea¬ 
sures, from all those desires which look to indivi¬ 
dual gratification; or, 2. refined self-love, which 
seeks the greatest pleasure which can arise from 
all the desires of human nature, — the latter of 
which is an invaluable, though inferior principle. 
The admirable writer whose language has occa¬ 
sioned this illustration, — who at an early age has 
mastered every species of composition,—will doubt¬ 
less hold fast to simplicity, which survives all the 
fashions of deviation from it, and which a man of 
a genius so fertile has few temptations to forsake. 











ON THE 


PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS 


OP 

LORD BACON AND MR. LOCKE.* 


“History,” says Lord Bacon, “is Natural, 
Civil or Ecclesiastical, or Literary; whereof 
the three first 'I allow as extant, the fourth 
I note as deficient. For no man hath pro¬ 
pounded to himself the general state of 
learning, to be described and represented 
from age to age, as many have done the 
works of Nature, and the State civil and 
ecclesiastical; without which the history of 
the world seemeth to me be as the statue 
of Polyphemus with his eye out; that part 
being wanting which doth most show the 
spirit and life of the person. And yet I am not 
ignorant, that in divers particular sciences, 
as of the jurisconsults, the mathematicians, 
the rhetoricians, and the philosophers, there 
are set down some small memorials of the 
schools, — of authors of books! so likewise 
some barren relations touching the inven¬ 
tion of arts or usages. But a just story 
of learning, containing the antiquities and 
originals of knowledges, and their sects, 
their inventions, their traditions, their divers 
administrations and managings, their oppo¬ 
sitions, decays, depressions, oblivions, re¬ 
moves, with the causes and occasions of 
them, and all other events concerning learn¬ 
ing throughout the ages of the world, I may 
truly affirm to be wanting. The use and end 
of which work I do not so much design for 
curiosity, or satisfaction of those who are 


* These remarks are extracted from the Edin¬ 
burgh Review, voL xxvii. p. 180.; vol. xxxvi. 
p. 229 .—Ed. 


lovers of learning, but chiefly for a more 
serious and grave purpose, which is this, in 
few words, ‘ that it will make learned men 
wise in the use and administration of learn¬ 
ing: ”* 

Though there are passages in the writings 
of Lord Bacon more splendid than the above, 
few, probably, better display the union of 
all the qualities which characterised his 
philosophical genius. He has in general 
inspired a fervour of admiration which vents 
itself in indiscriminate praise, and is very 
adverse to a calm examination of the charac¬ 
ter of his understanding, which was very 
peculiar, and on that account described with 
more than ordinary imperfection, by that 
unfortunately vague and weak part of lan¬ 
guage which attempts to distinguish the 
varieties of mental superiority. To this 
cause it may be ascribed, that perhaps no 
great man has been either more ignorantly 
censured or more uninstructively com¬ 
mended. It is easy to describe his tran¬ 
scendent merit in general terms of com¬ 
mendation ; for some of his great qualities 
lie on the surface of his writings. But that 
in which he most excelled all other men, was 
the range and compass of his intellectual 
view and the power of contemplating many 
and distant objects together without indis¬ 
tinctness or confusion, which he himself has 
called the “ discursive” or “comprehensive” 
understanding. This wide ranging intellect 


* Advancement of Learning, book ii. 









148 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

was illuminated by the brightest Fancy that 
ever contented itself with the office of only 
ministering to Reasbn; and from this sin¬ 
gular relation of the two grand faculties of 
man, it has resulted, that his philosophy, 
though illustrated still more than adorned 
by the utmost splendour of imagery, con¬ 
tinues still subject to the undivided supre¬ 
macy of Intellect. In the midst of all the 
prodigality of an imagination which, had it 
been independent, would have been poetical, 
his opinions remained severely rational. 

It is not so easy to conceive, or at least to 
describe, other equally essential elements of 
his greatness, and conditions of his success. 
His is probably a single instance of a mind 
which, in philosophising, always reaches the 
point of elevation whence the whole prospect 
is commanded, without ever rising to sucli 
a distance as to lose a distinct perception of 
every part of it.* It is perhaps not less sin¬ 
gular, that his philosophy should be founded 
at once on disregard for the authority of 
men, and on reverence for the boundaries 
prescribed by Nature to human inquiry; 
that he who thought so little of what man 
had done, hoped so highly of what he could 
do ; that so daring an innovator in science 
should be so wholly exempt from the love 
of singularity or paradox; and that the same 
man who renounced imaginary provinces in 
the empire of science, and withdrew his 
landmarks within the limits of experience, 
should also exhort posterity to push their 
conquests to its utmost verge, with a bold¬ 
ness which will be fully justified only by the 
discoveries of ages from which we are yet 
far distant. 

No man ever united a more poetical style 
to a less poetical philosophy. One great end 
of his discipline is to prevent mysticism and 
fanaticism from obstructing the pursuit of 
truth. With a less brilliant fancy, he would 
have had a mind less qualified for philosophi¬ 
cal inquiry. His fancy gave him that power 
of illustrative metaphor, by which he seemed 
to have invented again the part of language 
which respects philosophy ; and it rendered 
new truths more distinctly visible even to 
his. own eye, in their bright clothing of im¬ 
agery. Without it, he must like others have 
been driven to the fabrication of uncouth 
technical terms, which repel the mind, either 
by vulgarity or pedantry, instead of gently 
leading it to novelties in science, through 
agreeable analogies with objects already fa¬ 
miliar. A considerable portion doubtless of 
the courage with which he undertook the 
reformation of philosophy, was caught from 
the general spirit of his extraordinary age, 
when the mind of Europe was yet agitated 
by the joy and pride of emancipation from 
long bondage. The beautiful mythology, 
and the poetical history of the ancient world, 
— not yet become trivial or pedantic, — ap¬ 
peared before his eyes in all their freshness 
and lustre. To the general reader they were 
then a discovery as recent as the world dis¬ 
closed by Columbus. The ancient litera¬ 
ture, on which his imagination looked back 
for illustration, had then as much the charm 
of novelty as that rising philosophy through 
which his reason dared to look onward to 
some of the last periods in its unceasing and 
resistless course. 

In order to form a just estimate of this 
wonderful person, it is essential to fix 
steadily in our minds, what he was not, — 
what he did not do, — and what he professed 
neither to be, nor to do. He was not what 
is called a metaphysician: his plans for the 
improvement of science were not inferred by 
abstract reasoning from any of those primary 
principles to which the philosophers of 
Greece struggled to fasten their systems. 
Hence he has been treated as empirical and 
superficial by those who take to themselves 
the exclusive name of profound speculators. 

* He himself who alone was qualified, has de¬ 
scribed the genius of his philosophy both in respect 
to the degree and manner in which he rose from 
particulars to generals: “Axiomata infima non 
multum ab experientia nuda discrepant. Suprema 
vero ilia et generalissima (quae habentur) notion- 
alia sunt et abstracta, et nil habent solidi. At me¬ 
dia sunt axiomata ilia vera, et solida, et viva, in 
quibus humanae res et fortunao sitae sunt, et supra 
base quoque, tandem ipsa ilia generalissima, talia 
scilicet quae non abstracta sint, sed per haec media 
verb limitantur.”—Novum Organum, lib. i. aphoris. 
104. 

L 









PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS OF BACON AND LOCKE. 149 


He was not, on the other hand, a mathema¬ 
tician, an astronomer, a physiologist, a che¬ 
mist. He was not eminently conversant 
with the particular truths of any of those 
sciences which existed in his time. For this 
reason, he was underrated even by men 
themselves of the highest merit, and by some 
who had acquired the most just reputation, 
by adding new facts to the stock of certain 
knowledge. It is not therefore very sur¬ 
prising to find, that Harvey, “ though the 
friend as well as physician of Bacon, though 
he esteemed him much for his wit and style, 
would not allow him to be a great philoso¬ 
pher ; ” but said to Aubrey, “ He writes 
philosophy like a Lord Chancellor,” — “ in 
derision,” — as the honest biographer thinks 
fit expressly to add. On the same ground, 
though in a manner not so agreeable to the 
nature of his own claims on reputation, Mr. 
Hume has decided, that Bacon was not so 
great a man as Galileo, because he was not 
so great an astronomer. The same sort of 
injustice to his memory has been more often 
committed than avowed, by professors of the 
exact and the experimental sciences, who 
are accustomed to regard, as the sole test of 
service to Knowledge, a palpable addition to 
her store. It is very true that he made no 
discoveries: but his life was employed in 
teaching the method by which discoveries 
are made. This distinction was early ob¬ 
served by that ingenious poet and amiable 
man, on whom we, by our unmerited ne¬ 
glect, have taken too severe a revenge, for 
the exaggerated praises bestowed on him by 
our ancestors: — 

“ Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last. 

The barren wilderness he past, 

Did on the very border stand 
Of the blest promised land; 

And from the mountain top of his exalted wit, 
Saw it himself, and shewed us it.” * 

The writings of Bacon do not even abound 
with remarks so capable of being separated 
from the mass of previous knowledge and 
reflection, that they can be called new. This 


* Cowley, Ode to the Royal Society. 


at least is very far from their greatest dis¬ 
tinction : and where such remarks occur, 
they are presented more often as examples 
of his general method, than as important 
on their own separate account. In physics, 
which presented the principal field for dis¬ 
covery, and which owe all that they are, or 
can be, to his method and spirit, the experi¬ 
ments and observations which he either made 
or registered, form the least valuable part of 
his writings, and have furnished some culti¬ 
vators of that science with an opportunity 
for an ungrateful triumph over his mistakes. 
The scattered remarks, on the other hand, of 
a moral nature, where absolute novelty is 
precluded by the nature of the subject, 
manifest most strongly both the superior 
force and the original bent of his under¬ 
standing. We more properly contrast than 
compare the experiments in the Natural 
History, with the moral and political obser¬ 
vations which enrich the Advancement of 
Learning, the speeches, the letters, the His¬ 
tory of Henry VII., and, above all, the 
Essays, a book which, though it has been 
praised with equal fervour by Voltaire, 
Johnson, and Burke, has never been charac¬ 
terised with such exact justice, and such 
exquisite felicity of expression, as in the 
discourse of Mr. Stewart.* It will serve 
still more distinctly to mark the natural ten¬ 
dency of his mind, to observe that his moral 
and political reflexions relate to these prac¬ 
tical subjects, considered in their most prac¬ 
tical point of view; and that he has seldom 


* “ Under the same head of Ethics, may be men¬ 
tioned the small volume to which he has given the 
title of ‘ Essays,’—the best known and most popu¬ 
lar of all his works. It is also one of those where 
the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest 
advantage; the novelty and depth of his reflexions 
often receiving a strong relief from the triteness of the 
subject. It may be read from beginning to end in 
a few hours; and yet, after the twentieth perusal, 
one seldom fails to remark in it something unob¬ 
served before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of 
all Bacon’s writings, and is only to be accounted 
for by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our 
own thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart 
to our torpid faculties." —Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
vol. i. p 36. 

















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


150 

or never attempted to reduce to theory the 
infinite particulars of that “ civil knowledge,” 
which, as he himself tells us, is, “of all 
others, most immersed in matter, and liard- 
liest reduced to axiom.” 

His mind, indeed, was formed and exer¬ 
cised in the affairs of the world : his genius 
was eminently civil. His understanding was 
peculiarly fitted for questions of legislation 
and of policy ; though his character was not 
an instrument well qualified to execute the 
dictates of his reason. The same civil wis¬ 
dom which distinguishes his judgments on 
human affairs, may also be traced through 
his reformation of philosophy. It is a prac¬ 
tical judgment applied to science. What he 
effected was reform in the maxims of state, 
— a reform which had always before been 
unsuccessfully pursued in the republic of 
Letters. It is not derived from metaphysi¬ 
cal reasoning, nor from scientific detail, but 
from a species of intellectual prudence, 
which, on the practical ground of failure 
and disappointment in the prevalent modes 
of pursuing knowledge, builds the necessity 
of alteration, and inculcates the advantage 
of administering the sciences on other prin¬ 
ciples. It is an error to represent him 
either as imputing fallacy to the syllogistic 
method, or as professing his principle of in¬ 
duction to be a discovery. The rules and 
forms of argument will always form an im¬ 
portant part of the art of logic; and the 
method of induction, which is the art of dis¬ 
covery, was so far from being unknown to 
Aristotle, that it was often faithfully pursued 
by that great observer. What Bacon aimed 
at, he accomplished; which was, not to dis¬ 
cover new principles, but to excite a new 
spirit, and to render observation and experi¬ 
ment the predominant characteristics of 
philosophy. It is for this reason that Bacon 
could not have been the author of a system 
or the founder of a sect. He did not deliver 
opinions; he taught modes of philosophising. 
His early immersion in civil affairs fitted him 
for this species of scientific reformation. His 
political course, though in itself unhappy, 
probably conduced to the success, and cer- 
tainly influenced the character, of the con¬ 


templative part of his life. Had it not been 
for his active habits, it is likely that the 
pedantry and quaintness of his age would 
have still more deeply corrupted his signifi¬ 
cant and majestic style. The force of the 
illustrations which he takes from his experi¬ 
ence of ordinary life, is often as remarkable 
as the beauty of those which he so happily 
borrows from his study of antiquity. But if 
we have caught the leading principle of his 
intellectual character, we must attribute ef¬ 
fects still deeper and more extensive, to his 
familiarity with the active world. It guarded 
him against vain subtlety, and against all 
speculation that was either visionary or 
fruitless. It preserved him from the reign¬ 
ing prejudices of contemplative men, and 
from undue preference to particular parts of 
knowledge. If he had been exclusively bred 
in the cloister or the schools, he might not 
have had courage enough to reform their 
abuses. It seems necessary that he should 
have been so placed as to look on science in 
the free spirit of an intelligent spectator. 
Without the pride of professors, or the 
bigotry of their followers, he surveyed from 
the world the studies which reigned in the 
schools : and, trying them by their fruits, he 
saw that they were barren, and therefore 
pronounced that they were unsound. He 
himself seems, indeed, to have indicated as 
clearly as modesty would allow, in a case 
that concerned himself, and where he de¬ 
parted from an universal and almost natural 
sentiment, that he regarded scholastic seclu¬ 
sion, then more unsocial and rigorous than 
it now can be, as a hindrance in the pursuit 
of knowledge. In one of the noblest pas¬ 
sages of his writings, the conclusion “ of the 
Interpretation of Nature,” he tells us, “That 
there is no composition of estate or society, 
nor order or quality of persons, which have 
not some point of contrariety towards true 
knowledge; that monarchies incline wits to 
profit and pleasure ; commonwealths to glory 
and vanity; universities to sophistry and 
affectation ; cloisters to fables and unprofit¬ 
able subtlety; study at large to variety ; and 
that it is hard to say whether mixture of 
contemplations with an active life, or retir- 













PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS OF BACON AND LOCKE. 151 


ing wholly to contemplations, do disable or 
hinder the mind more.” 

But, though he was thus free from the 
prejudices of a science, a school or a sect, 
other prejudices of a lower nature, and be¬ 
longing only to the inferior class of those 
who conduct civil affairs, have been ascribed 
to him by encomiasts as well as by oppo¬ 
nents. He has been said to consider the 
great end of science to be the increase of 
the outward accommodations and enjoy¬ 
ments of human life: we cannot see any 
foundation for this charge. In labouring, 
indeed, to correct the direction of study, 
and to withdraw it from these unprofitable 
subtleties, it was necessary to attract it 
powerfully towards outward acts and works. 
He no doubt duly valued “ the dignity of 
this end, the endowment of man’s life with 
new commodities;” and he strikingly ob¬ 
serves, that the most poetical people of the 
world had admitted the inventors of the 
useful and manual arts among the highest 
beings in their beautiful mythology. Had 
he lived to the age of Watt and Davy, he 
would not have been of the vulgar and con¬ 
tracted mind of those who cease to admire 
grand exertions of intellect, because they 
are useful to mankind: but he would cer¬ 
tainly have considered their great works 
rather as tests of the progress of knowledge 
than as parts of its highest end. His im¬ 
portant questions to the doctors of his time 
were: — “Is Truth ever barren? Are we 
the richer by one poor invention, by reason 
of all the learning that hath been these many 
hundred years ? ” His judgment, we may 
also hear from himself: — “Francis Bacon 
thought in this manner. The knowledge 
whereof the world is now possessed, espe¬ 
cially that of nature, extendeth not to mag¬ 
nitude and certainty of works.” He found 
knowledge barren; he left it fertile. He 
did not underrate the utility of particular 
inventions ; but it is evident that he valued 
them most, as being themselves among the 
highest exertions of superior intellect, — as 
being monuments of the progress of know¬ 
ledge, — as being the bands of that alliance 
between action and speculation, wherefrom 


springs an appeal to experience and utility, 
checking the proneness of the philosopher to 
extreme refinements; while teaching men 
to revere, and exciting them to pursue 
science by these splendid proofs of its bene¬ 
ficial power. Had he seen the change in 
this respect, which, produced chiefly in his 
own country by the spirit of his philosophy, 
has made some degree of science almost 
necessary to the subsistence and fortune of 
large bodies of men, he would assuredly 
have regarded it as an additional security 
for the future growth of the human under¬ 
standing. He taught, as he tells us, the 
means, not of the “ amplification of the 
power of one man over his country, nor of 
the amplification of the power of that coun¬ 
try over other nations; but the amplification 
of the power and kingdom of mankind over 
the world,” — “a restitution of man to the 
sovereignty of nature,” * — “ and the en¬ 
larging the bounds of human empire to the 
effecting all things possible.” f — From the 
enlargement of reason, he did not separate 
the growth of virtue, for he thought that 
“ truth and goodness were one, differing 
but as the seal and the print; for truth 
prints goodness.” J 

As civil history teaches statesmen to profit 
by the faults of their predecessors, he pro¬ 
poses that the history of philosophy should 
teach, by example, “ learned men to become 
wise in the administration of learning.” 
Early immersed in civil affairs, and deeply 
imbued with their spirit, his mind in this 
place contemplates science only through the 
analogy of government, and considers prin¬ 
ciples of philosophising as the easiest maxims 
of policy for the guidance of reason. It 
seems also, that in describing the objects of 
a history of philosophy, and the utility to be 
derived from it, he discloses the principle of 
his own exertions in behalf of knowledge; — 
whereby a reform in its method and maxims, 
justified by the experience of their injurious 
effects, is conducted with a judgment ana- 


* Of the Interpretation of Nature, 
f New Atlantis. 

X Advancement of Learning, book i. 













152 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


logous to that civil prudence which guides a 
wise lawgiver. If (as may not improbably 
be concluded from this passage) the reform¬ 
ation of science was suggested to Lord Bacon, 
by a review of the history of philosophy, it 
must be owned, that his outline of that his¬ 
tory has a very important relation to the 
general character of his philosophical genius. 
The smallest circumstances attendant on 
that outline serve to illustrate the powers 
and habits of thought which distinguished 
its author. It is an example of his faculty 
of anticipating, — not insulated facts or single 
discoveries, — but (what from its complexity 
and refinement seem much more to defy the 
power of prophecy) the tendencies of study, 
and the modes of thinking, which were to 
prevail in distant generations, that the parts 
which he has chosen to unfold or enforce in 
the Latin versions, are those which a thinker 
of the present age would deem both most 
excellent and most arduous in a history of 
philosophy ; — “ the causes of literary revo¬ 
lutions ; the study of contemporary writers, 
not merely as the most authentic sources of 
information, but as enabling the historian to 
preserve in his own description the peculiar 
colour of every age, and to recall its literary 
genius from the dead.” This outline has the 
uncommon distinction of being at once 
original and complete. In this province, 
Bacon had no forerunner; and the most 
successful follower will be he, who most 
faithfully observes his precepts. 

Here, as in every province of knowledge} 
he concludes his review of the performances 
and prospects of the human understanding, 
by considering their subservience to the 
grand purpose of improving the condition, 
the faculties, and the nature of man, without 
which, indeed, science would be no more than 
a beautiful ornament, and literature would 
rank no higher than a liberal amusement. 
Yet it must be acknowledged, that he rather 
perceived than felt the connexion of Truth 
and Good. Whether he lived too early to 
have sufficient experience of the moral 
benefit of civilisation, or his mind had early 
acquired too exclusive an interest in science, 
to look frequently beyond its advancement; 


or whether the infirmities and calamities of 
his life had blighted his feelings, and turned 
away his eyes from the active world; — to 
whatever cause we may ascribe the defect, 
certain it is, that his works want one excel¬ 
lence of the highest kind, which they would 
have possessed if he had habitually repre¬ 
sented the advancement of knowledge as the 
most effectual means of realising the hopes 
of Benevolence for the human race. 


The character of Mr. Locke’s writings can¬ 
not be well understood, without considering 
the circumstances of the writer. Educated 
among the English Dissenters, during the 
short period of their political ascendency, he 
early imbibed the deep piety and ardent 
spirit of liberty which actuated that body 
of men; and he probably imbibed also, in 
their schools, the disposition to metaphy¬ 
sical inquiries which has every where ac¬ 
companied the Calvinistic theology. Sects, 
founded on the right of private judgment, 
naturally tend to purify themselves from 
intolerance, and in time learn to respect, in 
others, the freedom of thought, to the exer¬ 
cise of which they owe their own existence. 
By the Independent divines who were his 
instructors, our philosopher was taught those 
principles of religious liberty which they 
were the first to disclose to the world.* 
AVhen free inquiry led him to milder dogmas, 
he retained the severe morality which was 
their honourable singularity, and which con¬ 
tinues to distinguish their successors in those 
communities which have abandoned their 
rigorous opinions. His professional pursuits 
afterwards engaged him in the study of the 


* Orme’s Memoirs ,o.f Dr. Owen, pp. 99—110. In 
this very able volume, it is clearly proved that the 
Independents were the first teachers of religious 
liberty. The industrious, ingenious, and tolerant 
writer, is unjust to Jeremy Taylor, who had no 
share (as Mr. Orme supposes) in the persecuting 
councils of Charles II. It is an important fact in 
the history of Toleration, that Dr. Owen, the Inde¬ 
pendent, was Dean of Christchurch in 1651, when 
Locke was admitted a member of that College, 
“ under a fanatical tutor,” as Antony Wood says. 















PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS OF BACON AND LOCKE. 153 

physical sciences, at the moment when the 
spirit of experiment and observation was in 
its youthful fervour, and when a repug¬ 
nance to scholastic subtleties was the ruling 
passion of the scientific world. At a more 
mature age, he was admitted into the so¬ 
ciety of great wits and ambitious politicians. 
During the remainder of his life, he was 
often a man of business, and always a man 
of the world, without much undisturbed lei¬ 
sure, and probably with that abated relish 
for merely abstract speculation, which is 
the inevitable result of converse with society 
and experience in affairs. But his political 
connexions agreeing with his early bias, 
made him a zealous advocate of liberty in 
opinion and in government; and he gradu¬ 
ally limited his zeal and activity to the 
illustration of such general principles as are 
the guardians of these great interests of 
human society. 

Almost all his writings (even his Essay 
itself) were occasional, and intended di¬ 
rectly to counteract the enemies of reason 
and freedom in his own age. The first Letter 
on Toleration, the most original perhaps of 
his works, was composed in Holland, in a 
retirement where he was forced to conceal 
himself from the tyranny which pursued him 
into a foreign land; and it was published in 
England, in the year of the Revolution, to 
vindicate the Toleration Act, of which he 
lamented the imperfection.* 

His Treatise on Government is composed 
of three parts, of different character, and 
very unequal merit. The confutation of 
Sir Robert Filmer, with which it opens, has 
long lost all interest, and is now to be con¬ 
sidered as an instance of the hard fate of a 
philosopher who is compelled to engage in 
a conflict with those ignoble antagonists 
who acquire a momentary importance by the 
defence of pernicious falsehoods. The same 
slavish absurdities have indeed been at 
various times revived: but they never have 
assumed, and probably never will again 
assume, the form in which they were ex¬ 
hibited by Filmer. Mr. Locke’s general 
principles of government were adopted by 
him, probably without much examination, 
as the doctrine which had for ages prevailed 
in the schools of Europe, and which afforded 
an obvious and adequate justification of a 
resistance to oppression. He delivers them 
as he found them, without even appearing 
to have made them his own by new modi¬ 
fications. The opinion, that the right of the 
magistrate to obedience is founded in the 
original delegation of power by the people 
to the government, is at least as old as the 
writings of Thomas Aquinas * : and in the 
beginning of the seventeenth century, it 
was regarded as the common doctrine of all 
the divines, jurists, and philosophers, who 
had at that time examined the moral founda¬ 
tion of political authorityIt then pre- 

* “We have need,” says he, “ of more generous 
remedies than have yet been used in our distem¬ 
pers. It is neither declarations of indulgence, nor 
acts of comprehension such as have yet been prac¬ 
tised or projected amongst us, that can do the work 
i among us. Absolute liberty, just and true liberty, 

| equal and impartial liberty, is the thing that we 
! stand in need of. Now, though this has indeed 
i been much talked of, I doubt it has not been much 
understood, — I am sure not at all practised, either 
by our governors towards the people in general, or 
by any dissenting parties of the people towards one 
another.” How far are we, at this moment [1821], 
from adopting these admirable principles! and with 
what absurd confidence do the enemies of religious 
liberty appeal to the authority of Mr. Locke for 
continuing those restrictions on conscience which 
he so deeply lamented I 

* “Non cujuslibet ratio facit legem, sed multi- 
tudinis, aut principis, vicern multitudinis gerentis .”— 
Summa Theologize, pars i. quzest. 90. 

f “Opinionem jam factam communem omnium 
Scholasticorum.—Antonio de Dominis, De Repub¬ 
lics, Ecclesiastic^, lib. vi. cap. 2. Antonio de Do¬ 
minis, Archbishop of Spalato in Dalmatia, having 
imbibed the free spirit of Father Paul, inclined 
towards Protestantism, or at least towards such re¬ 
ciprocal concessions as might reunite the churches 
of the West. During Sir Hemy Wotton’s remark¬ 
able embassy at Venice, he was persuaded to go to 
England, where he was made Dean of Windsor. 
Finding, perhaps, the Protestants more inflexible 
than he expected, he returned to Rome, possibly 
with the hope of more success in that quarter. 
But, though he publicly abjured his errors, he was 
soon, in consequence cf some free language in con- 

















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


154 

vailed indeed so universally, that it was as¬ 
sumed by Hobbes as the basis of his system 
of universal servitude. The divine right of 
kingly government was a principle very 
little known, till it was inculcated in the 
writings of English court divines after the 
accession of the Stuarts. The purpose of 
Mr. Locke’s work did not lead him to in¬ 
quire more anxiously into the solidity of 
these universally received principles; nor 
were there at the time any circumstances, 
in the condition of the country, which could 
suggest to his mind the necessity of qualify¬ 
ing their application. His object, as he says 
himself, was “ to establish the throne of our 
great Restorer, our present King William ; 
to make good his title in the consent of the 
people, which, being the only one of all 
lawful governments, he has more fully and 
clearly than any prince in Christendom; 
and to justify to the world the people of 
England, whose love of their just and na¬ 
tural rights, with their resolution to pre¬ 
serve them, saved the nation when it was on 
the very brink of slavery and ruin.” It was 
essential to his purpose to be exact in his 
more particular observations : that part of 
his work is, accordingly, remarkable for ge¬ 
neral caution, and every where bears marks 
of his own considerate mind. By calling 
William “ a Restorer,” he clearly points out 
the characteristic principle of the Revo¬ 
lution ; and sufficiently shows that he did 
not consider it as intended to introduce 
novelties, but to defend or recover the 
ancient laws and liberties of the kingdom. 
In enumerating cases which justify resist¬ 
ance he confines himself, almost as cau¬ 
tiously as the Bill of Rights, to the griev¬ 
ances actually suffered under the late reign : 
and where he distinguishes between a disso¬ 
lution of government and a dissolution of 
society, it is manifestly his object to guard 
against those inferences which would have 


versation, thrown into a dungeon, where he died. 
His own -writings are forgotten; but mankind are 
indebted to him for the admirable History of the 
Council of Trent, by Father Paul, of which he 
brought the MSS. with him to London. 


rendered the Revolution a source of anarchy, 
instead of being the parent of order and 
security. In one instance only, that of 
taxation, where he may be thought to have 
introduced subtle and doubtful speculations 
into a matter altogether practical, his pur¬ 
pose was to discover an immoveable founda¬ 
tion for that ancient principle of rendering 
the government dependent on the repre¬ 
sentatives of the people for pecuniary 
supply, which first established the English 
Constitution; which improved and strength¬ 
ened it in a course of ages; and which, at 
the Revolution, finally triumphed over the 
conspiracy of the Stuart princes. If he be 
ever mistaken in his premises, his conclu¬ 
sions at least are, in this part of his work, 
equally just, generous, and prudent. What¬ 
ever charge of haste or inaccuracy may be 
brought against his abstract principles, he 
thoroughly weighs, and maturely considers 
the practical results. Those who consider 
his moderate plan of Parliamentary Reform 
as at variance with his theory of govern¬ 
ment, may perceive, even in this repug¬ 
nance, whether real or apparent, a new in¬ 
dication of those dispositions which exposed 
him rather to the reproach of being an in¬ 
consistent reasoner, than to that of being a 
dangerous politician. In such works, how¬ 
ever, the nature of the subject has, in some 
degree, obliged most men of sense to treat it 
with considerable regard to consequences; 
though there are memorable and unfor¬ 
tunate examples of an opposite tendency. 

The metaphysical object of the Essay on 
Human Understanding, therefore, illustrates 
the natural bent of the author’s genius more 
forcibly than those writings which are con¬ 
nected with the business and interests of 
men. The reasonable admirers of Mr. 
Locke would have pardoned Mr. Stewart, 
if he had pronounced more decisively, that 
the first book of that work is inferior to the 
others; and we have satisfactory proof that 
it was so considered by the author himself, 
who, in the abridgment of the Essay which 
he published in Leclerc’s Review, omits it 
altogether, as intended only to obviate the 
prejudices of some philosophers against the 











PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS 

more important contents of liis work.* It 
must be owned, that the very terms “ innate 
ideas ” and “ innate principles,” together 
with the division of the latter into “spe¬ 
culative and practical,” are not only vague, 
but equivocal; that they are capable of dif¬ 
ferent senses; and that they are not always 
employed in the same sense throughout this 
discussion. Nay, it will be found very dif¬ 
ficult, after the most careful perusal of 
Mr. Locke’s first book, to state the question 
in dispute clearly and shortly, in language 
so strictly philosophical as to be free from 
any hypothesis. As the antagonists chiefly 
contemplated by Mr. Locke were the fol¬ 
lowers of Descartes, perhaps the only propo¬ 
sition for which he must necessarily be held 
to contend was, that the mind has no ideas 
which do not arise from impressions on the 
senses, or from reflections on our own 
thoughts and feelings. But it is certain, 
that he sometimes appears to contend for 
much more than this proposition; that he 
has generally been understood in a larger 
sense; and that, thus interpreted, his doc¬ 
trine is not irreconcilable to those philo¬ 
sophical systems with which it has been 
supposed to be most at variance. 

These general remarks may be illustrated 
by a reference to some of those ideas which 
are more general and important, and seem 
more dark than any others; — perhaps only 
because we seek in them for what is not to 
be found in any of the most simple elements 
of human knowledge. The nature of our 
notion of space, and more especially of that 
of time, seems to form one of the mysteries 
of our intellectual being. Neither of these 
notions can be conceived separately. No¬ 
thing outward can be conceived without 
space; for it is space which gives outness to 


* “ J’ai tach£ d’ abord de prouver que notre esprit 
est au commencement ce qu’on appelle un tabula 
rasa, c’est-h-dire, sans idees et sans connoissances. 
Mais comme ce n’a etc que pour detruire les pre- 
juges de quelques philosophes, j’ai cru que dans ce 
petit abrege des me principes, je devois passer 
toutes les disputes preliminaires qui composent 
le livre premier.”—Bibliothfeque Universelle, Janv. 
1688. 


OF BACON AND LOCKE. 155 

objects, or renders them capable of being 
conceived as outward. Nothing can be 
conceived to exist, without conceiving some 
time in which it exists. Thought and feel¬ 
ing may be conceived, without at the same 
time conceiving space; but no operation of 
mind can be recalled which does not sug¬ 
gest the conception of a portion of time, in 
which such mental operation is performed. 
Both these ideas are so clear that they can¬ 
not be illustrated, and so simple that they 
cannot be defined: nor indeed is it possible, 
by the use of any words, to advance a single 
step towards rendering them more, or other¬ 
wise intelligible than the lessons of Nature 
have already made them. The metaphy¬ 
sician knows no more of either than the 
rustic. If we confine ourselves merely to a 
statement of the facts which we discover by 
experience concerning these ideas, we shall 
find them reducible, as has just been inti¬ 
mated, to the following; — namely, that 
they are simple ; that neither space nor time 
can be conceived without some other con¬ 
ception ; that the idea of space always at¬ 
tends that of every outward object; and 
that the idea of time enters into every idea 
which the mind of man is capable of form¬ 
ing. Time cannot be conceived separately 
from something else; nor can any thing 
else be conceived separately from time. If 
we are asked whether the idea of time be 
innate, the only proper answer consists in 
the statement of the fact, that it never arises 
in the human mind otherwise than as the 
concomitant of some other perception ; and 
that thus understood, it is not innate, since 
it is always directly or indirectly occasioned 
by some action on the senses. Various 
modes of expressing these facts have been 
adopted by different philosophers, according 
to the variety of their technical language. 
By Kant, space is said to be the form of our 
perceptive faculty, as applied to outward 
objects; and time is called the form of the 
same faculty, as it regards our mental opera¬ 
tions : by Mr. Stewart, these ideas are con¬ 
sidered “ as suggested to the understanding ” * 


* Philosophical Essays, essay i. chap. 2. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


156 


by sensation or reflection, though, according 
to him, “ the mind is not directly and im¬ 
mediately furnished ” with such ideas, either 
by sensation or reflection: and, by a late 
eminent metaphysician *, they were regarded 
as perceptions, in the nature of those arising 
from the senses, of which the one is attend¬ 
ant on the idea of every outward object, 
and the other concomitant with the con¬ 
sciousness of every mental operation. Each 
of these modes of expression has its own 
advantages, The first mode brings forward 
the universality and necessity of these- two 
notions; the second most strongly marks 
the distinction between them and the fluctu¬ 
ating perceptions naturally referred to the 
senses; while the last has the opposite merit 
of presenting to us that incapacity of being 
analysed, in which they agree with all other 
simple ideas. On the other hand, each of 
them (perhaps from the inherent imperfec¬ 
tion of language) seems to insinuate more 
than the mere results of experience. The 
technical terms introduced by Kant have 
the appearance of an attempt to explain 
what, by the writer’s own principles, is inca¬ 
pable of explanation; Mr. Wedgwood may 
be charged with giving the same name to 
mental phenomena, which coincide in nothing 
but simplicity; and Mr. Stewart seems to 
us to have opposed two modes of expres¬ 
sion to each other, which, when they are 
thoroughly analysed, represent one and the 
same fact. 

Leibnitz thought that Locke’s admission 
of “ ideas of reflection ” furnished a ground 
for negotiating a reconciliation between his 
system and the opinions of those who, in the 
etymological sense of the word, are more 
metaphysical; and it may very well be 
doubted, whether the ideas of Locke much 
differed from the “ innate ideas ” of Des¬ 
cartes, especially as the latter philosopher 
explained the term, when he found himself 
pressed by acute objectors. “ I never said 
or thought,” says Descartes, “ that the mind 
needs innate ideas, which are something dif- 


* Mr. Thomas Wedgwood; see Life of Mackin¬ 
tosh, vol. i. p. 289. 


ferent from its own faculty of thinking; but, 
as I observed certain thoughts to be in my 
mind, which neither proceeded from outward 
objects, nor were determined by my will, 
but merely from my own faculty of thinking, 
I called these ‘ innate ideas,’ to distinguish 
them from such as are either adventitious 
(i.e. from without), or compounded by our 
imagination. I call them innate, in the 
same sense in which generosity is innate in 
some families, gout and stone in others; 
because the children of such families come 
into the world with a disposition to such 
virtue, or to such maladies.” * In a letter 
to Mersenne f, he says, “ by the word ‘ idea,’ 
I understand all that can be in our thoughts, 
and I distinguish three sorts of ideas; — 
adventitious , like the common idea of the 
sun ; framed by the mind, such as that which 
astronomical reasoning gives us of the sun ; 
and innate, as the idea of God, mind, body, 
a triangle, and generally all those which 
represent true, immutable, and eternal es¬ 
sences.” It must be owned, that, however 
nearly the first of these representations may 
approach to Mr. Locke’s ideas of reflection, 
the second deviates from them very widely, 
and is not easily reconcilable with the first. 
The comparison of these two sentences, 
strongly impeaches the steadiness and con¬ 
sistency of Descartes in the fundamental 
principles of his system. 

A principle in science is a proposition 
from which many other propositions may be 
inferred. That principles, taken in this 
sense of propositions, are part of the original 
structure or furniture of the human mind, is 
an assertion so unreasonable, that perhaps 

* This remarkable passage of Descartes is to be 
found in a French translation of the preface ancl 
notes to the Principia Philosophise, probably by 
himself. — (Lettres de Descartes, vol. i. lett. 99.) 
It is justly observed by one of his most acute anta¬ 
gonists, that Descartes does not steadily adhere to 
this sense of the word “ innate,” but varies it in 
the exigencies of controversy, so as to give it at 
each moment the -import which best suits the 
nature of the objection with which he has then 
to contend. — Huet, Censura Philosophise Carte- 
sianse, p. 93. 

f Lettres, vol. ii. lett. 54. 








PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS 

no philosopher has avowedly, or at least 
permanently, adopted it. But it is not to 
be forgotten, that there must be certain 
general laws of perception, or ultimate facts 
respecting that province of mind, beyond 
which human knowledge cannot reach. Such 
facts bound our researches in every part of 
knowledge, and the ascertainment of them is 
the utmost possible attainment of Science. 
Beyond them there is nothing, or at least 
nothing discoverable by us. These obser¬ 
vations, however universally acknowledged 
when they are stated, are often hid from 
the view of the system-builder when he is 
employed in rearing his airy edifice. There 
is a common disposition to exempt the phi¬ 
losophy of the human understanding from 
the dominion of that irresistible necessity 
which confines all other knowledge within 
the limits of experience; — arising probably 
from a vague notion that the science, with- 
out which the principles of no other are 
intelligible, ought to be able to discover the 
foundation even of its own principles. Hence 
the question among the German meta¬ 
physicians, “ What makes experience pos¬ 
sible ? ” Hence the very general indis¬ 
position among metaphysicians to acquiesce 
in any mere fact as the result of their in¬ 
quiries, and to make vain exertions in pur¬ 
suit of an explanation of it, without recol¬ 
lecting that the explanation must always 
consist of another fact, which must either 
equally require another explanation, or be 
equally independent of it. There is a sort 
of sullen reluctance to be satisfied with ulti¬ 
mate facts, which has kept its ground in the 
theory of the human mind long after it has 
been banished from all other sciences. Phi¬ 
losophers are, in this province, often led to 
waste their strength in attempts to find out 
what supports the foundation; and, in these 
efforts to prove first principles, they in¬ 
evitably find that their proof must contain 
an assumption of the thing to be proved, 
and that their argument must return to the 
point from which it set out. 

Mental philosophy can consist of nothing 
but facts; and it is at least as vain to inquire 
into the cause of thought, as into the cause 


OF BACON AND LOCKE. 157 

of attraction. What the number and na¬ 
ture of the ultimate facts respecting mind 
may be, is a question which can only be de¬ 
termined by experience: and it is of the 
utmost importance not to allow their arbi¬ 
trary multiplication, which enables some 
individuals to impose on us their own erro¬ 
neous or uncertain speculations as the fun¬ 
damental principles of human knowledge. 
No general criterion has hitherto been 
offered, by which these last principles may 
be distinguished from all other propositions. 
Perhaps a practical standard of some conve¬ 
nience would be, that all reasoners should be 
required to admit every principle of which the 
denial renders reasoning impossible. This is 
only to require that a man should admit, in 
general terms, those principles which he 
must assume in every particular argument, 
and which he has assumed in every argument 
which he has employed against their exist¬ 
ence. It is, in other words, to require that 
a disputant shall not contradict himself; for 
every argument against the fundamental laws 
of thought absolutely assumes their existence 
in the premises, while it totally denies it in 
the conclusion. 

Whether it be among the ultimate facts in 
human nature, that the mind is disposed or 
determined to assent to some propositions, 
and to reject others, when they are first 
submitted to its judgment, without inferring 
their truth or falsehood from any process of 
reasoning, is manifestly as much a question 
of mere experience as any other which re¬ 
lates to our mental constitution. It is cer¬ 
tain that such inherent inclinations may be 
conceived, without supposing the ideas of 
which the propositions are composed to be, in 
any sense, “ innate” ; if, indeed, that unfor¬ 
tunate word be capable of being reduced by 
definition to any fixed meaning. “ Innate,” 
says Lord Shaftesbury, “ is the word Mr. 
Locke poorly plays with: the right word, 
though less used, is connate. The question 
is not about the time when the ideas enter 
the mind, but whether the constitution of man 
be such , as at some time or other (no matter 
when), the ideas will not necessarily spring 
up in him.” These are the words of Lord 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


158 


Shaftesbury in his Letters, which, not being 
printed in any edition of the Characteristics, 
are less known than they ought to be; 
though, in them, the fine genius and gene¬ 
rous principles of the writer are less hid by 
occasional affectation of style, than in any 
other of his writings.* 

The above observations apply with still 
greater force to what Mr. Locke calls “ prac¬ 
tical principles.” Here, indeed, he contra¬ 
dicts himself; for, having built one of his 
chief arguments against other speculative 
or practical principles, on what he thinks the 
incapacity of the majority of mankind to 
entertain those very abstract ideas, of which 
these principles, if innate, would imply the 
presence in every mind, he very inconsist¬ 
ently admits the existence of one innate 
practical principle, — “a desire of happi¬ 
ness, and an aversion to misery,” f without 
considering that happiness and misery are 
also abstract terms, which excite very indis¬ 
tinct conceptions in the minds of “ a great 
part of mankind.” It would be easy also to 
show, if this were a proper place, that the 
desire of happiness, so far from being an in¬ 
nate, is not even an original principle; that 
it presupposes the existence of all those par¬ 
ticular appetites and desires of which the 
gratification is pleasure, and also the exer¬ 
cise of that deliberate reason which habitually 
examines how far each gratification, in all 
its consequences, increases or diminishes that 
sum of enjoyment which constitutes happi¬ 
ness. If that subject could be^ now fully 
treated, it would appear that this error of 
Mr. Locke, or another equally great, that 
we have only one practical principle, — the 
desire of pleasure, — is the root of most 
false theories of morals; and that it is also 
the source of many mistaken speculations on 
the important subjects of government and 
education, which at this moment mislead 


* Dr. Lee, an antagonist of Mr. Locke, has stated 
the question of innate ideas more fully than Shaftes¬ 
bury, or even Leibnitz: he has also anticipated 
some of the reasonings of Buffier and Reid. — Lee’s 
Notes on Locke, folio, London, 1702. 

j- Essay on Human Understanding, book i. 
chap. 3. § 3. 


the friends of human improvement, and 
strengthen the arms of its enemies. But 
morals fell only incidentally under the con¬ 
sideration of Mr. Locke; and his errors on 
that greatest of all sciences were the preva¬ 
lent opinions of his age, which cannot be 
justly called the principles of Hobbes, though 
that extraordinary man had alone the bold¬ 
ness to exhibit these principles in connexion 
with their odious but strictly logical conse¬ 
quences. 

The exaggerations of this first book, how¬ 
ever, afford a new proof of the author’s 
steady regard to the highest interests of 
mankind. He justly considered the free 
exercise of reason as the highest of these, 
and that on the security of which all the 
others depend. The circumstances of his 
life rendered it a long warfare against the 
enemies of freedom in philosophising, free¬ 
dom in worship, and freedom from every 
political restraint which necessity did not 
justify. In his noble zeal for liberty of 
thought, he dreaded the tendency of a doc¬ 
trine which might u gradually prepare man¬ 
kind to swallow that for an innate principle 
which may serve his purpose who teacheth 
them ”* He may well be excused, if, in the 
ardour of his generous conllict, he sometimes 
carried beyond the bounds of calm and neu¬ 
tral reason his repugnance to doctrines 
which, as they were then generally ex¬ 
plained, he justly regarded as capable of 
being employed to shelter absurdity from 
detection, to stop the progress of free in¬ 
quiry, and to subject the general reason to 
the authority of a few individuals. Every 
error of Mr. Locke in speculation may be 
traced to the influence of some virtue ; — at 
least every error except some of the erro¬ 
neous opinions generally received in his 
age, which, with a sort of passive acqui¬ 
escence, he suffered to retain their place in 
his mind. 

It is with the second book that the Essay 
on the Human Understanding properly be¬ 
gins ; and this book is the first considerable 
contribution in modern times towards the 


* Chap. 4. § 24. 








PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS OF BACON AND LOCKE. 


experimental* philosophy of the human 
mind. The road was pointed out by Bacon; 
and, by excluding the fallacious analogies of 
thought to outward appearance, Descartes 
may be said to have marked out the limits 
of the proper field of inquiry. But, before 
Locke, there was no example in intellectual 
philosophy of an ample enumeration of facts, 
collected and arranged for the express pur¬ 
pose of legitimate generalisation. He him¬ 
self tells us, that his purpose was, “ in a plain 
historical method , to give an account of the 
ways by which our understanding comes 
to attain those notions of things we have.” 
In more modern phraseology, this would be 
called an attempt to ascertain, by observa¬ 
tion, the most general facts relating to the 
origin of human knowledge. There is some¬ 
thing in the plainness, and even homeliness 
of Locke’s language, which strongly indicates 
his very clear conception, that experience 
must be his sole guide, and his unwilling¬ 
ness, by the use of scholastic language, to 
imitate the example of those who make a 
show of explaining facts, while in reality 
they only “ darken counsel by words with¬ 
out knowledge.” He is content to collect 
the laws of thought, as he would have col¬ 
lected those of any other object of physical 
knowledge, from observation alone. He 
seldom embarrasses himself with physiologi¬ 
cal hypotheses f, or wastes his strength on 


* This word “experimental” has the defect of 
not appearing to comprehend the knowledge which 
flows from observation, as well as that which is ob¬ 
tained by experiment. The German word “ empi¬ 
rical” is applied to all the information which 
expei-ience affords; but it is in our language de¬ 
graded by another application. I therefore must 
use “experimental” in a larger sense than its ety¬ 
mology warrants. 

•j- A stronger proof can hardly be required than 
the following sentence, of his freedom from physio¬ 
logical prejudice: “ This laying up of our ideas in 
the repository of the memory, signifies no more but 
this, that the mind has the power in many cases to 
revive perceptions, with another perception an¬ 
nexed to them, that it has had them before.” The 
same chapter is remarkable for the exquisite, and 
almost poetical beauty, of some of its illustrations: 
“ Ideas quickly fade, and often vanish quite out of 


159 

those insoluble problems which were then 
called metaphysical. Though, in the exe¬ 
cution of his plan, there are many and great 
defects, the conception of it is entirely con¬ 
formable to the Verulamian method of in¬ 
duction, which, even after the fullest enu¬ 
meration of particulars, requires a cautious 
examination of each subordinate class of 
phenomena, before we attempt, through a 
very slowly ascending series of generalisa¬ 
tions, to soar to comprehensive laws. “ Phi¬ 
losophy,” as Mr. Playfair excellently renders 
Bacon, “ has either taken much from a few 
things, or too little from a great many; and 
in both cases has too narrow a basis to be of 
much duration or utility.” Or, to use the 
very words of the Master himself—“We 
shall then have reason to hope well of the 
sciences, when we rise by continued steps 
from particulars to inferior axioms, and then 
to the middle, and only at last to the most 
general.” * It is not so much by an appeal to 
experience (for some degree of that appeal 
is universal), as by the mode of conducting 
it, that the followers of Bacon are distin¬ 
guished from the framers of hypotheses. 
It is one thing to borrow from experience 
just enough to make a supposition plausible; 
it is quite another to take from it all that 
is necessary to be the foundation of just 
theory. 

In this respect perhaps, more than in any 
other, the philosophical writings of Locke 


the understanding, leaving no more footsteps or 
remaining characters of themselves than shadows 
do flying over a field of corn.” — “ The ideas, as 
well as children of our youth, often die before us, 
and our minds represent to us those tombs to which 
we are approaching; where, though the brass and 
marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by 
time, and the imagery moulders away. Pictures 
drawn in our minds are laid in fading colours, and, 
unless sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear,” 
— book ii. chap. 10. This pathetic language must 
have been inspired by experience; and, though 
Locke could not have been more than fifty-six 
when he wrote these sentences, it is too well known 
that the first decays of memory may be painfully 
felt long before they can be detected by the keenest 
observer. 

* Novum Organum, lib. i. § civ. 










160 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


are contradistinguished from those of Hobbes. 
The latter saw, with astonishing rapidity of 
intuition, some of the simplest and most 
general facts which may be observed in the 
operations of the understanding; and per¬ 
haps no man ever possessed the same faculty 
of conveying his abstract speculations in lan¬ 
guage of such clearness, precision, and force, 
as to engrave them on the mind of the reader. 
But he did not wait to examine whether 
there might not be other facts equally gene¬ 
ral relating to the intellectual powers; and 
he therefore “ took too little from a great 
many things.” He fell into the double error 
of hastily applying his general laws to the 
most complicated processes of thought, with¬ 
out considering whether these general laws 
were not themselves limited by other not 
less comprehensive laws, and without trying 
to discover how they were connected with 
particulars, by a scale of intermediate and 
secondary laws. This mode of philoso¬ 
phising was well suited to the dogmatic con¬ 
fidence and dictatorial tone which belonged 
to the character of the philosopher of 
Malmesbury, and which enabled him to brave 
the obloquy attendant on singular and ob¬ 
noxious opinions. “ The plain historical 
method,” on the other hand, chosen by Mr. 
Locke, produced the natural fruits of cau¬ 
tion and modesty; taught him to distrust 
hasty and singular conclusions; disposed 
him, on fit occasions, to entertain a mitigated 
scepticism; and taught him also the rare 
courage to make an ingenuous avowal of 
ignorance. This contrast is one of our rea¬ 
sons for doubting whether Locke be much 
indebted to Hobbes for his speculations ; and 
certainly the mere coincidence of the opi¬ 
nions of two metaphysicians is slender evi¬ 
dence, in any case, that either of them has 
borrowed his opinions from the other. 
Where the premises are different, and they 
have reached the same conclusion by differ¬ 
ent roads, such a coincidence is scarcely any 
evidence at all. Locke and Hobbes agree 
chiefly on those points in which, except the 
Cartesians, all the speculators of their age 
were also agreed. They differ on the most 
momentous questions,—the sources of know¬ 


ledge, — the power of abstraction, — the 
nature of the will; on the two last of which 
subjects, Locke, by his very failures them¬ 
selves, evinces a strong repugnance to the 
doctrines of Hobbes. They differ not only 
in all their premises, and many of their con¬ 
clusions, but in their manner of philosophis¬ 
ing itself. Locke had no prejudice which 
could lead him to imbibe doctrines from the 
enemy of liberty and religion. His style, 
with all its faults, is that of a man who thinks 
for himself; and an original style is not 
usually the vehicle of borrowed opinions. 

Few books have contributed more than 
Mr. Locke’s Essay to rectify prejudice ; to 
undermine established errors; to diffuse a 
just mode of thinking; to excite a fearless 
spirit of inquiry, and yet to contain it within 
the boundaries which Nature has prescribed 
to the human understanding. An amend¬ 
ment of the general habits of thought is, in 
most parts of knowledge, an object as im¬ 
portant as even the discovery of new truths; 
though it is not so palpable, nor in its nature 
so capable of being estimated by superficial 
observers. In the mental and moral world, 
which scarcely admits of any thing which 
can be called discovery, the correction of 
the intellectual habits is probably the great¬ 
est service which can be rendered to Science. 
In this respect, the merit of Locke is un¬ 
rivalled. His writings have diffused through- 
out the civilised world, the love of civil 
liberty and the spirit of toleration and cha¬ 
rity in religious differences, with the disposi¬ 
tion to reject whatever is obscure, fantastic, 
or hypothetical in speculation, — to reduce 
verbal disputes to their proper value, — to 
abandon problems which admit of no solu¬ 
tion, — to distrust whatever cannot be clearly 
expressed, — to render theory the simple 
expression of facts, — and to prefer those 
studies which most directly contribute to 
human happiness. If Bacon first discovered 
the rules by which knowledge is improved, 
Locke has most contributed to make man¬ 
kind at large observe them. He has done 
most, though often by remedies of silent and 
almost insensible operation, to cure those 
mental distempers which obstructed the 










THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 


161 


adoption of these rules; and has thus led to 
that general diffusion of a healthful and 
vigorous understanding, which is at once the 
greatest of all improvements, and the instru¬ 
ment by which all other progress must be 
accomplished. He has left to posterity the 
instructive example of a prudent reformer, 
and of a philosophy temperate as well as 
liberal, which spares the feelings of the good, 
and avoids direct hostility with obstinate and 
formidable prejudice. These benefits are 
very slightly counterbalanced by some poli¬ 
tical doctrines liable to misapplication, and 
by the scepticism of some of his ingenious 
followers;—an inconvenience to which every 
philosophical school is exposed, which does 


not steadily limit its theory to a mere expo¬ 
sition of experience. If Locke made few 
discoveries, Socrates made none: yet both 
did more for the improvement of the under¬ 
standing, and not less for the progress of 
knowledge, than the authors of the most 
brilliant discoveries. Mr. Locke will ever 
be regarded as one of the great ornaments 
of the English nation ; and the most distant 
posterity will speak of him in the language 
addressed to him by the poet — 

“ 0 Decus Angliacse cerfe, 0 Lux altera gentis! ” * 


* Gray, De Principiis Cogitandi. 


DISCOURSE 

ON TIIE 

LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 


Before I begin a course of lectures on a 
science of great extent and importance, I 
think it my duty to lay before the public the 
reasons which have induced me to undertake 
such a labour, as well as a short account of 
the nature and objects of the course which I 
propose to deliver. I have always been un¬ 
willing to waste in unprofitable inactivity 
that leisure which the first years of my pro¬ 
fession usually allow, and which diligent 

* This discourse was the preliminary one of a 
course of lectures delivered in the hall of Lincoln’s 
Inn during the spring of the year 1799. From the 
state of the original MS. notes of these lectures, 
in the possession of the editor, it would seem that 
the lecturer had trusted, with the exception of a 
few passages prepared in extenso , to his powerful 
memory for all the aid that was required beyond 
what mere catchwords could supply. — Ed. 


men, even with moderate talents, might often 
employ in a manner neither discreditable to 
themselves, nor wholly useless to others. 
Desirous that my own leisure should not be 
consumed in sloth, I anxiously looked about 
for some way of filling it up, which might 
enable me, according to the measure of my 
humble abilities, to contribute somewhat to 
the stock of general usefulness. I had long 
been convinced that public lectures, which 
have been used in most ages and countries 
to teach the elements of almost every part 
of learning, were the most convenient mode 
in which these elements could be taught; — 
that they were the best adapted for the im¬ 
portant purposes of awakening the attention 
of the student, of abridging his labours, of 
guiding his inquiries, of relieving the tedious- 
ness of private study, and of impressing on 


M 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


162 

liis recollection the principles of a science. 
I saw no reason why the law of England 
should be less adapted to this mode of in¬ 
struction, or less likely to benefit by it, than 
any other part of knowledge. A learned 
gentleman, however, had already occupied 
that ground*, and will, I doubt not, per¬ 
severe in the useful labour which he has 
undertaken. On his province it was far 
from my wish to intrude. It appeared to 
me that a course of lectures on another 
science closely connected with all liberal 
professional studies, and which had long been 
the subject of my own reading and reflec¬ 
tion, might not only prove a most useful 
introduction to the law of England, but 
might also become an interesting part of 
general study, and an important branch of 
the education of those who were not des¬ 
tined for the profession of the law. I was 
confirmed in my opinion by the assent and 
approbation of men whose names, if it were 
becoming to mention them on so slight an 
occasion, would add authority to truth, and 
furnish some excuse even for error. En¬ 
couraged by their approbation, I resolved 
without delay to commence the undertaking, 
of which I shall now proceed to give some 
account; without interrupting the progress 
of my discourse by anticipating or answering 
the remarks of those who may, perhaps, 
sneer at me for a departure from the usual 
course of my profession, because I am de¬ 
sirous of employing in a rational and useful 
pursuit that leisure, of which the same men 
would have required no account if it had 
been wasted on trifles, or even abused in 
dissipation. 

The science which teaches the rights and 
duties of men and of states, has, in modern 
times, been called “ the law of nature and 
nations.” Under this comprehensive title 
are included the rules of morality, as they 
prescribe the conduct of private men towards 
each other in all the various relations of 
human life; as they regulate both the obe- 


* See “A Syllabus of Lectures on the Law of 
England, to be delivered in Lincoln’s-Inn Hall by 
M. Nolan, Esq.” 


dience of citizens to the laws, and the au¬ 
thority of the magistrate in framing laws 
and administering government; and as they 
modify the intercourse of independent com¬ 
monwealths in peace, and prescribe limits 
to their hostility in war. This important 
science comprehends only that part of pri¬ 
vate ethics which is capable of being reduced 
to fixed and general rules. It considers 
only those general principles of jurispru¬ 
dence and politics which the wisdom of the 
lawgiver adapts to the peculiar situation of 
his own country, and which the skill of the 
statesman applies to the more fluctuating 
and infinitely varying circumstances which 
affect its immediate welfare and safety. “ For 
there are in nature certain fountains of jus¬ 
tice whence all civil laws are derived, but as 
streams; and like as waters do take tinc¬ 
tures and tastes from the soils through which 
they run, so do civil laws vary according to 
the regions and governments where they are 
planted, though they proceed from the same 
fountains.” * 

On the great questions of morality, of 
politics, and of municipal law, it is the ob¬ 
ject of this science to deliver only those 
fundamental truths of which the particular 
application is as extensive as the whole pri¬ 
vate and public conduct of men;—to dis¬ 
cover those “ fountains of justice,” without 
pursuing the “streams” through the end¬ 
less variety of their course. But another 
part of the subject is to be treated with 
greater fulness and minuteness of applica¬ 
tion; namely, that important branch of it 
which professes to regulate the relations and 
intercourse of states, and more especially 
(both on account of their greater perfection 
and their more immediate reference to use) 
the regulations of that intercourse as they 
are modified by the usages of the civilised 
nations of Christendom. Here this science 
no longer rests on general principles. That 

* Advancement of Learning, book ii. I have 
not been deterred by some petty incongruity of 
metaphor from quoting this noble sentence. Mr. 
Hume had, perhaps, this sentence in his recol¬ 
lection when he'wrote a remarkable passage of his 
works. See his Essays, vol. # ii. p. 352. 














TIIE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 163 


province of it which we now call the “ law 
of nations,” has, in many of its parts, ac¬ 
quired among European ones much of the 
precision and certainty of positive law ; and 
the particulars of that law are chiefly to be 
found in the works of those writers who 
have treated the science of which I now 
speak. It is because they have classed (in 
a manner which seems peculiar to modern 
times) the duties of individuals with those 
of nations, and established their obligation 
on similar grounds, that the whole science 
has been called the “law of nature and 
nations.” 

Whether this appellation be the happiest 
that could have been chosen for the science, 
and by what steps it came to be adopted 
among our modern moralists and lawyers *, 
are inquiries, perhaps, of more curiosity than 
use, and ones which, if they deserve any 
where to be deeply pursued, will be pursued 
with more propriety in a full examination 
of the subject than within the short limits 
of an introductory discourse. Names are, 
however, in a great measure arbitrary; but 


* The learned reader is aware that the “jus 
naturae” and “jus gentium” of the Roman lawyers 
are phrases of very different import from the mo¬ 
dern phrases, “ law of nature ” and “ law of nations.” 
“Jus naturale,” says Ulpian, “est quod natura 
omnia animalia docuit.” “Quod naturalis ratio 
inter omnes homines constituit, id apud omnes 
peraeque custoditur; vocaturque jus gentium.” 
But they sometimes neglect this subtle distinction 
— “Jure naturali quod appellatuf jus gentium.” 
“ Jus feciale,” was the Roman term for our law of 
nations. “ Belli quidem aequitas sanctissime populi 
Rom. feciali jure perscripta est.” De Officiis, lib. i. 
cap. ii. Our learned civilian Zouch has accordingly 
entitled his work, “De Jure Feciali, sive de Jure 
inter Gentes.” The Chancellor D’Aguesseau, pro¬ 
bably without knowing the work of Zouch, sug¬ 
gested that this law should be called “ Droit entre 
les Gens” (CEuvres, vol. ii. p. 337.), in which he has 
been followed by a late ingenious writer, Mr. Ben- 
tham (Introduction to the Principles of Morals and 
Legislation, p. 324.). Perhaps these learned writers 
do employ a phrase which expresses the subject of 
this law with more accuracy than our common 
language; but I doubt whether innovations in the 
terms of science always repay us by their superior 
precision for the uncertainty and confusion which 
the change occasions.« 


the distribution of knowledge into its parts, 
though it may often perhaps be varied with 
little disadvantage, yet certainly depends 
upon some fixed principles. The modern 
method of considering individual and na¬ 
tion morality as the subjects of the same 
science, seems to me as convenient and 
reasonable an arrangement as can be adopted. 
The same rules of morality which hold to¬ 
gether men in families, and which form 
families into commonwealths, also link to¬ 
gether these commonwealths as members of 
the great society of mankind. Common¬ 
wealths, as well as private men, are liable to 
injury, and capable of benefit, from each 
other; it is, therefore, their interest, as well 
as their duty, to reverence, to practise,, and 
to enforce those rules of justice which con¬ 
trol and restrain injury,—which regulate 
and augment benefit,—which, even in their 
present imperfect observance, preserve civi¬ 
lised states in a tolerable condition of secu¬ 
rity from wrong, and which, if they could 
be generally obeyed, would establish, and 
permanently maintain, the well-being of the 
universal commonwealth of the human race. 
It is therefore with justice, that one part of 
this science has been called “the natural 
law of individuals ,” and the other “the na¬ 
tural law of states; ” and it is too obvious to 
require observation*, that the application of 
both these laws, of the former as much as of 
the latter, is modified and varied by customs, 
conventions, character, and situation. With 
a view to these principles, the writers on 
general jurisprudence have considered states 
as moral persons; a mode of expression 
which has been called a fiction of law, but 
which may be regarded with more pro¬ 
priety as a bold metaphor, used to convey 
the important truth, that nations, though 
they acknowledge no common superior, and 
neither can nor ought to be subjected to 
human punishment, are yet under the same 
obligations mutually to practise honesty and 
humanity which would have bound indi- 


* This remark is suggested by an objection of 
Yattel, which is more specious than solid. See his 
Preliminaries, § 6. 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


164 

viduals,-—if the latter could be conceived 
ever to have subsisted without the pro¬ 
tecting restraints of government, and if they 
were not compelled to the discharge of their 
duty by the just authority of magistrates, 
and by the wholesome terrors of the laws. 
With the same views this law has been 
styled, and (notwithstanding the objections 
of some writers to the vagueness of the 
language) appears to have been styled with 
great propriety, “the law of nature.” It 
may with sufficient correctness, or at least 
by an easy metaphor, be called a “ law,” 
inasmuch as it is a supreme, invariable, and 
uncontrollable rule of conduct to all men, 
the violation of which is avenged by natural 
punishments, necessarily flowing from the 
constitution of things, and as fixed and in¬ 
evitable as the order of nature. It is “ the 
law of nature,” because its general precepts 
are essentially adapted to promote the happi¬ 
ness of man as long as he remains a being 
of the same nature with which he is at pre¬ 
sent endowed, or, in other words, as long as 
he continues to be man, in all the variety of 
times, places, and circumstances in which 
he has been known, or can be imagined, to 
exist ; because it is discoverable by natural 
reason, and suitable to our natural con¬ 
stitution ; and because its fitness and wisdom 
are founded on the general nature of human 
beings, and not on any of those temporary 
and accidental situations in which they may 
be placed. It is with still more propriety, 
and indeed with the highest strictness, and 
the most perfect accuracy, considered as a 
law, when, according to those just and mag¬ 
nificent views which philosophy and religion 
open to us of the government of the world, 
it is received and reverenced as the sacred 
code, promulgated by the great Legislator 
of the Universe for the guidance of His 
creatures to happiness;—guarded and en¬ 
forced, as our own experience may inform 
us, by the penal sanctions of shame, of re¬ 
morse, of infamy, and of misery; and still 
farther enforced by the reasonable expect¬ 
ation of yet more awful penalties in a 
future and more permanent state of ex¬ 
istence. It is the contemplation of the law 


of nature under this full, mature, and per¬ 
fect idea of its high origin and transcendent 
dignity, that called forth the enthusiasm of 
the greatest men and the greatest writers 
of ancient and modern times, in those 
sublime descriptions in which they have 
exhausted all the powers of language, and 
surpassed all the other exertions, even of 
their own eloquence, in the display of its 
beauty and majesty. It is of this law that 
Cicero has spoken in so many parts of his 
writings, not only with all the splendour 
and copiousness of eloquence, but with the 
sensibility of a man of virtue, and with the 
gravity and comprehension of a philosopher.* 
It is of this law that Hooker speaks in so 
sublime a strain: — “ Of Law, no less can 
be said, than that her seat is the bosom of 
God, her voice the harmony of the world; 
all things in heaven and earth do her 
homage, the very least as feeling her care, 
the greatest as not exempted from her 
power; both angels and men, and creatures 
of what condition soever, though each in 
different sort and manner, yet all with 
uniform consent admiring her as the mother 
of their peace and joy.”f 

Let not those who, to use the language of 
the same Hooker, “ talk of truth,” without 
“ever sounding the depth from whence it 
springeth,” hastily take it for granted, that 
these great masters of eloquence and reason 

* “ Est quidem vera lex recta ratio, naturae con- 
gruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna; 
quae vocet ad officium jubendo, vetando a fraude 
deterreat, quae tamen neque probos frustra jubet 
aut vetat, neque improbos jubendo aut vetando 
movet. Huic legi neque obrogari fas est, neque 
derogari ex hac aliquid licet, neque tota abrogari 
potest. Nec verb aut per senatum aut per populum 
solvi hac lege possumus: neque est quaerendus ex- 
planator aut interpres ejus alius. Nec erit alia lex 
Romse, alia Athenis, alia nunc, alia posthac; sed 
et omnes gentes et omni tempore una lex et sem- 
pitema, et immutabilis continebit; unusque erit 
communis quasi magister et imperator omnium 
Deus, ille legis hujus inventor, disceptator, lator: 
cui qui non parebit ipse se fugiet et naturam hominis 
aspernabitur, atque hoc ipso luet maximas poenas. 
etiamsi caetera supplicia, quae putantur, effugerit.” 
— De Repub. lib. iii. cap. 22. 

f Ecclesiastical Polity, book i. in the conclusion. 










THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 


165 


were led astray by the specious delusions of 
mysticism, from the sober consideration of 
the true grounds of morality in the nature, 
necessities, and interests of man. They 
studied and taught the principles of morals ; 
but they thought it still more necessary and 
more wise, a much nobler task, and more 
becoming a true philosopher, to inspire men 
with a love and reverence for virtue.* They 
were not contented with elementary specu¬ 
lations : they examined the foundations of 
our duty; but they felt and cherished a 
most natural, a most seemly, a most rational 
enthusiasm, when they contemplated the 
majestic edifice which is reared on these 
solid foundations. They devoted the highest 
exertions of their minds to spread that be¬ 
neficent enthusiasm among men. They con¬ 
secrated as a homage to Virtue the most 
perfect fruits of their genius. If these grand 
sentiments of “the good and fair” have 
sometimes prevented them from delivering 
the principles of ethics with the nakedness 
and dryness of science, at least we must 
own that they have chosen the better part, 
— that they have preferred virtuous feeling 
to moral theory, and practical benefit to 
speculative exactness. Perhaps these wise 
men may have supposed that the minute 
dissection and anatomy of Virtue might, to 
the ill-judging eye, weaken the charm of 
her beauty. 

It is not for me to attempt a theme which 
has perhaps been exhausted by these great 
writers. I am indeed much less called upon 
to display the worth and usefulness of the 
law of nations, than to vindicate myself from 
presumption in attempting a subject which 
has been already handled by so many 
masters. For the purpose of that vindica¬ 
tion it will be necessary to sketch a very 
short and slight account (for such in this 


* “ Age verb urbibus constitutis, ut fidem colere 
et justitiam retinere discerent, et aliis parere sua 
voluntate consuescerent, ac non modo labores ex- 
cipiendos communis commodi causa, sed etiam 
vitam amittendam existimarent; qui tandem fieri 
potuit, nisi homines ea, quae ratione invenissent, 
eloquentia persuadere potuissent ?”—De Invent. 


place it must unavoidably be) of the pro¬ 
gress and present state of the science, and of 
that succession of able writers who have gra¬ 
dually brought it to its present perfection. 

We have no Greek or Roman treatise 
remaining on the law of nations. From the 
title of one of the lost works of Aristotle, it 
appears that he composed a treatise on the 
laws of war*, which, if we had the good 
fortune to possess it, would doubtless have 
amply satisfied our curiosity, and would 
have taught us both the practice of the an¬ 
cient nations and the opinions of their mo¬ 
ralists, with that depth and precision which 
distinguish the other works of that great 
philosopher. We can now only imperfectly 
collect that practice and those opinions from 
various passages which are scattered over 
the writings of philosophers, historians, 
poets, and orators. When the time shall 
arrive for a more full consideration of the 
state of the government and manners of the 
ancient world, I shall be able, perhaps, to 
offer satisfactory reasons why these enlight¬ 
ened nations did not separate from the 
general province of ethics that part of mo¬ 
rality which regulates the intercourse of 
states, and erect it into an independent 
science. It would require a long discussion 
to unfold the various causes which united 
the modern nations of Europe into a closer 
society,—which linked them together by 
the firmest bands of mutual dependence, 
and which thus, in process of time, gave to 
the law that regulated their intercourse 
greater importance, higher improvement, 
and more binding force. Among these 
causes, we may enumerate a common ex¬ 
traction, a common religion, similar man¬ 
ners, institutions, and languages; in earlier 
ages the authority of the See of Rome, and 
the extravagant claims of the imperial crown; 
in later times the connexions of trade, the 
jealousy of power, the refinement of civilisa¬ 
tion, the cultivation of science, and, above 
all, that general mildness of character and 
manners which arose from the combined and 


* Aixxiaifjt,«.rot rSiv cro’kiu.tiv. [[But such supposition 
would seem mistaken. — Er>.] 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


166 

progressive influence of chivalry, of com¬ 
merce, of learning, and of religion. Nor 
must we omit the similarity of those political 
institutions which, in every country that 
had been over-run by the Gothic conquer¬ 
ors, bore discernible marks (which the revo¬ 
lutions of succeeding ages had obscured, but 
not obliterated) of the rude but bold and 
noble outline of liberty that was originally 
sketched by the hand of these generous 
barbarians. These and many other causes 
conspired to unite the nations of Europe in 
a more intimate connexion and a more con¬ 
stant intercourse, and, of consequence, made 
the regulation of their intercourse more 
necessary, and the law that was to govern it 
more important. In proportion as they 
approached to the condition of provinces of 
the same empire, it became almost as essen¬ 
tial that Europe should have a precise and 
comprehensive code of the law of nations, as 
that each country should have a system of 
municipal law. The labours of the learned, 
accordingly, began to be directed to this 
subject in the sixteenth century, soon after 
the revival of learning, and after that regu¬ 
lar distribution of power and territory which 
has subsisted, with little variation, until our 
times. The critical examination of these 
early writers would perhaps not be very 
interesting in an extensive work, and it 
would be unpardonable in a short discourse. 
It is sufficient to observe that they were all 
more or less shackled by the barbarous phi¬ 
losophy of the schools, and that they were 
impeded in their progress by a timorous de¬ 
ference for the inferior and technical parts 
of the Roman law, without raising their 
views to the comprehensive principles which 
will for ever inspire mankind with venera- ‘ 
tion for that grand monument of human 
wisdom. It was only, indeed, in the six¬ 
teenth century that the Roman law was first 
studied and understood as a science connected 
with Roman history and literature, and il¬ 
lustrated by men whom Ulpian and Rapinian 
would not have disdained to acknowledge as 
their successors.* Among the writers of 

* Cnjacius, Brissonius, Hottomannus, &c. &c. — 
See Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis (Lips. 1737), 


that age we may perceive the ineffectual 
attempts, the partial advances, the occa¬ 
sional streaks of light which always precede 
great discoveries, and works that are to in¬ 
struct posterity. 

The reduction of the law of nations to a 
system was reserved for Grotius. It was by 
the advice of Lord Bacon and Peiresc that 
he undertook this arduous task. He pro¬ 
duced a work which we now, indeed, justly 
deem imperfect, but which is perhaps the 
most complete that the world has yet owed, 
at so early a stage in the progress of any 
science, to the genius and learning of one 
man. So great is the uncertainty of post¬ 
humous reputation, and so liable is the 
fame even of the greatest men to be ob¬ 
scured by those new fashions of thinking 
and writing which succeed each other so 
rapidly among polished nations, that Grotius, 
who filled so large a space in the eye of his 
contemporaries, is now perhaps known to 
some of my readers only by name. Yet if we 
fairly estimate both his endowments and his 
virtues, we may justly consider him as one 
of the most memorable men who have done 
honour to modern times. He combined the 
discharge of the most important duties of 
active and public life with the attainment of 
that exact and various learning which is 
generally the portion only of the recluse 
student. lie was distinguished as an advo¬ 
cate and a magistrate, and he composed the 
most valuable works on the law of his own 
country; he was almost equally celebrated 
as an historian, a scholar, a poet, and a 
divine;—a disinterested statesman, a philo¬ 
sophical lawyer, a patriot who united mo¬ 
deration with firmness, and a theologian 
who was taught candour by his learning. 
Unmerited exile did not damp his patriotism; 
the bitterness of controversy did not ex¬ 
tinguish his charity. The sagacity of his 
numerous and fierce adversaries could not 
discover a blot on his character; and in the 

pp. 132—138. Leibnitz, a great mathematician 
as well as philosopher, declares that he knows 
nothing which approaches so near to the method 
and precision of Geometry as the Iloman law. — 
Op. vol. iv. p. 254. 















THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 167 


midst of all the hard trials and galling pro¬ 
vocations of a turbulent political life, he 
never once deserted his friends when they 
were unfortunate, nor insulted his enemies 
when they were weak. In times of the most 
furious civil and religious faction he pre¬ 
served his name unspotted, and he knew 
how to reconcile fidelity to his own party 
with moderation towards his opponents. 

Such was the man who was destined to 
give a new form to the law of nations, or 
rather to create a science, of which only rude 
sketches and undigested materials were scat¬ 
tered over.the writings of those who had 
gone before him. By tracing the laws of 
his country to their principles, he was led 
to the contemplation of the law of nature, 
which he justly considered as the parent 
of all municipal law.* Few works were 
more celebrated than that of Grotius in his 
own days, and in the age which succeeded. 
It has, however, been the fashion of the last 
half century to depreciate his work as a 
shapeless compilation, in which reason lies 
buried under a mass of authorities and 
quotations. This fashion originated among 
French wits and declaimers, and it has 
been, I know not for what reason, adopted, 
though with far greater moderation and de¬ 
cency, by some respectable writers among 
ourselves. As to those who first used this 
language, the most candid supposition that 
we can make with respect to them is, that 
they never read the work ; for, if they had 
not been deterred from the perusal of it by 
such a formidable display of Greek charac¬ 
ters, they must soon have discovered that 
Grotius never quotes on any subject till he 
has first appealed to some principles, and 
often, in my humble opinion, though not 
always, to the soundest and most rational 
principles. 

But another sort of answer is due to 
some of those f who have criticised Grotius, 
and that answer might be given in the words 


* “ Proavia juris civilis.”— De Jure Belli ac 
Pacis, proleg. § xvi. 

t Dr. Paley, Principles of Moral and Political 
Philosophy, pref. pp. xiv. xv. 


of Grotius himself.* He was not of such a 
stupid and servile cast of mind as to quote 
the opinions of poets or orators, of historians 
and philosophers, as those of judges, from 
whose decision there was no appeal. He 
quotes them, as he tells us himself, as wit¬ 
nesses whose conspiring testimony, mightily 
strengthened and confirmed by their dis¬ 
cordance on almost every other subject, is a 
conclusive proof of the unanimity of the 
whole human race on the great rules of 
duty and the fundamental principles of 
morals. On such matters, poets and orators 
are the most unexceptionable of all wit¬ 
nesses ; for they address themselves to the 
general feelings and sympathies of mankind; 
they are neither warped by system, nor per¬ 
verted by sophistry; they can attain none of 
their objects, they can neither please nor 
persuade, if they dwell on moral sentiments 
not in unison with those of their readers. 
No system of moral philosophy can, surely, 
disregard the general feelings of human 
nature and the according judgment of all 
ages and nations. But where are these 
feelings and that judgment recorded and 
preserved? In those very writings which 
Grotius is gravely blamed for having quoted. 
The usages and laws of nations, the events 
of history, the opinions of philosophers, the 
sentiments of orators and poets, as well as 
the observation of common life, are, in 
truth, the materials out of which the science 
of morality is formed; and those who neg¬ 
lect them are justly chargeable with a vain 
attempt to philosophise without regard to 
fact and experience,—the sole foundation 
of all true philosophy. 

If this were merely an objection of taste, 
I should be willing to allow that Grotius 
has indeed poured forth his learning with a 
profusion that sometimes rather encumbers 
than adorns his work, and which is not 
always necessary to the illustration of his 
subject. Yet, even in making that conces¬ 
sion, I should rather yield to the taste of 
others than speak from my own feelings. I 
own that such richness and splendour of 


* De Jure Belli, proleg. § 40. 

















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


168 


literature have a powerful charm for me. 
They fill my mind with an endless variety of 
delightful recollections and associations. 
They relieve the understanding in its pro¬ 
gress through a vast science, by calling up 
the memory of great men and of interest¬ 
ing events. By this means we see the truths 
of morality clothed with all the eloquence 
—not that could be produced by the powers 
of one man — but that could be bestowed 
on them by the collective genius of the 
world. Even Virtue and Wisdom them¬ 
selves acquire new majesty in my eyes when 
I thus see all the great masters of thinking 
and writing called together, as it were, from 
all times and countries, to do them homage, 
and to appear in their train. 

But this is no place for discussions of taste, 
and I am very ready to own that mine may 
be corrupted. The work of Grotius is liable 
to a more serious objection, though I do not 
recollect that it has ever been made. His 
method is inconvenient and unscientific: he 
has inverted the natural order. That natural 
order undoubtedly dictates, that we should 
first search for the original principles of the 
science in human nature; then apply them 
to the regulation of the conduct of indi¬ 
viduals; and, lastly, employ them for the 
decision of those difficult and complicated 
questions that arise with respect to the in¬ 
tercourse of nations. But Grotius has chosen 
the reverse of this method. He begins with 
the consideration of the states of peace and 
war, and he examines original principles 
only occasionally and incidentally as they 
grow out of the questions which he is called 
upon to decide. It is a necessary conse¬ 
quence of this disorderly method, — which 
exhibits the elements of the science in the 
form of scattered digressions,—that he seldom 
employs sufficient discussion on these funda¬ 
mental truths, and never in the place where 
such a discussion would be most instructive 
to the reader. 

This defect in the plan of Grotius was 
perceived, and supplied, by Puffendorff, who 
restored natural law to that superiority 
which belonged to it, and, with great pro¬ 
priety, treated the law of nations as only 


one main branch of the parent stock. With¬ 
out the genius of his master, and with very 
inferior learning, he has yet treated this 
subject with sound sense, with clear method, 
with extensive and accurate knowledge, and 
with a copiousness of detail sometimes in¬ 
deed tedious, but always instructive and 
satisfactory. His work will be always stu¬ 
died by those who spare no labour to ac¬ 
quire a deep knowledge of the subject; but 
it will, in our times, I fear, be oftener found 
on the shelf than on the desk of the general 
student. In the time of Mr. Locke it was 
considered as the manual of those who were 
intended for active life; but in the present 
age I believe it will be found that men of 
business are too much occupied, — men of 
letters are too fastidious,— and men of the 
world too indolent, for the study or even the 
perusal of such works. Far be it from me 
to derogate from the real and great merit of 
so useful a writer as Puffendorff. His trea¬ 
tise is a mine in which all his successors 
must dig. I only presume to suggest, that 
a book so prolix, and so utterly void of all 
the attractions of composition, is likely to 
repel many readers who are interested in its 
subject, and who might perhaps be disposed 
to acquire some knowledge of the principles 
of public law. 

Many other circumstances might be men¬ 
tioned, which conspire to prove that neither 
of the great works of which I have spoken 
has superseded the necessity of a new at¬ 
tempt to lay before the public a system of 
the law of nations. The language of Science 
is so completely changed since both these 
works were written, that whoever was now 
to employ their terms in his moral reason¬ 
ings would be almost unintelligible to some 
of his hearers or readers,—and to some 
among them too who are neither ill qualified 
nor ill disposed to study such subjects with 
considerable advantage to themselves. The 
learned, indeed, well know how little novelty 
or variety is to be found in scientific dis¬ 
putes. The same truths and the same errors 
have been repeated from age to age, with 
little variation but in the language; and 
novelty of expression is often mistaken by 






THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 169 


the ignorant for substantial discovery. 
Perhaps, too, very nearly the same portion 
of genius and judgment has been exerted 
in most of the various forms under which 
science has been cultivated at different pe¬ 
riods of history. The superiority of those 
writers who continue to be read, perhaps 
often consists chiefly in taste, in prudence, 
in a happy choice of subject, in a favourable 
moment, in an agreeable style, in the good 
fortune of a prevalent language, or in other 
advantages which are either accidental, or 
are the result rather of the secondary, than 
of the highest, faculties of the mind. But 
these reflections, while they moderate the 
pride of invention, and dispel the extrava¬ 
gant conceit of superior illumination, yet 
serve to prove the use, and indeed the ne¬ 
cessity, of composing, from time to time, 
new systems of science adapted to the 
opinions and language of each succeeding 
period. Every age must be taught in its 
own language. If a man were now to begin 
a discourse on ethics with an account of the 
“ moral entities” of Puflendorff*, he would 
speak an unknown tongue. 

It is not, however, alone as a mere trans¬ 
lation of former writers into modern lan¬ 
guage that a new system of public law seems 
likely to be useful. The age in which we 
live possesses many advantages which are 
peculiarly favourable to such an undertak¬ 
ing. Since the composition of the great 
works of Grotius and Puflendorff, a more 
modest, simple, and intelligible philosophy 
has been introduced into the schools ; which 
has indeed been grossly abused by sophists, 
but which, from the time of Locke, has been 
cultivated and improved by a succession of 
disciples worthy of their illustrious master. 
We are thus enabled to discuss with preci¬ 
sion, and to explain with clearness, the prin¬ 


* I do not mean to impeach the soundness of any 
part of Puflendorff’s reasoning founded on moral 
entities: it may be explained in a manner con¬ 
sistent with the most just philosophy. He used, as 
every writer must do, the scientific language of his 
own time. I only assert that, to those who are 
unacquainted with ancient systems, his philosophi¬ 
cal vocabulary is obsolete and unintelligible. 


ciples of the science of human nature, which 
are in themselves on a level with the capa¬ 
city of every man of good sense, and which 
only appeared to be abstruse from the un¬ 
profitable subtleties with which they were 
loaded, and the barbarous jargon in which 
they were expressed. The deepest doctrines 
of morality have since that time been treated 
in the perspicuous and popular style, and 
with some degree of the beauty and elo¬ 
quence of the ancient moralists. That phi¬ 
losophy on which are founded the principles 
of our duty, if it has not become more certain 
(for morality admits no discoveries), is at 
least less “ harsh and crabbed,” less obscure 
and haughty in its language, and less for¬ 
bidding and disgusting in its appearance, 
than in the days of our ancestors. If this 
progress of leaning towards popularity has 
engendered (as it must be owned that it 
has) a multitude of superficial and most 
mischievous sciolists, the antidote must come 
from the same quarter with the disease: 
popular reason can alone correct popular 
sophistry. 

Nor is this the only advantage which a 
writer of the present age would possess over 
the celebrated jurists of the last century. 
Since that time, vast additions have been 
made to the stock of our knowledge of human 
nature. Many dark periods of history have 
since been explored: many hitherto unknown 
regions of the globe have been visited and 
described by travellers and navigators not 
less intelligent than intrepid. We may be 
said to stand at the confluence of the greatest 
number of streams of knowledge flowing 
from the most distant sources that ever met 
at one point. We are not confined, as the 
learned of the last age generally were, to 
the history of those renowned nations who 
are our masters in literature. We can 
brino- before us man in a lower and more 
abject condition than any in which he was 
ever before seen. The records have been 
partly opened to us of those mighty empires 
of Asia * where the beginnings of civilisa- 


* I cannot prevail on myself to pass over this 
subject without paying my humble tribute to the 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


170 


tion are lost in the darkness of an unfa¬ 
thomable antiquity. We can make human 
society pass in review before our mind, from 
the brutal and helpless barbarism of Terra 
del Fuego, and the mild and voluptuous 
savages of Otalieite, to the tame but ancient 
and immovable civilisation of China, which 
bestows its own arts on every successive 
race of conquerors, — to the meek and ser¬ 
vile natives of Ilindostan, who preserve 
their ingenuity, then* skill, and their science, 
through a long series of ages, under the 
yoke of foreign tyrants, — and to the gross 
and incorrigible rudeness of the Ottomans, 
incapable of improvement, and extinguish¬ 
ing the remains of civilisation among their 
unhappy subjects, once the most ingenious 
nations of the earth. We can examine 
almost every imaginable variety in the 
character, manners, opinions, feelings, pre¬ 
judices, and institutions of mankind, into 
which they can be thrown, either by the 
rudeness of barbarism, or by the capricious 
corruptions of refinement, or by those in¬ 
numerable combinations of circumstances 
which, both in these opposite conditions 
and in all the intermediate stages between 
them,. influence or direct the course of 
human affairs. History, if I may be allowed 
the expression, is now a vast museum, in 
which specimens of every variety of human 
nature may be studied. From these great 
accessions to knowledge, lawgivers and 
statesmen, • but, above all, moralists and 
political philosophers, may reap the most 
important instruction. They may plainly 


memory of Sir William Jones, who has laboured 
so successfully in Oriental literature ; whose fine 
genius, pure taste, unwearied industry, unrivalled 
and almost prodigious variety of acquirements, — 
not to speak of his amiable manners, and spotless 
integrity, — must fill every one who cultivates or 
admires letters with reverence, tinged with a me¬ 
lancholy which the recollection of his recent death 
is so well adapted to inspire. I hope I shall be 
pardoned if I add my applause to the genius and 
learning of Mr. Maurice, who treads in the steps 
of his illustrious friend, and who has bewailed his 
death in a strain of genuine and beautiful poetry, 
not unworthy of happier periods of our English 
literature. 


discover in all the useful and beautiful 
variety of governments and institutions, and 
under all the fantastic multitude of usages 
and rites which have prevailed among men, 
the same fundamental, comprehensive truths, 
the sacred master-principles which are the 
guardians of human society, recognised and 
revered (with few and slight exceptions) 
by every nation upon earth, and uniformly 
taught (with still fewer exceptions) by a 
succession of wise men from the first dawn 
of speculation to the present moment. The 
exceptions, few as they are, will, on more 
reflection, be found rather apparent than 
real. If we could raise ourselves to that 
height from which we ought to survey so 
vast a subject, these exceptions would alto¬ 
gether vanish ; the brutality of a handful of 
savages would disappear in the immense 
prospect of human nature, and the mur¬ 
murs of a few licentious sophists would not 
ascend to break the general harmony. This 
consent of mankind in first principles, and 
this endless variety in their application, 
which is one among many valuable truths 
which we may collect from our present ex¬ 
tensive acquaintance with the history of man, 
is itself of vast importance. Much of the 
majesty and authority of virtue is derived 
from their consent, and almost the whole 
of practical wisdom is founded on their 
variety. 

What former age could have supplied 
facts for such a work as that of Montes¬ 
quieu ? He indeed has been, perhaps justly, 
charged with abusing this advantage, by the 
undistinguishing adoption of the narratives 
of travellers of very different degrees of 
accuracy and veracity. But if we reluc¬ 
tantly confess the justness of this objection ; 
if we are compelled to own that he ex¬ 
aggerates the influence of climate, — that he 
ascribes too much to the foresight and form¬ 
ing skill of legislators, and far too little to 
time and circumstances, in the growth of 
political constitutions, — that the substantial 
character and ‘■essential differences of go¬ 
vernments are often lost and confounded in 
his technical language and arrangement, — 
that he often bends the free and irregular 














THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 


outline of nature to the imposing but falla¬ 
cious geometrical regularity of system,— 
that he has chosen a style of affected ab¬ 
ruptness, sententiousness, and vivacity, ill 
suited to the gravity of his subject; — after 
all these concessions (for his fame is large 
enough to spare many concessions), the 
Spirit of Laws will still remain not only one 
of the most solid and durable monuments of 
the powers of the human mind, but a striking 
evidence of the inestimable advantages 
which political philosophy may receive from 
a wide survey of all the various conditions 
of human society. 

In the present century a slow and silent, 
but very substantial, mitigation has taken 
place in the practice of war; and in pro¬ 
portion as that mitigated practice has re¬ 
ceived the sanction of time, it is raised from 
the rank of mere usage, and becomes part 
of the law of nations. Whoever will com¬ 
pare our present modes of warfare with the 
system of Grotius * will clearly discern the 
immense improvements which have taken 
place in that respect since the publication of 
his work, during a period perhaps in every 
point of view the happiest to be found in the 
history of the world. In the same period 
many important points of public law have 
been the subject of contest both by argu¬ 
ment and by arms, of which we find either 
no mention, or very obscure traces, in the 
history of preceding times. 

There are other circumstances to which I 
allude with hesitation and reluctance, though 
it must be owned that they afford to a writer 
of this age some degree of unfortunate and 
deplorable advantage over his predecessors. 
Recent events have accumulated more ter¬ 
rible practical instruction on every subject 
of politics than could have been in other 
times acquired by the experience of ages. 
Men’s wit sharpened by their passions has 
penetrated to the bottom of almost all po¬ 
litical questions. Even the fundamental 
rules of morality themselves have, for the 
first time, unfortunately for mankind, be- 


* Especially those chapters of the third book, 
entitled, “ Temperamentum circa Captivos,” &c. 


171 

come the subject of doubt and discussion. 

I shall consider it as my duty to abstain 
from all mention of these awful events, and 
of these fatal controversies. But the mind j 
of that man must indeed be incurious and 
indocile, who has either overlooked all these 
things, or reaped no instruction from the 
contemplation of them. 

From these reflections it appears, that, 
since the composition of those two great 
works on the law of nature and nations 
which continue to be the classical and 
standard works on that subject, we have 
gained both more convenient instruments of 
reasoning and more extensive materials for 
science, — that the code of war has been 
enlarged and improved, — that new ques¬ 
tions have been practically decided, — and 
that new controversies have arisen regard¬ 
ing the intercourse of independent states, 
and the first principles of morality and 
civil government. 

Some readers may, however, think that in 
these observations which I offer, to excuse 
the presumption of my own attempt, I have 
omitted the mention of later writers, to 
whom some part of the remarks is not 
justly applicable. But, perhaps, further 
consideration will acquit me in the judg¬ 
ment of such readers. Writers on particular 
questions of public law are not within the 
scope of my observations. They have fur¬ 
nished the most valuable materials; but I 
speak only of a system. To the large work 
of Wolfims, the observations which I have 
made on Buffendorff as a book for general 
use will surely apply with tenfold force. 
His abridger, Vattel, deserves, indeed, con¬ 
siderable praise: he is a very ingenious, 
clear, elegant, and useful writer. But he 
only considers one part of this extensive 
subject,—namely, the law of nations, strictly 
so called; and I cannot help thinking, that, 
even in this department of the science, he 
has adopted some doubtful and dangerous 
principles, — not to mention his constant 
deficiency in that fulness of example and 
illustration, which so much embellishes and 
strengthens reason. It is hardly necessary 
to take any notice of the text-book of 




















172 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

/' Heineccius, the best writer of elementary 
books with whom I am acquainted on any 
subject. Burlamaqui is an author of su¬ 
perior merit; but he confines himself too 
much to the general principles of morality 
and politics, to require much observation 
from me in this place. The same reason 
will excuse me for passing over in silence 
the works of many philosophers and mo¬ 
ralists, to whom, in the course of my pro¬ 
posed lectures, I shall owe and confess the 
greatest obligations; and it might perhaps 
deliver me from the necessity of speaking 
of the work of Dr. Paley, if I were not de¬ 
sirous of this public opportunity of pro¬ 
fessing my gratitude for the instruction and 
pleasure which I have received from that 
excellent writer, who possesses, in so emi¬ 
nent a degree, those invaluable qualities of 
a moralist, — good sense, caution, sobriety, 
and perpetual reference to convenience and 
practice ; and who certainly is thought less 
original than he really is, merely because 
his taste and modesty have led him to dis¬ 
dain the ostentation of novelty, and because 
he generally employs more art to blend his 
own arguments with the body of received 
opinions (so as that they are scarce to be 
distinguished), than other men, in the pur¬ 
suit of a transient popularity, have exerted 
to disguise the most miserable common¬ 
places in the shape of paradox. 

No writer since the time of Grotius, of 
Puffendorff, and of Wolf, has combined 
an investigation of the principles of natural 
and public law, with a full application of 
these principles to particular cases; and 
in these circumstances, I trust, it will not 
be deemed extravagant presumption in me 
to hope that I shall be able to exhibit a 
view of this science, which shall, at least, 
be more intelligible and attractive to 
students, than the learned treatises of these 
celebrated men. I shall now proceed to 
state the general plan and subjects of 
the lectures in which I am to make this 
attempt. 

The being whose actions the law of na¬ 
ture professes to regulate, is man. It is 
on the knowledge of. his nature that the 

science of his duty must be founded.* It 
is impossible to approach the threshold of 
moral philosophy without a previous ex¬ 
amination of the faculties and habits of the 
human mind. Let no reader be repelled 
from this examination by the odious and 
terrible name of “metaphysics;” for it is, 
in truth, nothing more than the employment' v 
of good sense, in observing our own thoughts, 
feelings, and actions; and when the facts 
which are thus observed are expressed, 
as they ought to be, in plain language, it is, 
perhaps, above all other sciences, most on a 
level with the capacity and information of 
the generality of thinking men. When it is 
thus expressed, it requires no previous qua¬ 
lification but a sound judgment perfectly 
to comprehend it; and those who wrap it 
up in a technical and mysterious jargon, 
always give us strong reason to suspect that 
they are not philosophers, but impostors. 
Whoever thoroughly understands such a 
science, must be able to teach it plainly 
to all men of common sense. The pro¬ 
posed course will therefore open with a very 
short, and I hope a very simple and in¬ 
telligible, account of the powers and opera¬ 
tions of the human mind. By this plain 
statement of facts, it will not be difficult to 
decide many celebrated, though frivolous 
and merely verbal, controversies, which 
have long amused the leisure of the schools, 
and which owe both their fame and their 
existence to the ambiguous obscurity of 
scholastic language. It will, for example, 
only require an appeal to every man’s ex¬ 
perience, to prove that we often act purely 
from a regard to the happiness of others, 
and are therefore social beings; and it is 
not necessary to be a consummate judge of 
the deceptions of language, to despise the 
sophistical trifler, who tells us, that, because 
we experience a gratification in our bene¬ 
volent actions, we are therefore exclusively 
and uniformly selfish. A correct examina¬ 
tion of facts will lead us to discover that 

* “ Natura enim juris explicanda est nobis, 
eaque ab liominis repetenda natura.” — De Leg. 
lib. i. c. 5. 







THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 173 


quality which is common to all virtuous 
actions, and which distinguishes them from 
those which are vicious and criminal. But 
we shall see that it is necessary for man to 
be governed, not by his own transient and 
hasty opinion upon the tendency of every 
particular action, but by those fixed and 
unalterable rules which are the joint result 
of the impartial judgment, the natural 
feelings, and the embodied experience of 
mankind. The authority of these rules is, 
indeed, founded only on their tendency to 
promote private and public welfare; but 
the morality-of actions will appear solely to 
consist in their correspondence with the 
rule. By the help of this obvious distinc¬ 
tion we shall vindicate a just theory, which, 
far from being modern, is, in fact, as ancient 
as philosophy, both from plausible objec¬ 
tions, and from the odious imputation of 
supporting those absurd and monstrous 
systems which have been built upon it. 
Beneficial tendency is the foundation of 
rules, and the criterion by which habits and 
sentiments are to be tried : but it is neither 
the immediate standard, nor can it ever be 
the principal motive, of action. An action 
to be completely virtuous, must accord with 
moral rules, and must flow from our natural 
feelings and affections, moderated, matured, 
and improved into steady habits of right 
conduct.* Without, however, dwelling 
longer on subjects which cannot be clearly 
stated unless they are fully unfolded, I 
content myself with observing, that it shall 
be my object, in this preliminary, but most 
important, part of the course, to lay the 
foundations of morality so deeply in human 
nature, as to satisfy the coldest inquirer; 
and, at the same time, to vindicate the para¬ 
mount authority of the rules of our duty, at 
all times, and in all places, over all opinions 
of interest and speculations of benefit, so 
extensively, so universally, and so inviolably, 
as may well justify the grandest and the 
most apparently extravagant effusions of 


* “ Est autem virtus nihil aliud, quam in se per- 
fecta atque ad summum perducta natura.” — Ibid, 
lib. i. c. 8. 


moral enthusiasm. If, notwithstanding all 
my endeavours to deliver these doctrines 
with the utmost simplicity, any of my 
auditors should still reproach me for intro¬ 
ducing such abstruse matters, I must shelter 
myself behind the authority of the wisest of 
men. “ If they (the ancient moralists), 
before they had come to the popular and 
received notions of virtue and vice, had 
staid a little longer upon the inquiry con¬ 
cerning the roots of good and evil , they had 
given, in my opinion, a great light to that 
which followed; and especially if they had 
consulted with nature, they had made their 
doctrines less prolix, and more profound.” * 
What Lord Bacon desired for the mere gra¬ 
tification of scientific curiosity, the welfare 
of mankind now imperiously demands. 
Shallow systems of metaphysics have given 
birth to a brood of abominable and pesti¬ 
lential paradoxes, which nothing but a more 
profound philosophy can destroy. How¬ 
ever we may, perhaps, lament the necessity 
of discussions which may shake the habitual 
reverence of some men for those rules which 
it is the chief interest of all men to practise, 
we have now no choice left. We must either 
dispute, or abandon the ground. Undis¬ 
tinguishing and unmerited invectives against 
philosophy will only harden sophists and 
their disciples in the insolent conceit, that 
they are in possession of an undisputed 
superiority of reason; and that their^ anta¬ 
gonists have no arms to employ against 
them but those of popular declamation. 
Let us not for a moment even appear to 
suppose, that philosophical truth and human 
happiness are so irreconcilably at variance. 
I cannot express my opinion on this subject 
so well as in the words of a most valuable, 
though generally neglected, writer: “ The 
science of abstruse learning, when completely 
attained, is like Achilles’s spear, that healed 
the wounds it had made before; so this 
knowledge serves to repair the damage itself 
had occasioned, and this perhaps is all it is 
good for; it casts no additional light upon 
the paths of life, but disperses the clouds 


* Advancement of Learning, book ii. 














MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


174 


with which it had overspread them before; 
it advances not the traveller one step in his 
journey, but conducts him back again to the 
spot from whence he wandered. Thus the 
land of philosophy consists partly of an open 
champaign country, passable by every com¬ 
mon understanding, and partly of a range 
of woods, traversable only by the specu¬ 
lative, and where they too frequently de¬ 
light to amuse themselves. Since then we 
shall be obliged to make incursions into this 
latter track, and shall probably find it a 
region of obscurity, danger, and difficulty, 
it behoves us to use our utmost endeavours 
for enlightening and smoothing the way 
before us.” * We shall, however, remain 
in the forest only long enough to visit the 
fountains of those streams which flow from 
it, and which water and fertilise the culti¬ 
vated region of morals, to become ac¬ 
quainted with the modes of warfare prac¬ 
tised by its savage inhabitants, and to learn 
the means of guarding our fair and fruitful 
land against their desolating incursions. I 
shall hasten from speculations to which I 
am naturally, perhaps, but too prone, and 
proceed to the more profitable consider¬ 
ation pf our practical duty. 

The first and most simple part of ethics is 
that which regards the duties of private men 
towards each other, when they are considered 
apart from the sanction of positive laws. I 
say apart from that sanction, not antecedent 
to it; for though we separate private from 
political duties for the sake of greater clear¬ 
ness and order in reasoning, yet we are not 
to be so deluded by this mere arrangement 
of convenience as to suppose that human 
society ever has subsisted, or ever could 
subsist, without being protected by govern¬ 
ment, and bound together by laws. All 
these relative duties of private life have 
been so copiously and beautifully treated by 
the moralists of antiquity, that few men will 
now choose to follow them, who are not ac¬ 
tuated by the wild ambition of equalling 
Aristotle in precision, or rivalling Cicero in 
eloquence. They have been also admirably 

* Light of Nature, vpl. i. pref. p. xxxiii. 


treated by modern moralists, among whom 
it would be gross injustice not to number 
many of the preachers of the Christian reli¬ 
gion, whose peculiar character is that spirit 
of universal charity which is the living 
principle of all our social duties. For it was 
long ago said, with great truth, by Lord 
Bacon, “ that there never was any philo¬ 
sophy, religion, or other discipline, which did 
so plainly and highly exalt that good which 
is communicative, and depress the good 
which is private and particular, as the 
Christian faith.”* The appropriate praise 
of this religion is not so much that it has 
taught new duties, as that it breathes a 
milder and more benevolent spirit over the 
whole extent of morals. 

On a subject which has been so exhausted, 

I should naturally have contented myself 
with the most slight and general survey, if 
some fundamental principles had not of late 
been brought into question, which, in all 
former times, have been deemed too evident 
to require the support of argument, and 
almost too sacred to admit the liberty of 
discussion. I shall here endeavour to'" 
strengthen some parts of the fortifications 
of morality, which have hitherto been neg¬ 
lected because no man had ever been hardy 
enough to attack them. Almost all the re¬ 
lative duties of human life will be found, 
more immediately or more remotely, to arise 
out of the two great institutions of property 
and marriage. They constitute, preserve, 
and improve society. Upon their gradual 
improvement depends the progressive civi¬ 
lisation of mankind; on them rests the whole 
order of civil life. We are told by Horace, 
that the first efforts of lawgivers to civilise 
men consisted in strengthening and regu¬ 
lating these institutions, and fencing them 
round with rigorous penal laws. 

“ Oppida coeperunt munire, et ponere leges, 

Ne quis fur esset, neu latro, neu quis adulter.”f 

A celebrated ancient orator j, of whose 
poems we have but a few fragments remain- 


* Advancement of Learning, book ii. 
t Sermon, lib. i. serm. iii. 105. 

% C. Licinius Calvits. 








THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 175 


ing, has well described the progressive order 
in which human society is gradually led to 
its highest improvements under the guardian¬ 
ship of those laws which secure property and 
regulate marriage. 

“ Et leges sanctas docuit, et chara jugavit 

Corpora conjugiis; et magnas condidit urbes.” 

These two great institutions convert the 
selfish as well as the social passions of our 
nature into the firmest bands of a peaceable 
and orderly intercourse; they change the 
sources of discord into principles of quiet; 
they discipline the most ungovernable, they 
refine the grossest, and they exalt the most 
sordid, propensities; so that they become the 
perpetual fountain of all that strengthens, 
and preserves, and adorns society: they sus¬ 
tain the individual, and they perpetuate the 
race. Around these institutions all our social 
duties will be found at various distances to 
range themselves; some more near, ob¬ 
viously essential to the good order of human 
life ; others more remote, and of which the 
necessity is not at first view so apparent; 
and some so distant, that their importance 
has been sometimes doubted, though upon 
more mature consideration they will be 
found to be outposts and advanced guards 
of these fundamental principles, — that man 
should securely enjoy the fruits of his labour; 
and that the society of the sexes should be 
so wisely ordered, as to make it a school of 
the kind affections, and a fit nursery for the 
commonwealth. 

The subject of property is of great extent. 
It will be necessary to establish the found¬ 
ation of the rights of acquisition, alienation, 
and transmission, not in imaginary contracts 
or a pretended state of nature, but in their 
subserviency to the subsistence and well¬ 
being of mankind. It will not only be 
curious, but useful, to trace the history of 
property from the first loose and transient 
occupancy of the savage, through all the 
modifications which it has at different times 
received, to that comprehensive, subtle, and 
anxiously minute code of property which is 
the last result of the most refined civilisation. 

I shall observe the same order in consi¬ 


dering the society of the sexes, as it is regu¬ 
lated by the institution of marriage.* I shall 
endeavour to lay open those unalterable 
principles of general interest on which that 
institution rests; and if 1 entertain a hope 
that on this subject I may be able to add 
something to what our masters in morality 
have taught us, I trust that the reader will 
bear in mind, as an excuse for my presump¬ 
tion, that they were not likely to employ 
much argument where they did not foresee 
the possibility of doubt. I shall also con¬ 
sider the history j* of marriage, and trace it 
through all the forms which it has assumed, 
to that decent and happy permanency of 
union, which has, perhaps above all other 
causes, contributed to the quiet of society, 
and the refinement of manners in modern 
times. Among many other inquiries which 
this subject will suggest, I shall be led more 
particularly to examine the natural station 
and duties of the female sex, their condition 
among different nations, its improvement in 
Europe, and the bounds which Nature her¬ 
self has prescribed to the progress of that 
improvement; beyond which every pretended 
advance will be a real degradation. 

Having established the principles of pri¬ 
vate duty, I shall proceed to consider man 
under the important relation of subject and 


* See on this subject an incomparable fragment 
of the first book of Cicero’s Economics, which is 
too long for insertion here, but which, if it be 
closely examined, may perhaps dispel the illusion 
of those gentlemen who have so strangely taken it 
for granted that Cicero was incapable of exact 
reasoning. 

f This progress is traced with great accuracy in 
some beautiful lines of Lucretius: — 

.... “ Mulier, conjuncta viro, concessit in unum; 
Castaque privatae Veneris connubia beta 
Cognita sunt, prolemque ex se videre creatam ; 
Turn genus humanum primum mollescere coepit. 

.puerique parentum 

Blanditiis facile ingenium fregere superbum. 

Tunc et amicitiam coeperunt jungere, habentes 
Finitimi inter se, nec laedere, nec violare; 

Et pueros commendarunt, muliebreque saeclum, 
Vocibus et gestu; cum balbfc significarent, 
Imbecillorum esse sequum miserier omni.” 

De Berum Nat. lib. v. 









176 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


sovereign, or, in other words, of citizen and 
magistrate. The duties which arise from this 
relation I shall endeavour to establish, — not 
upon supposed compacts, which are alto¬ 
gether chimerical, which must be admitted 
to be false in fact, and which, if they are to 
be considered as fictions, will be found to 
serve no purpose of just reasoning, and to 
be equally the foundation of a system of uni¬ 
versal despotism in Hobbes, and of universal 
anarchy in Rousseau, — but on the solid basis 
of general convenience. Men cannot subsist 
without society and mutual aid; they can 
neither maintain social intercourse nor re¬ 
ceive aid from each other without the pro¬ 
tection of government; and they cannot 
enjoy that protection without submitting to 
the restraints which a just government im¬ 
poses. This plain argument establishes the 
duty of obedience on the part of the citi¬ 
zens, and the duty of protection on that of 
magistrates, on the same foundation with 
that of every other moral duty; and it shows, 
with sufficient evidence, that these duties 
are reciprocal; — the only rational end for 
which the fiction of a contract should have 
been invented. I shall not encumber my 
reasoning by any speculations on the origin 
of government—a question on which so 
much reason has been wasted in modern 
times; but which the ancients * in a higher 
spirit of philosophy have never once mooted. 
If our principles be just, our origin of go¬ 
vernment must have been coeval with that 
of mankind ; and as no tribe has ever been 
discovered so brutish as to be without some 
government, and yet so enlightened as to 
establish a government by common consent, 
it is surely unnecessary to employ any serious 


* The introduction to the first book of Aristotle’s 
Politics is the best demonstration of the necessity 
of political society to the well-being, and indeed to 
the very being, of man, with which I am ac¬ 
quainted. Having shown the circumstances which 
render man necessarily a social being, he justly 
concludes, “ K«i on avOgtnr os Qvtru <xo\itikov The 

same scheme of philosophy is admirably pursued 
in the short but invaluable fragment of the sixth 
book of Polybius, which describes the history and 
revolutions of government. 


argument in the confutation of the doctrine 
that is inconsistent with reason, and unsup¬ 
ported by experience. But though all in¬ 
quiries into the origin of government be 
chimerical, yet the history of its progress is 
curious and useful. The various stages 
through which it passed from savage inde¬ 
pendence, which implies every man’s power 
of injuring his neighbour, to legal liberty, 
which consists in every man’s security against 
wrong; the manner in which a family ex¬ 
pands into a tribe, and tribes coalesce into a 
nation,—in which public justice is gradually 
engrafted on private revenge, and temporary 
submission ripened into habitual obedience; 
form a most important and extensive subject 
of inquiry, which comprehends all the im¬ 
provements of mankind in police, in judi¬ 
cature, and in legislation. 

I have already given the reader to under¬ 
stand that the description of liberty which 
seems to me the most comprehensive, is that 
of security against wrong. Liberty is there¬ 
fore the object of all government. Men are 
more free under every government, even the 
most imperfect, than they would be if it 
were possible for them to exist without any 
government at all: they are more secure 
from wrong, more undisturbed in the exer¬ 
cise of their natural powers, and therefore 
more free, even in the most obvious and 
grossest sense of the word, than if they were 
altogether unprotected against injury from 
each other. But as general security is en¬ 
joyed in very different degrees under dif¬ 
ferent governments, those which guard it 
most perfectly are, by the way of eminence, 
called “ free.” Such governments attain 
most completely the end which is common 
to all government. A free constitution of 
government and a good constitution of go¬ 
vernment are therefore different expressions 
for the same idea. 

Another material distinction, however, 
soon presents itself. In most civilised states 
the subject is tolerably protected against 
gross injustice from his fellows by impartial 
laws, which it is the manifest interest of the 
sovereign to enforce; but some common¬ 
wealths are so happy as to be founded on a 







THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 177 


principle of much more refined and provi¬ 
dent wisdom. The subjects of such com¬ 
monwealths are guarded not only against 
the injustice of each other, but (as far as 
human prudence can contrive) against op¬ 
pression from the magistrate. Such states, 
like all other extraordinary examples of 
public or private excellence and happiness, 
are thinly scattered over the different ages 
and countries of the world. In them the 
will of the sovereign is limited with so exact 
a measure, that his protecting authority is 
not weakened. Such a combination of skill 
and fortune is not often to be expected, and, 
indeed, never can arise but from the con¬ 
stant though gradual exertions of wisdom 
and virtue to improve a long succession of 
most favourable circumstances. There is, 
indeed, scarce any society so wretched as to 
be destitute of some sort of weak provision 
against the injustice of their governors. 
Religious institutions, favourite prejudices, 
national manners, have in different countries, 
with unequal degrees of force, checked or 
mitigated the exercise of supreme power. 
The privileges of a powerful nobility, of 
opulent mercantile communities, of great 
judicial corporations, have in some mo¬ 
narchies approached more near to a control 
on the sovereign. Means have been devised 
with more or less wisdom to temper the 
despotism of an aristocracy over their sub¬ 
jects, and in democracies to protect the 
I minority against the majority, and the whole 
people against the tyranny of demagogues. 
But in these unmixed forms of government, 
as the right of legislation is vested in one 
individual or in one order, it is obvious that 
the legislative power may shake off all the 
: restraints which the laws have imposed on it. 
All such governments, therefore, tend to¬ 
wards despotism, and the securities which 
they admit against misgovernment are ex¬ 
tremely feeble and precarious. The best 
security which human wisdom can devise, 
seems to be the distribution of political 
authority among different individuals and 
bodies, with separate interests, and separate 
characters, corresponding to the variety of 
classes of which civil society is composed,— 


each interested to guard their own order 
from oppression by the rest; each also in¬ 
terested to prevent any of the others from 
seizing on exclusive, and therefore despotic, 
power; and all having a common interest to 
co-operate in carrying on the ordinary and 
necessary administration of government. If 
there were not an interest to resist each 
other in extraordinary cases, there would 
not be liberty: if there were not an interest 
to co-operate in the ordinary course of 
affairs, there could be no government. The 
object of such wise institutions, which make 
selfishness of governors a security against 
their injustice, is to protect men against 
wrong both from their rulers and their fel¬ 
lows. Such governments are, with justice, 
peculiarly and emphatically called “ free; ” 
and in ascribing that liberty to the skilful 
combination of mutual dependence and mu¬ 
tual check, I feel my own conviction greatly 
strengthened by calling to mind, that in this 
opinion I agree with all the wise men who 
have ever deeply considered the principles 
of politics; — with Aristotle and Polybius, 
with Cicero and Tacitus, with Bacon and 
Machiavel, with Montesquieu and Hume.* 
It is impossible, in such a cursory sketch as 


* To the weight of these great names let me add 
the opinion of two illustrious men of the present 
age, as both their opinions are combined by one of 
them in the following passages: “He (Mr. Fox) 
always thought any of the simple unbalanced go¬ 
vernments bad; simple monarchy, simple aristo¬ 
cracy, simple democracy; he held them all imper¬ 
fect or vicious, all were bad by themselves; the 
composition alone was good. These had been 
always his principles, in which he agreed with his 
friend Mr. Burke.” — Speech on the Army Esti¬ 
mates, 9th Feb. 1790. In speaking of both these 
illustrious men, whose names I here join, as they 
will be joined in fame by posterity, which will 
forget their temporary differences in the recollection 
of their genius and their friendship, I do not en¬ 
tertain the vain imagination that I can add to their 
glory by any thing that I can say. But it is a 
gratification to me to give utterance to my feel¬ 
ings,— to express the profound veneration with 
which I am filled for the memory of the one, and 
the warm affection which I cherish for the other, 
whom no one ever heard in public without ad¬ 
miration, or knew in private life without loving. 


N 









178 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


the present, even to allude to a very small 
part of those philosophical principles, politi¬ 
cal reasonings, and historical facts, which are 
necessary for the illustration of this mo¬ 
mentous subject. In a full discussion of 
it, I shall be obliged to examine the general 
I frame of the most celebrated governments 
! of ancient and modern times, and especially 
j of those which have been most renowned for 
I their freedom. The result of such an ex- 
! amination will be, that no institution so de- 
! testable as an absolutely unbalanced govern- 
| ment, perhaps ever existed ; that the simple 
| governments are mere creatures of the ima- 
j gination of theorists, who have transformed 
! names used for convenience of arrangement 
into real politics; that, as constitutions of 
government approach more nearly to that 
unmixed and uncontrolled simplicity they 
become despotic, and as they recede farther 
from that simplicity they become free. 

By the constitution of a state, I mean 
u the body of those written and unwritten 
fundamental laws which regulate the most 
important rights of the higher magistrates, 
and the most essential privileges* of the 
subjects.” Such a body of political laws 
must in all countries arise out of the cha¬ 
racter and situation of a people ; they must 
grow with its progress, be adapted to its 
peculiarities, change with its changes, and 
be incorporated with its habits. Human 
wisdom cannot form such a constitution by 
one act, for human wisdom cannot create 
the materials of which it is composed. The 
attempt, always ineffectual, to change by 
violence the ancient habits of men, and the 
established order of society, so as to fit them 
for an absolutely new scheme of government, 
flows from the most presumptuous ignorance, 
requires the support of the most ferocious 


* Privilege, in Roman jurisprudence, means the 
exemption of one individual from the operation of a 
law. Political privileges, in the sense in which I 
employ the terms, mean those rights of the subjects 
of a free state which are deemed so essential to 
the well-being of the commonwealth that they are 
excepted from the ordinary discretion of the magis¬ 
trate, and guarded by the same fundamental laws 
which secure his authority. 


tyranny, and leads to consequences which 
its authors can never foresee, — generally, 
indeed, to institutions the most opposite to 
those of which they profess to seek the esta¬ 
blishment.* But human wisdom, indefati- 
gably employed in remedying abuses, and 
in seizing favourable opportunities of im¬ 
proving that order of society which arises 
from causes over which we have little con¬ 
trol, after the reforms and amendments of 
a series of ages, has sometimes, though very 
rarely, shown itself capable of building up a 
free constitution, which is “ the growth of 
time and nature, rather than the work of 
human invention.” f Such a constitution 
can only be formed by the wise imitation of 
“ the great innovator Time, which, indeed, 
innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by de¬ 
grees scarce to be perceived.” j Without 
descending to the puerile ostentation of 
panegyric, on that of which all mankind 
confess the excellence, I may observe, with 
truth and soberness, that a free government 
not only establishes a universal security 
against wrong, but that it also cherishes all 
the noblest powers of the human mind ; that 
it tends to banish both the mean and the 
ferocious vices; that it improves the national 
character to which it is adapted, and out of 
which it grows ; that its whole administration 
is a practical school of honesty and humanity; 


* See an admirable passage on this subject in 
Dr. Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (voL ii. 
pp. 101—112.), in which the true doctrine of re¬ 
formation is laid down with singular ability by that 
eloquent and philosophical writer. See also Mr. 
Burke’s Speech on Economical Reform; and Sir M. 
Hale on the Amendment of Laws, in the Collection 
of my learned and most excellent friend, Mr. Har¬ 
grave, p. 248. 

f Pour former un gouvemement mod£re, il faut 
combiner les puissances, les regler, les temptfrer, les 
faire agir; donner pour ainsi dire un lest a l’une, 
pour la mettre en etat de resister h une autre; c’est 
un chef-d’oeuvre de legislation que le hasard fait 
rarement, et que rarement on laisse faire a la pru¬ 
dence. Un gouvemement despotique au contraire 
saute, pour ainsi dire, aux yeux; il est uniforme 
partout: comme il ne faut que dcs passions pour 
1’etablir, tout le monde est bon pour cela. — Mon¬ 
tesquieu, De l’Esprit de Loix, liv. v. c. 14. 

% Bacon, Essay xxiv. (Of Innovations.) 














THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 179 

and that there the social affections, expanded 
into public spirit, gain a wider sphere, and 
a more active spring. 

I shall conclude what I have to offer on 
government, by an account of the constitu¬ 
tion of England. I shall endeavour to trace 
the progress of that constitution by the light 
of history, of laws, and of records, from the 
earliest times to the present age; and to 
show how the general principles of liberty, 
originally common to it with the other Gothic 
monarchies of Europe, but in other countries 
lost or obscured, were in this more fortunate 
island preserved, matured, and adapted to 
the progress of civilisation. I shall attempt 
to exhibit this most complicated machine, 
as our history and our laws show it in action; 
and not as some celebrated writers have 
most imperfectly represented it, who have 
torn out a few of its more simple springs, 
and, putting them together, miscal them the 
British constitution. So prevalent, indeed, 
have these imperfect representations hitherto 
been, that I will venture to affirm, there is 
scarcely any subject which has been less 
treated as it deserved than the government 
of England. Philosophers of great and me¬ 
rited reputation * have told us that it con¬ 
sisted of certain portions of monarchy, aris¬ 
tocracy, and democracy,—names which are, 
in truth, very little applicable, and which, 
if they were, would as little give an idea of 
this government, as an account of the weight 
of bone, of flesh, and of blood in a human 
body would be a picture of a living man. 
Nothing but a patient and minute investiga¬ 
tion of the practice of the government in all 
its parts, and through its whole history, can 
give us just notions on this important subject. 
If a lawyer, without a philosophical spirit, 
be unequal to the examination of this great 
work of liberty and wisdom, still more un¬ 
equal is a philosopher without practical, 
legal, and historical knowledge; for the first 

may want skill, but the second wants ma¬ 
terials. The observations of Lord Bacon on 
political writers, in general, are most ap¬ 
plicable to those who have given us syste¬ 
matic descriptions of the English constitution. 

“ All those who have written of governments 
have written as philosophers, or as lawyers, 
and none as statesmen. As for the philo¬ 
sophers, they make imaginary laws for ima¬ 
ginary commonwealths, and their discourses 
are as the stars, which give little light be¬ 
cause they are so high.” — “ Haec cognitio 
ad viros civiles proprie pertinet,” as he tells 
us in another part of his writings; but un¬ 
fortunately no experienced philosophical 
British statesman has yet devoted his leisure 
to a delineation of the constitution, which 
such a statesman alone can practically and 
perfectly know. 

In the discussion of this great subject, and 
in all reasonings on the principles of politics, 

I shall labour, above all things, to avoid that 
which appears to me to have been the con¬ 
stant source of political error: —I mean the 
attempt to give an air of system, of simplicity, 
and of rigorous demonstration, to subjects 
which do not admit it. The only means by 
which this could be done, was by referring 
to a few simple causes, what, in truth, arose 
from immense and intricate combinations, 
and successions of causes. The consequence 
was very obvious. The system of the theorist, 
disencumbered from all regard to the real 
nature of things, easily assumed an air of 
speciousness: it required little dexterity to 
make his arguments appear conclusive. But 
all men agreed that it was utterly inapplicable 
to human affairs. The theorist railed at the 
folly of the world, instead of confessing his 
own; and the man of practice unjustly 
blamed Philosophy, instead of condemning 
the sopliist.,/ / Tlie causes which the politician 
has to consider are, above all others, multi¬ 
plied, mutable, minute, subtile, and, if I 
may so speak, evanescent, — perpetually 
changing their form, and varying their com¬ 
binations, — losing their nature, while they 
keep their name, — exhibiting the most dif¬ 
ferent consequences in the endless variety of 
men and nations on whom they operate, — 

* The reader will perceive that I allude to Mon¬ 
tesquieu, whom I never name without reverence, 
though I shall presume, with humility, to criticise 
his account of a government which he only saw at 
a distance. 


N 2 








180 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

in one degree of strength producing the most 
signal benefit, and under a slight variation 
of circumstances the most tremendous mis¬ 
chiefs. They admit indeed of being reduced 
to theory; but to a theory formed on the 
most extensive views, of the most compre¬ 
hensive and flexible principles, to embrace 
all their varieties, and to fit all their rapid 
transmigrations, — a theory, of which the 
most fundamental maxim is, distrust in it¬ 
self, and deference for practical prudence^/ 
Only two writers of former times have, 
as far as I know, observed this general de¬ 
fect of political reasoners; but these two 
are the greatest philosophers who have ever 
appeared in the world. The first of them 
is Aristotle, who, in a passage of his Poli¬ 
tics*, to which I cannot at this moment 
turn, plainly condemns the pursuit of a de¬ 
lusive geometrical accuracy in moral reason¬ 
ings as the constant source of the grossest 
error. The second is Lord Bacon, who tells 
us, with that authority of conscious wisdom 
which belongs to him, and with that power 
of richly adorning Truth from the wardrobe 
of Genius which he possessed above almost 
all men, “ Civil knowledge is conversant 
about a subject which, above all others, is 
most immersed in matter, and hardliest re¬ 
duced to axiom.” f 

I shall next endeavour to lay open the 
general principles of civil and criminal laws. 
On this subject I may with some confidence 
hope that I shall be enabled to philosophise 
with better materials by my acquaintance witli 
the laws of my own country, which it is the 
business of my life to practise, and of which 

the study has by habit become my favourite 
pursuit. 

The first principles of jurisprudence are 
simple maxims of Reason, of which the ob¬ 
servance is immediately discovered by ex¬ 
perience to be essential to the security of 
men’s rights, and which pervade the laws of 
all countries. An account of the gradual 
application of these original principles, first 
to more simple, and afterwards to more 
^complicated cases, forms both the history 
and the theory of law. Such an historical 
account of the progress of men, in reducing 
justice to an applicable and practical sys¬ 
tem, will enable us to trace that chain, in 
which so many breaks and interruptions are 
perceived by superficial observers, but which 
in truth inseparably, though with many dark 
and hidden windings, links together the 
security of life and property with the most 
minute and apparently frivolous formalities 
of legal proceeding. We shall perceive that 
no human foresight is sufficient to establish 
such a system at once, and that, if it were 
so established, the occurrence of unforeseen 
cases would shortly altogether change it; 
that there is but one way of forming a civil 
code, either consistent with common sense, 
or that has ever been practised in any 
country, — namely, that of gradually build¬ 
ing up the law in proportion as the facts 
arise which it is to regulate. We shall learn 
to appreciate the merit of vulgar objections 
against the subtilty and complexity of laws. 
We shall estimate the good sense and the 
gratitude of those who reproach lawyers for 
employing all the powers of their mind to 
discover subtle distinctions for the preven¬ 
tion of injustice*; and we shall at once per¬ 
ceive that laws ought to be neither more 
simple nor more complex than the state of 
society which they are to govern, but that 
they ought exactly to correspond to it. Of 
the two faults, however, the excess of sim¬ 
plicity would certainly be the greatest; for 

* Probably book iii. cap. 11. — Ed. 
f This principle is expressed by a writer of a 
very different character from these two great phi¬ 
losophers— a writer, “ qu’on n’appellera plus phi- 
losophe, mais qn’on appellera le plus eloquent des 
sophistes,” with great force, and, as his manner is, 
with some exaggeration. “ II n’y a point de prin- 
cipes abstraits dans la politique. C’est une science 
des calculs, des combinaisons, et des exceptions, 
selon les lieux, les terns, et les circonstances.”— 
Lettre de Rousseau au Marquis de Mirabeau. The 
second proposition is true; but the first is not a 
just inference from it 

* “ The casuistical subtilties are not perhaps 
greater than the subtilties of lawyers ; but the 
latter are innocent, and even necessary.” — Hume, 
Essays, vol. ii. p. 558. 




















THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 


laws more complex than are necessary would 
only produce embarrassment; whereas laws 
more simple than the affairs which they re¬ 
gulate would occasion a defeat of Justice. 
More understanding has perhaps been in 
this manner exerted to fix the rules of life 
than in any other science * ; and it is cer¬ 
tainly the most honourable occupation of 
the understanding, because it is the most 
immediately subservient to general safety 
and comfort. There is not, in my opinion, 
in the whole compass of human affairs, 
so noble a spectacle as that which is dis¬ 
played in the progress of jurisprudence; 
where we may contemplate the cautious and 
unwearied exertions of a succession of wise 
men, through a long course of ages, with¬ 
drawing every case as it arises from the 
dangerous power of discretion, and subject¬ 
ing it to inflexible rules, — extending the 
dominion of justice and reason, and gradu¬ 
ally contracting, within the narrowest pos¬ 
sible limits, the domain of brutal force and 
of arbitrary will. This subject has been 
treated with such dignity by a writer who 
is admired by all mankind for his eloquence, 
but who is, if possible, still more admired 
by all competent judges for his philosophy, 
— a writer, of whom I may justly say, that 
he was “ gravissimus et dicendi et intelli- 
gendi auctor et magister,” — that I cannot 
refuse myself the gratification of quoting his 
words : — “ The science of jurisprudence, 
the pride of the human intellect, which, with 
all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is 
the collected reason of ages combining the 
principles of original justice with the infinite 
variety of human concerns.” 

I shall exemplify the progress of law, and 
illustrate those principles of Universal Jus¬ 
tice on which it is founded, by a compara¬ 
tive review of the two greatest civil codes 


* “ Law,” said Dr. Johnson, “ is the science in 
which the greatest powers of the understanding 
are applied to the greatest number of facts.” No¬ 
body, who is acquainted with the variety and mul¬ 
tiplicity of the subjects of jurisprudence, and with 
the prodigious powers of discrimination employed 
upon them, can doubt the truth of this observation, 
f Burke, Works, vol. iii. p. 134. 


181 

that have been hitherto formed, — those of 
Rome and of England*, — of their agree¬ 
ments and disagreements, both in general 
provisions, and in some of the most im¬ 
portant parts of their minute practice. In 
this part of the course, which I mean to 
pursue with such detail as to give a view of 
both codes, that may perhaps be sufficient for 
the purposes of the general student, I hope 
to convince him that the laws of civilised 
nations, particularly those of his own, are a 
subject most worthy of scientific curiosity; 
that principle and system run through them 
even to the minutest particular, as really, 
though not so apparently, as in other 
sciences, and applied to purposes more im¬ 
portant than those of any other science. 
Will it be presumptuous to express a hope, 
that such an inquiry may not be altogether 
a useless introduction to that larger and 
more detailed study of the law of England, 
which is the duty of those who are to pro¬ 
fess and practise that law ? 

In considering the important subject of 
criminal law, it will be my duty to found on 
a regard to the general safety the right of 
the magistrate to inflict punishments, even 
the most severe, if that safety cannot be 
effectually protected by the example of in¬ 
ferior punishments. It will be a more 
agreeable part of my office to explain the 
temperaments which Wisdom, as well as 
Humanity, prescribes in the exercise of that 
harsh right, unfortunately so essential to the 
preservation of human society. I shall col¬ 
late the penal codes of different nations, and 
gather together the most accurate statement 
of the result of experience with respect to 
the efficacy of lenient and severe punish- 


* On the intimate connection of these two codes, 
let us hear the words of Lord Holt, whose name 
never can be pronounced without veneration, as 
long as wisdom and integrity are revered among 
men: — “Inasmuch as the laws of all nations are 
doubtless raised out of the ruins of the civil law, as 
all governments are sprung out of the ruins of the 
Roman empire, it must be owned that the principles 
of our law are borrowed from the civil law, therefore 
grounded upon the same reason in many things.”— 
12 Mod. Rep. 482. 










182 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

ments; and I shall endeavour to ascertain 
the principles on which must be founded 
both the proportion and the appropriation 
of penalties to crimes. As to the law of 
criminal proceeding, my labour will be very 
easy; for on that subject an English lawyer, 
if he were to delineate the model of perfec¬ 
tion, would find that, with few exceptions, 
he had transcribed the institutions of his own 
country. 

The next great division of the subject is 
the “ law of nations,” strictly and properly 
so called. I have already hinted at the 
general principles on which this law is 
founded. They, like all the principles of 
natural jurisprudence, have been more hap¬ 
pily cultivated, and more generally obeyed, 
in some ages and countries than in others; 
and, like them, are susceptible of great 
variety in their application, from the charac¬ 
ter and usage of nations. I shall consider 
these principles in the gradation of those 
which are necessary to any tolerable inter¬ 
course between nations, of those which are 
essential to all well-regulated and mutually 
advantageous intercourse, and of those which 
are highly conducive to the preservation of 
a mild and friendly intercourse between 
civilised states. Of the first class, every 
understanding acknowledges the necessity, 
and some traces of a faint reverence for 
them are discovered even among the most 
barbarous tribes ; of the second, every well- 
informed man perceives the important use, 
and they have generally been respected by 
all polished nations ; of the third, the great 
benefit may be read in the history of mo¬ 
dern Europe, where alone they have been 
carried to their full perfection. In unfold¬ 
ing the first and second class of principles, I 
shall naturally be led to give an account of 
that law of nations, which, in greater or less 
perfection, regulated the intercourse of 
savages, of the Asiatic empires, and of the 
ancient republics. The third brings me to 
the consideration of the law of nations, as it 
is now acknowledged in Christendom. From 
the great extent of the subject, and the par¬ 
ticularity to which, for reasons already 
given, I must here descend, it is impossible 

for me, within my moderate compass, to give 
even an outline of this part of the course. 
It comprehends, as every reader will per¬ 
ceive, the principles of national independ¬ 
ence, the intercourse of nations in peace, 
the privileges of ambassadors and inferior 
ministers, the commerce of private subjects, 
the grounds of just war, the mutual duties 
of belligerent and neutral powers, the limits 
of lawful hostility, the rights of conquest, 
the faith to be observed in warfare, the force 
of an armistice, — of safe conducts and pass¬ 
ports, the nature and obligation of alliances, 
the means of negotiation, and the authority 
and interpretation of treaties of peace. All 
these, and many other most important and 
complicated subjects, with all the variety of 
moral reasoning and historical examples 
which is necessary to illustrate them, must 
be fully examined in that part of the lec¬ 
tures in which I shall endeavour to put to¬ 
gether a tolerably complete practical system 
of the law of nations, as it has for the last 
two centuries been recognised in Europe. 

“ Le droit des gens est naturellement 
fonde sur ce principe, que les diverses na¬ 
tions doivent se faire, dans la paix le plus 
de bien, et dans la guerre le moins de mal, 
qu’il est possible, sans nuire a leurs veritables 
interets. L’objet de la guerre c’est la vic- 
toire; celui de la victoire la conquete ; celui 
de la conquete la conservation. De ce prin¬ 
cipe et du precedent, doivent deriver toutes 
les loix qui forment le droit des gens. 
Toutes les nations ont un droit des gens; 
et les Iroquois meme, qui mangent leurs 
prisonniers, en ont un. 11s envoient et re- 
(joivent des embassades; ils eonnoissent les 
droits de la guerre et de la paix: le mal est 
que ce droit des gens n’est pas fonde sur les 
vrais principes.” * 

As an important supplement to the prac¬ 
tical system of our modern law of nations, or 
rather as a necessary part of it, I shall con¬ 
clude with a survey of the diplomatic and 
conventional law of Europe, and of the trea¬ 
ties which have materially affected the dis¬ 
tribution of power and territory among the 

* De l’Esprit de Loix, liv. i. c. 3. 













THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 


183 


European states, — the circumstances which 
gave rise to them, the changes which they 
effected, and the principles which they in¬ 
troduced into the public code of the Chris¬ 
tian commonwealth. In ancient times the 
knowledge of this conventional law was 
thought one of the greatest praises that could 
be bestowed on a name loaded with all the 
honours that eminence in the arts of peace 
and war can confer: “Equidem existimo, 
judices, cum in omni genere ac varietate 
artium, etiam illarum, quae sine summo otio 
non facile discuntur, Cn. Pompeius excellat, 
singularem quandam laudem ejus et praesta- 
bilem esse scientiam, in foederibus, pactio- 
nibus, conditionibus, populorum, regum, 
exterarifm nationum: in universo denique 
belli jure ac pacis.” * Information on this 
subject is scattered over an immense variety 
of voluminous compilations, not accessible to 
every one, and of which the perusal can be 
agreeable only to a very few. Yet so much 
of these treaties has been embodied into the 
general law of Europe, that no man can be 
master of it who is not acquainted with them. 
The knowledge of them is necessary to 
negotiators and statesmen ; it may sometimes 
be important to private men in various situ¬ 
ations in which they may be placed; it is 
useful to all men who wish either to be 
acquainted with modern history, or to form 
a sound judgment on political measures. I 
shall endeavour to give such an abstract of 
it as may be sufficient for some, and a conve¬ 
nient guide for others in the farther progress 
of their studies. The treaties which I shall 
more particularly consider, will be those of 
Westphalia, of Oliva, of the Pyrenees, of 
Breda, of Nimeguen, of Ryswick, of Utrecht, 
of Aix-la-Chapelle, of Paris (1763), and of 
Versailles (1783). I shall shortly explain 
the other treaties, of which the stipulations 
are either alluded to, confirmed, or abrogated 
in those which I consider at length. I shall 
subjoin an account of the diplomatic inter¬ 
course of the European powers with the 
Ottoman Porte, and with other princes and 
states who are without the pale of our ordi¬ 


* Cic. Orat. pro L. Com. Balbo, c. vi. 


nary federal law; together with a view of 
the most important treaties of commerce, 
their principles, and their consequences. 

As an useful appendix to a practical trea¬ 
tise on the law of nations, some account will 
be given of those tribunals which in differ¬ 
ent countries of Europe decide controver¬ 
sies arising out of that law; of their consti¬ 
tution, of the extent of their authority, and 
of their modes of proceeding; more especi¬ 
ally of those courts which are peculiarly 
appointed for that purpose by the laws of 
Great Britain. 

Though the course, of which I have 
sketched the outline, may seem to compre¬ 
hend so great a variety of miscellaneous 
subjects, yet they are all in truth closely 
and inseparably interwoven. The duties of 
men, of subjects, of princes, of lawgivers, of 
magistrates, and of states, are all parts of 
one consistent system of universal morality. 
Between the most abstract and elementary 
maxim of moral philosophy, and the most 
complicated controversies of civil or public 
law, there subsists a connection which it will 
be the main object of these lectures to trace. 
The principle of justice, deeply rooted in 
the nature and interest of man, pervades the 
whole system, and is discoverable in every 
part of it, even to its minutest ramification 
in a legal formality, or in the construction 
of an article in a treaty. 

I know not whether a philosopher ought 
to confess, that in his inquiries after truth 
he is biassed by any consideration, — even 
by the love of virtue. But I, who conceive 
that a real philosopher ought to regard 
truth itself chiefly on account of its subser¬ 
viency to the happiness of mankind, am not 
ashamed to confess, that I shall feel a great 
consolation at the conclusion of these lec¬ 
tures, if, by a wide survey and an exact 
examination of the conditions and relations 
of human nature, I shall have confirmed but 
one individual in the conviction, that justice 
is the permanent interest of all men, and of 
all commonwealths. To discover one new 
link of that eternal chain by which the 
Author of the universe has bound together 
the happiness and the duty of His creatures, 







184 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

and indissolubly fastened their interests to 
each other, would fill my heart with more 
pleasure than all the fame with which the 
most ingenious paradox ever crowned the 
most eloquent sophist. I shall conclude this 
Discourse in the noble language of two 
great orators and philosophers, who have, in 
a few words, stated the substance, the object, 
and the result of all morality, and politics, 
and law. “ Nihil est quod adhuc de repu- 
blica putem dictum, et quo possim longius 

progredi, nisi sit confirmatum, non modo 
falsum esse illud, sine injuria non posse, sed 
hoc verissimum, sine summa justitia rem- 
publicam geri nullo modo posse.” * “ J ustice 
is itself the great standing policy of civil 
society, and any eminent departure from it, 
under any circumstances, lies under the sus¬ 
picion of being no policy at all.” f 

* Cic. De Repub. lib. ii. 
f Burke, Works, vol. iii. p. 207. 

LIFE 

OP 

SIR THOMAS MORE. 

Aristotle and Bacon, the greatest philoso¬ 
phers of the ancient and modern world, agree 
in representing poetry as being of a more 
excellent nature than history. Agreeably 
to the predominance of mere understanding 
in Aristotle’s mind, he alleges as his cause 
of preference that poetry regards general 
truth, or conformity to universal nature; 
while history is conversant only with a con¬ 
fined and accidental truth, dependent on 
time, place, and circumstance. The ground 
assigned by Bacon is such as naturally 
issued from that fusion of imagination with 
reason, which constitutes his philosophical 
genius. Poetry is ranked more highly by 
him, because the poet presents us with a 
pure excellence and an unmingled grandeur, 
not to be found in the coarse realities of 
life or of history; but which the mind of 
man, although not destined to reach, is 
framed to contemplate with delight. 

The general difference between biography 
and history is obvious. There have been 
many men in every age whose lives are full 
of interest and instruction ; but who, having 

never taken a part in public affairs, are alto¬ 
gether excluded from the province of the 
historian: there have been also, probably, 
equal numbers who have influenced the 
fortune of nations in peace or in war, of the 
peculiarities of whose character we have no 
information; and who, for the purposes of 
the biographer, may be said to have had no 
private life. These are extreme cases : but 
there are other men, whose manners and - 
acts are equally well known, whose indb 
vidual lives are deeply interesting, whose 
characteristic qualities are peculiarly strik¬ 
ing, who have taken an important share in 
events connected with the most extraordi¬ 
nary revolutions of human affairs, and whose 
biography becomes more difficult from that 
combination and intermixture of private 
with public occurrences which render it 
instructive and interesting. The variety 
and splendour of the lives of such men 
render it often difficult to distinguish the 
portion of them which ought to be admitted 
into history, from that which should be re¬ 
served for biography. Generally speaking, 











these two parts are so distinct and unlike, 
that they cannot be confounded without 
much injury to both; — as when the bio¬ 
grapher hides the portrait of the individual 
by a crowded and confined picture of events, 
or when the historian allows unconnected 
narratives of the lives of men to break the 
thread of history. The historian contemplates 
only the surface of human nature, adorned 
and disguised (as when actors perform bril¬ 
liant parts before a great audience), in the 
midst of so many dazzling circumstances, 
that it is hard to estimate the intrinsic worth 
of individuals, — and impossible, in an his¬ 
torical relation, to exhibit the secret springs 
of their conduct. The biographer endea¬ 
vours to follow the hero and the statesman 
from the field, the council, or the senate, to 
his private dwelling, where, in the midst of 
domestic ease or of social pleasure, he 
throws aside the robe and the mask, be¬ 
comes again a man instead of an actor, and, 
in spite of himself, often betrays those frail¬ 
ties and singularities which are visible in 
the countenance and voice, the gesture and 
manner, of every one when he is not play¬ 
ing a part. It is particularly difficult to 
observe the distinction in the case of Sir 
Thomas More, because he was so perfectly 
natural a man that he carried his amiable 
peculiarities into the gravest deliberations 
of state, and the most solemn acts of law. 
Perhaps nothing more can be universally 
laid down, than that the biographer never 
ought to introduce public events, except in 
as far as they are absolutely necessary to 
the illustration of character; and that the 
historian should rarely digress into biogra¬ 
phical particulars, except in as far as they 
contribute to the clearness of his narrative 
of political occurrences. 

Sir Thomas More was born in Milk Street, 
in the city of London, in the year 1480, 
three years before the death of Edward IY. 
His family was respectable, — no mean ad¬ 
vantage at that time. His father, Sir John 
More, who was born about 1440, was en¬ 
titled by his descent to use an armorial 
bearing, — a privilege guarded strictly and 


jealously as the badge of those who then 
began to be called gentry, and who, though 
separated from the lords of parliament by 
political rights, yet formed with them in the 
order of society one body, corresponding to 
those called noble in the other countries of 
Europe. Though the political power of 
the barons was on the wane, the social posi¬ 
tion of the united body of nobility and 
gentry retained its dignity.* Sir John More 
was one of the justices of the court of King’s 
Bench to the end of his long life; and, ac¬ 
cording to his son’s account, well performed 
the peaceable duties of civil life, being gentle 
in his deportment, blameless, meek, and 
merciful, an equitable judge, and an up¬ 
right man. j* 

Sir Thomas More received the first rudi¬ 
ments of his education at St. Anthony’s 
school, in Threadneedle Street, under Ni¬ 
cholas Hart: for the daybreak of letters was 
now so bright, that the reputation of schools 
was carefully noted, and schoolmasters began 
to be held in some part of the estimation 
which they merit. Here, however, his studies 
were confined to Latin; the cultivation of 
Greek, which contains the sources and mo¬ 
dels of Roman literature, being yet far from 
having descended to the level of the best 
among the schools. It was the custom of 
that age that young gentlemen should pass 
part of their boyhood in the house and ser¬ 
vice of their superiors, where they might 
profit by listening to the conversation of 


* “ In Sir Thomas More’s epitaph, he describes 
himself as ‘born of no noble family, but of an 
honest stock,’ (or, in the words of the original, 
familia non celebri, sed honesta natus,) a true 
translation, as we here take nobility and noble; for 
none under a baron, except he be of the privy 
council, doth challenge it; and in this sense he 
meant it; but as the Latin word nobilis is taken in 
other countries for gentrie, it was otherwise. Sir 
John More bare arms from his birth; and though 
we cannot certainly tell who were his ancestors, 
they must needs be gentlemen.”—Life of More 
(commonly reputed to be) by Thomas More, his 
great grandson, pp. 3, 4. This book will be cited 
henceforward as “ More.” 

f “Homo civilis, innocens, mitis, integer.” — 
Epitaph. 








186 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


men of experience, and gradually acquire 
the manners of the world. It was not deemed 
derogatory from youths of rank, — it was 
rather thought a beneficial expedient for 
inuring them to stern discipline and implicit 
obedience, — that they should be trained, 
during this noviciate, in humble and even 
menial offices. A young gentleman thought 
himself no more lowered by serving as a 
page in the family of a great peer or prelate, 
than a Courtenay or a Howard considered 
it as a degradation to be the huntsman or 
the cupbearer of a Tudor. 

More was fortunate in the character of 
his master: when his school studies were 
thought to be finished, about his fifteenth 
year, he was placed in the house of Cardinal 
Morton, archbishop of Canterbury. This 
prelate, who was born in 1410, was origi¬ 
nally an eminent civilian, canonist, and a 
practiser of note in the ecclesiastical courts. 
He had been a Lancastrian, and the fidelity 
with which he adhered to Henry VI., till 
that unfortunate prince’s death, recom¬ 
mended him to the confidence and patronage 
of Edward IV. He negotiated the marriage 
with the princess Elizabeth, which recon¬ 
ciled (with whatever confusion of titles) the 
conflicting pretensions of York and Lancas¬ 
ter, and raised Henry Tudor to the throne. 
By these services, and by his long experi¬ 
ence in affairs, he continued to be prime 
minister till his death, which happened in 
1500, at the advanced age of ninety.* * * * § Even 
at the time of More’s entry into his house¬ 
hold, the old cardinal, though then fourscore 
and five years, was pleased with the extra¬ 
ordinary promise of the sharp and lively 
boy; as aged persons sometimes, as it were, 
catch a glimpse of the pleasure of youth, by 
entering for a moment into its feelings. 
More broke into the rude dramas performed 
at the cardinal’s Christmas festivities, to 


* Dodd’s Church History, vol. i. p. 141. The 
Roman Catholics, now restored to their just rank 
in society, have no longer an excuse for not'con¬ 
tinuing this useful work. [This has been accord¬ 
ingly done, since this note was written, by the Rev. 
M. A. Tierney. — Ed.] 


which he was too young to be invited, and 
often invented at the moment speeches for 
himself, “ which made the lookers-on more 
sport than all the players beside.” The 
cardinal, much delighting in his wit and 
towardness, would often say of him unto the 
nobles that dined with him, — “ This child 
here waiting at the table, whosoever shall live 
to see it, will prove a marvellous man.” * 
More, in his historical work, thus commemo¬ 
rates this early friend, not without a sidelong 
glance at the acts of a courtier : —“ He was 
a man of great natural wit, very well learned, 
honourable in behaviour, lacking in no wise 
to win favour.” In Utopia he praises the 
cardinal more lavishly, and with no restraint 
from the severe justice of history. It was 
in Morton’s house that he was probably first 
known to Colet, dean of St. Paul’s, the 
founder of St. Paul’s school, and one of the 
most eminent restorers of ancient literature 
in England; who was wont to say, that 
“ there was but one wit in England, and 
that was young Thomas More.”J 

More went to Oxford in 1497, where he 
appears to have had apartments in St. Mary’s 
Hall, but to have carried on his studies at 
Canterbury College §, on the spot where 
Wolsey afterwards reared the magnificent 
edifice of Christchurch. At that university 
he found a sort of civil war waged between 
the partisans of Greek literature, who were 
then innovators in education and suspected 
of heresy, if not of infidelity, on the one 
hand; and on the other side the larger body, 
comprehending the aged, the powerful, and 
the celebrated, who were content to be no 
wiser than their forefathers. The younger 
followers of the latter faction affected the 
ridiculous denomination of Trojans, and 
assumed the names of Priam, Hector, Paris, 
and JEneas, to denote their hostility to the 
Greeks. The puerile pedantry of these cox¬ 
combs had the good effect of awakening the 


* Roper’s Life of Sir T. More, edited by Singer. 
This book will be cited henceforward as “Roper.” 

f History of Richard III. 

t More, p. 25. 

§ Athensc Oxonienses, vol. i. p. 7D. 








LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 187 


zeal of More for his Grecian masters, and of 
inducing him to withstand the barbarism 
which would exclude the noblest produc¬ 
tions of the human mind from the education 
of English youth. He expostulated with the 
university in a letter addressed to the whole 
body, reproaching them with the better ex¬ 
ample of Cambridge, where the gates were 
thrown open to the higher classics of Greece 
as freely as to their Roman imitators.* The 
established clergy even then, though Luther 
had not yet alarmed them,- strangers as they 
were to the new learning, affected to con¬ 
temn that of which they were ignorant, and 
could not endure the prospect of a rising 
generation more learned than themselves. 
Their whole education was Latin, and their 
instruction was limited to Roman and canon 
law, to theology, and school philosophy. 
They dreaded the downfal of the authority 
of the Yulgate from the study of Greek and 
Hebrew. But the course of things was irre¬ 
sistible. The scholastic system was now on 
the verge of general disregard, and the 
perusal of the greatest Roman writers turned 
all eyes towards the Grecian masters. What 
man of high capacity, and of ambition be¬ 
coming his faculties, could read Cicero with¬ 
out a desire to comprehend Demosthenes 
and Plato ? What youth desirous of excel¬ 
lence but would rise from the study of the 
Georgies and the iEneid with a wish to be 
acquainted with Hesiod and Apollonius, 
with Pindar, and above all with Homer? 
These studies were then pursued, not with 
the dull languor and cold formality with 
which the indolent, incapable, incurious ma¬ 
jority of boys obey the prescribed rules of 
an old establishment, but with the enthusi¬ 
astic admiration with which the superior few 
feel an earnest of their own higher powers, 
in the delight which arises in their minds at 
the contemplation of new beauty, and of 
excellence unimagined before. 

More found several of the restorers of 
Grecian literature at Oxford, who had been 
the scholars of the exiled Greeks in Italy; 


* See this letter in the Appendix to the second 
volume of Jortin’s Life of Erasmus. 


— Grocyn, the first professor of Greek in 
the university; Linacre, the accomplished 
founder of the college of physicians; and 
William Latimer, of whom we know little 
more than what we collect from the general 
testimony borne by his most eminent con¬ 
temporaries to his learning and virtue. 
Grocyn, the first of the English restorers, 
was a late learner, being in the forty-eighth 
year of his age when he went, in 1488, 
to Italy, where the fountains of ancient 
learning were once more opened. After 
having studied under Politian, and learnt 
Greek from Chalcondylas, one of the let¬ 
tered emigrants who educated the teachers 
of the western nations, he returned to 
Oxford, where he taught that language to 
More, to Linacre, and to Erasmus. Lin¬ 
acre followed the example of Grocyn in 
visiting Italy, and profiting by the instruc¬ 
tions of Chalcondylas. Colet spent four 
years in the same country, and in the like 
studies. William Latimer repaired at a 
mature age to Padua, in quest of that know¬ 
ledge which was not to be acquired at home. 
He was afterwards chosen to be tutor to 
Reginald Pole, the King’s cousin; and 
Erasmus, by attributing to him “maidenly 
modesty,” leaves in one word an agreeable 
impression of the character of a man chosen 
for his scholarship to be Linacre’s colleague 
in a projected translation of Aristotle, and 
solicited by the latter for aid in his edition 
of the New Testament.* 

At Oxford More became known to a 
man far more extraordinary than any of 
these scholars. Erasmus had been invited 
to England by Lord Mountjoy, who had 
been his pupil at Paris, and continued to be 
his friend during life. He resided at Ox¬ 
ford during a great part of 1497; and 
having returned to Paris in 1498, spent the 
latter portion of the same year at the uni¬ 
versity of Oxford, where he again had an 
opportunity of pouring his zeal for Greek 
study into the mind of More. Their friend- 


* For Latimer, see Dodd, Church Histoiy, vol. i. 
p. 219.: for Grocyn, Ibid. p. 227.: for Colet and 
Linacre, all biographical compilations. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


188 

ship, though formed at an age of consider¬ 
able disparity, — Erasmus being then thirty 
and More only seventeen, — lasted through¬ 
out the whole of their lives. Erasmus had 
acquired only the rudiments of Greek at 
the age most suited to the acquisition of 
languages, and was now completing his 
knowledge on that subject at a period of 
mature manhood, which he jestingly com¬ 
pares with the age at which the elder Cato 
commenced his Grecian studies.* Though 
Erasmus himself seems to have been much 
excited towards Greek learning by the ex¬ 
ample of the English scholars, yet the cul¬ 
tivation of classical literature was then so 
small a part of the employment or amuse¬ 
ment of life, that William Latimer, one of 
the most eminent of these scholars, to whom 
Erasmus applied for aid in his edition of 
the Greek Testament, declared that he had 
not read a page of Greek or Latin for nine 
years f, that he had almost forgotten his 
ancient literature, and that Greek books 
were scarcely procurable in England. Sir 
John More, inflexibly adhering to the old 
education, and dreading that the allure¬ 
ments of literature might seduce his son 
from law, discouraged the pursuit of Greek, 
and at the same time reduced the allowance 
of Thomas to the level of the most frugal 
life; — a parsimony for which the son was 
afterwards, though not then, thankful, as 
having taught him good husbandry, and 
preserved him from dissipation. 

At the university, or soon after leaving 
it, young More composed the greater part 
of his English verses; which are not such 
as, from their intrinsic merit, in a more ad¬ 
vanced state of our language and literature, 
would be deserving of particular attention. 


* “ Delibavimus et olim has literas, sed summis 
duntaxat labiis; at nuper paulo altius ingressi, 
videmus id quod saepenumero apud gravissimos 
auctores legimus,—Latinam eruditionem, quamvis 
impendiosam, citra Graecismum mancam esse ac 
dimidiatam. Apud nos enim rivuli vix quidam 
sunt, et lacunulae lutulentae; apud illos fontes pu- 
rissimi et flumina aurum volventia.”— Opera, Lug. 
Bat. 1703, vol. iii. p. 63. 
f Ibid. p. 293. 


But as the poems of a contemporary of 
Skelton, they may merit more considera¬ 
tion. Our language was still neglected, or 
confined chiefly to the vulgar uses of life. 
Its force, its compass, and its capacity of 
harmony, were untried: for though Chaucer 
had shone brightly for a season, the cen¬ 
tury which followed was dark and wintry. 
No master genius had impregnated the 
nation with poetical sensibility. In these 
inauspicious circumstances, the composition 
of poems, especially if they manifest a sense 
of harmony, and some adaptation of the 
sound to the subject, indicates a delight in 
poetry, and a proneness to that beautiful 
art, which in such an age is a more than 
ordinary token of a capacity for it. The 
experience of all ages, however it may be 
accounted for, shows that the mind, when 
melted into tenderness, or exalted by the 
contemplation of grandeur, vents its feel¬ 
ings in language suited to a state of excite¬ 
ment, and delights in distinguishing its 
diction from common speech by some species 
of measure and modulation, which combines 
the gratification of the ear with that of the 
fancy and the heart. The secret connection 
between a poetical ear and a poetical soul is 
touched by the most sublime of poets, who 
consoled himself in his blindness by the remem¬ 
brance of those who, under the like calamity, 

. . . “ feed on thoughts that voluntary move 

Harmonious numbers.” 

We may be excused for throwing a glance 
over the compositions of a writer who is 
represented a century after his death, by 
Ben Jonson, as one of the models of English 
literature. More’s poem on the death of 
Elizabeth, the wife of Henry VII., and his 
merry jest How a Serjeant would play the 
Friar, may be considered as fair samples of 
his pensive and sportive vein. The supe¬ 
riority of the latter shows his natural dis¬ 
position to pleasantry. There is a sort of 
dancing mirth in the metre which seems to 
warrant the observation above hazarded, 
that in a rude period the structure of verse 
may be regarded as some presumption of a 
genius for poetry. In a refined age, indeed, 









LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 189 

all the circumstances are different: the 
framework of metrical composition is known 
to all the world; it may be taught by rule, 
and acquired mechanically; the greatest 
facility of versification may exist without a 
spark of genius. Even then, however, the 
secrets of the art of versification are chiefly 
revealed to a chosen few by their poetical 
sensibility; so that sufficient remains of the 
original tie still continue to attest its pri¬ 
mitive origin. It is remarkable, that the 
most poetical of the poems is written in 
Latin : it is a poem addressed to a lady, 
with whom -he had been in love when he 
was sixteen years old, and she fourteen; and 
it turns chiefly on the pleasing reflection 
that his affectionate remembrance restored 
to her the beauty, of which twenty-five years 
seemed to others to have robbed her.* 

When More had completed his time at 
Oxford, he applied himself to the study of 
the law, which was to be the occupation of 
his life. He first studied at New Inn, and 
afterwards at Lincoln’s Inn.f The societies 
of lawyers having purchased some inns , or 
noblemen’s residences, in London, were 
hence called “inns of court.” It was not 
then a metaphor to call them an university; 
they had professors of law; they conferred 
the characters of barrister and serjeant, 
analogous to the degrees of bachelor, master, 
and doctor, bestowed by the universities; 
and every man, before he became a bar¬ 
rister, was subjected to examination, and 
obliged to defend a thesis. More was ap¬ 
pointed reader at Furnival’s Inn, where he 
delivered lectures for three years. The 
English law had already grown into a sci¬ 
ence, formed by a process of generalisation 
from usages and decisions, with less help 
from the Roman law than the jurisprudence 

of any other country, though not with that 
total independence of it which English 
lawyers in former times considered as a 
subject of boast: it was rather formed as 
the law of Rome itself had been formed, 
than adopted from that noble system. When 
More began to lecture on English law, it 
was by no means in a disorderly and neg¬ 
lected state. The ecclesiastical lawyers, 
whose arguments and determinations were 
its earliest materials, were well prepared, 
by the logic and philosophy of their masters 
the Schoolmen, for those exact and even 
subtle distinctions which the precision of 
the rules of jurisprudence eminently re¬ 
quired. In the reigns of the Lancastrian 
princes, Littleton had reduced the law to 
an . elementary treatise, distinguished by a 
clear method and an elegant conciseness. 
Fortescue had during the same time com¬ 
pared the governments of England and 
France with the eye of a philosophical ob¬ 
server. Brooke and Fitzherbert had com¬ 
piled digests of the law, which they called 
(it might be thought, from their size, ironi¬ 
cally) “Abridgments.” The latter com¬ 
posed a treatise, still very curious, on 
“ writs; ” that is, on those commands (for¬ 
mally from the king) which constitute es¬ 
sential parts of every legal proceeding. 
Other writings on jurisprudence occupied 
the printing-presses of London in the earliest 
stage* of their existence. More delivered 
lectures also at St. Lawrence’s church in the 
Old Jewry, on the work of St. Augustine, 
De Civitate Dei, that is, on the divine go¬ 
vernment of the moral world; which must 
seem, to readers who look at ancient times 
through modern habits, a very singular 
occupation for a young lawyer. But the 
clergy were then the chief depositaries 
of knowledge, and were the sole canonists 
and civilians, as they had once been the 
only lawyers.f Religion, morals, and law, 
were then taught together without due 

* “ Gratulatur quod earn repererit incolumem 
quam olim ferme puer amaverat.” — Not. in Poem. 
It does not seem reconcilable with dates, that his 
lady could have been the younger sister of Jane 
Colt. See infra. 

•f Inn was successively applied, like the French 
word hotel, first to the town mansion of a great 
man, and afterwards to a house where all mankind 
' were entertained for money. 

* Doctor and Student (by St. Germain) and 
Diversite des Courtes were both printed by Rastell 
in 1534. 

f NuUus causidicus nisi clerlcus. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


190 

distinction between them, to the injury and 
confusion of them all. To these lectures, 
we are told by the affectionate biographer, 
“ there resorted Doctor Grocyn, an ex¬ 
cellent cunning man, and all the chief 
learned of the city of London.” * * * § * More, in 
his lectures, however, did not so much dis¬ 
cuss “ the points of divinity as the precepts 
of moral philosophy and history, wherewith 
these books are replenished.” f The effect 
of the deep study of the first was, perhaps, 
however, to embitter his polemical writings, 
and somewhat to sour that naturally sweet 
temper, which was so deeply felt by his com¬ 
panions, that Erasmus scarcely ever con¬ 
cludes a letter to him without epithets more 
indicative of the most tender affection than 
of the calm feelings of friendship.! 

The tenderness of More’s nature com¬ 
bined with the instructions and habits of his 
education to predispose him to piety. As 
he lived in the neighbourhood of the great 
Carthusian monastery, called the “ Charter- 
house,” for some years, he manifested a pre¬ 
dilection for monastic life, and is said to 
have practised some of those, austerities and 
self-inflictions which prevail among the 
gloomier and sterner orders. A pure mind 
in that age often sought to extinguish some 
of the inferior impulses of human nature, 
instead of employing them for their ap¬ 
pointed purpose, — that of animating the 
domestic affections, and sweetening the most 
important duties of life. He soon learnt, 
however, by self-examination, his unfitness 
for the priesthood, and relinquished his pro¬ 
ject of taking orders, in words which should 
have warned his Church against the imposi¬ 
tion of unnatural self-denial on vast multi¬ 
tudes and successive generations of men.§ 

The same affectionate disposition which 
had driven him towards the visions, and, 
strange as it may seem, to the austerities 
of the monks, now sought a more natural 


* Roper, p. 5. f More, p. 44. 

X “ Suavissime More.” “ Charissime More.” 

“ Mellitissime More.” 

§ “ Maluit maritus esse castus quam sacerdos 
impurus.” Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 475. 


channel. “ He resorted to the house of one 
Maister Colt, a gentleman of Essex, who had 
often invited him thither; having three 
daughters, whose honest conversation and 
virtuous education provoked him there espe¬ 
cially to set his affection. And albeit his 
mind most served him to the second daugh¬ 
ter, for that he thought her the fairest and 
best favoured, yet when he considered that 
it would be both great grief, and some shame 
also, to the eldest, to see her younger sister 
preferred before her in marriage, he then of 
a certain pity framed his fancy toward her, 
and soon after married her, neverthemore 
discontinuing his study of the law at Lin¬ 
coln’s Inn.” * His more remote descendant 
adds, that Mr. Colt “ proffered unto him 
the choice of any of his daughters; and that 
More, out of a kind of compassion, settled 
his fancy on the eldest.” f Erasmus gives a 
turn to More’s marriage with Jane Colt, 
which is too ingenious to be probable: — 
“ He wedded a very young girl of respect¬ 
able family, but who had hitherto lived in 
the country with her parents and sisters, 
and was so uneducated that he could mould 
her to his own tastes and manners. He 
caused her to be instructed in letters; and 
she became a very skilful musician, which 
peculiarly pleased him.” | 

The plain matter of fact seems to have 
been, that in an age when marriage chiefly 
depended upon a bargain between parents, 
on which sons were little consulted, and 
daughters not at all, More, emerging at 
twenty-one from the toil of acquiring Greek, 
and the voluntary self-torture of Carthusian 
mystics, was delighted at his first entry 
among pleasing young women, of whom the 
least attractive might, in these circumstances, 
have touched him; and that his slight pre¬ 
ference for the second easily yielded to a 
good-natured reluctance to mortify the 
elder. Most young ladies in Essex, in the 
beginning of the sixteenth century, must 
have required some tuition to appear in 
London among scholars and courtiers, who 


* Roper, p. 6. f More, p. 30. 

| Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 475. 













LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 191 


were at that time more mingled than it is 
now usual for them to be. It is impossible 
to ascertain the precise shade of feeling 
which the biographers intended to denote 
by the words “ pity ” and “ compassion,” for 
the use of which they are charged with a 
want of gallantry or delicacy by modern 
writers; although neither of these terms, 
when the context is at the same time read, 
seems unhappily employed to signify the 
natural refinement which shrinks from hum¬ 
bling the harmless self-complacency of an 
innocent girl: 

The marriage proved so happy, that no¬ 
thing was to be regretted in it but the 
shortness of the union, in consequence of 
the early death of Jane Colt, who left a son 
and three daughters; of whom Margaret, 
the eldest, inherited the features, the form, 
and the genius of her father, and requited 
his fond partiality by a daughterly love, 
which endured to the end. 

In no long time *\fter the death of Jane 
Colt, he married Alice Middleton, a widow 
seven years older than himself, and not 
handsome; — rather for the care of his 
family, and the management of his house, 
than as a companion and a friend. He 
treated her, and indeed all females, except 
his daughter Margaret, as better qualified 
to relish a jest, than to take a part in more 
serious conversation; and in their presence 
gave an unbounded scope to his natural in¬ 
clination towards pleasantry. He even in¬ 
dulged himself in a Latin play of words on 
her want of youth and beauty, calling her 
“ nec bella nec puella.”f “ She was of 
good years, of no good favour or complexion, 
nor very rich, and by disposition near and 
worldly. It was reported that he wooed her 
for a friend of his ; but she answering that 
he might speed if he spoke for himself, he 
married her with the consent of his friend, 
yielding to her that which perhaps he never 
would have done of his own accord. In- 


* “ In a few months,” says Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. 
p. 475. “Within two or three years,” according 
to his great grandson. — More, p. 32. 
f Erasmus, vol. iii. p. 475. 


deed, her favour could not have bewitched, 
or scarce moved, any man to love her; but 
yet she proved a kind and careful mother- 
in-law to his children.” Erasmus, who was 
often an inmate in the family, speaks of her 
as “ a keen and watchful manager, with 
whom More lived on terms of as much re¬ 
spect and kindness as if she had been fair 
and young.” Such is the happy power of a 
loving disposition, which overflows on com¬ 
panions, though their attractions or deserts 
should be slender. “ No husband,” con¬ 
tinues Erasmus, “ ever gained so much 
obedience from a wife by authority and 
severity, as More won by gentleness and 
pleasantry. Though verging on old age, 
and not of a yielding temper, he prevailed 
on her to take lessons on the lute, the 
cithara, the viol, the monochord, and the 
flute, which she -daily practised to him. 
With the same gentleness he ruled his whole 
family, so that it was without broils or 
quarrels. He composed all differences, and 
never parted with any one on terms of un¬ 
kindness. The house was fated to the pecu¬ 
liar felicity that those who dwelt in it were 
always raised to a higher fortune ; and that 
no spot ever fell on the good name of its 
happy inhabitants.” The course of More’s 
domestic life is minutely described by eye¬ 
witnesses. “ His custom was daily (besides 
his private prayers with his children) to say 
the seven psalms, the litany, and the suf¬ 
frages following; so was his guise with his 
wife, children, and household, nightly before 
he went to bed, to go to his chapel, and 
there on his knees ordinarily to say certain 
psalms and collects with them.”* “With 
him,” says Erasmus, “ you might imagine 
yourself in the academy of Plato. But I 
should do injustice to his house by com¬ 
paring it to the academy of Plato, where 
numbers, and geometrical figures, and some¬ 
times moral virtues, were the subjects of 
discussion ; it would be more just to call it 
a school and exercise of the Christian reli¬ 
gion. All its inhabitants, male or female, 
applied their leisure to liberal studies and 

* Roper, p. 25. 











192 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


profitable reading, although piety was their 
first care. No wrangling, no angry word, 
was heard in it; no one was idle: every one 
did his duty with alacrity, and not without 
a temperate cheerfulness.” * Erasmus had 
not the sensibility of More; he was more 
prone to smile than to sigh at the concerns 
of men: but he was touched by the remem¬ 
brance of these domestic solemnities in the 
household of his friend. He manifests an 
agreeable emotion at the recollection of 
these scenes in daily life, which tended to 
hallow the natural authority of parents, to 
bestow a sort of dignity on humble occupa¬ 
tions, to raise menial offices to the rank of 
virtues, and to spread peace and cultivate 
kindness among those who had shared, and 
were soon again to share, the same modest 
rites, in gently breathing around them a 
spirit of meek equality, which rather hum¬ 
bled the pride of the great than disquieted 
the spirits of the lowly. More himself justly 
speaks of the hourly interchange of the 
smaller acts of kindness which flow from 
the charities of domestic life, as having a 
claim on his time as strong, as the occupa¬ 
tions which seemed to others so much more 
serious and important. “ While,” says he, 
“ in pleading, in hearing; in deciding causes 
or composing differences, in waiting on some 
men about business, and on others out of 
respect, the greatest part of the day is spent 
on other men’s affairs, the remainder of it 
must be given to my family at home; so 
that I can reserve no part of it to myself, 
that is, to study. I must talk with my wife, 
and chat with my children, and I have some¬ 
what to say to my servants; for all these 
things I reckon as a part of my business, 
except a man will resolve to be a stranger 
at home; and with whomsoever either nature, 
chance, or choice, has engaged a man in any 
commerce, he must endeavour to make him¬ 
self as acceptable to those about him as he 
can.” f 

His occupations now necessarily employed 


* Op. vol. iii. p. 1812. 

t Dedication of Utopia to Peter Giles (Burnet’s 
translation), 1G84. 


a large portion of his time. His professional 
practice became so considerable, that about 
the accession of Henry VIII., in 1509, with 
his legal office in the city of London, it pro¬ 
duced 400Z. a year, probably equivalent to 
an annual income of 5000Z. in the present 
day. Though it be not easy to determine 
the exact period of the occurrences of his 
life, from his establishment in London to 
his acceptance of political office, the begin¬ 
ning of Henry YIII.’s reign may be con¬ 
sidered as the time of his highest eminence 
at the bar. About this time a ship belong¬ 
ing to the Pope, or claimed by his Holiness 
on behalf of some of his subjects, happened 
to come to Southampton, where she was 
seized as a forfeiture — probably as what is 
called a droit of the crown, or a droit of 
the admiralty, though under what circum¬ 
stances, or on what grounds, we know not. 
The papal minister made suit to the King, 
that the case might be argued for the Pope 
by learned counsel in a public place, and in 
presence of the minister himself, who was a 
distinguished civilian. None was found so 
well qualified to be of counsel for him as 
More, who could report in Latin all the 
arguments to his client, and who argued so 
learnedly on the Pope’s side, that he suc¬ 
ceeded in obtaining an order, for the resti¬ 
tution of the vessel detained. 

It has been already intimated, that about 
the same time he had been appointed to a 
judicial office in the city of London, which 
is described by his son-in-law as “ that of 
one of the under-sheriffs.” Roper, who was 
himself for many years an officer of the 
court of King’s Bench, gives the name of 
the office correctly, but does not describe its 
nature and importance so truly as Erasmus, 
who tells his correspondent that More passed 
several years in the city of London as a 
judge in civil causes. “ This office,” he says, 
“ though not laborious, for the court sits 
only on the forenoon of every Thursday, is 
accounted very honourable. No judge of 
that court ever went through more causes ; 
none decided them more uprightly; often 
remitting the fees to which he was entitled 
from the suitors. Ilis deportment in this 







LIFE OF SIR TIIOMAS MORE. 193 


capacity endeared him extremely to his 
fellow-citizens.” * The under-sheriff was 
then apparently judge of the sheriff’s court, 
which, being the county court for London 
and Middlesex, was, at that time, a station 
of honour and advantage, j* For the county 
courts in general, and indeed all the ancient 
subordinate jurisdictions of the common 
law, had not yet been superseded by that 
concentration of authority in the hands of 
the superior courts at Westminster which 
contributed indeed to the purity and dignity 
of the judicial character, as well as to the 
uniformity and the improvement of the ad¬ 
ministration of law, but which cannot be 
said to have served in the same degree to 
promote a speedy and cheap redress of the 
wrongs suffered by those suitors to whom 
cost and delay are most grievous. More’s 
office, in that state of the jurisdiction, might 
therefore have possessed the importance 
which his contemporaries ascribed to it; 
although the denomination of it would not 
make such an impression on modern ears. 
It is apparent that, either as a considerable 
source of his income, or as an honourable 
token of public confidence, this office was 
valued by More; since he informs Eras¬ 
mus, in 1516, that he had declined a hand¬ 
some pension offered to him by the king on 
his return from Flanders, and that he be¬ 
lieved he should always decline it, because 
either it would oblige him to resign his 
office in the city, which he preferred to a 
better, or if he retained it, in case of a con¬ 
troversy of the city with the king for their 
privileges, he might be deemed by his fellow- 
citizens to be disabled by dependence on 
the crown from sincerely and faithfully 
maintaining their rights.]: This last rea¬ 
soning is also interesting, as the first intima¬ 
tion of the necessity of a city law-officer 
being independent of the crown, and of the 
legal resistance of the corporation of London 
to a Tudor king. It paved the way for 
those happier times in which the great city 


* Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 476. 
f “ In urbe sua pro shyrevo dixit.” — Epitaph. 
$ Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 220. 


had the honour to number the Holts and 
the Denmans among her legal advisers.* 
More is the first person in our history 
distinguished by the faculty of public speak¬ 
ing. A remarkable occasion on which it 
was successfully employed in parliament 
against a lavish grant of money to the 
crown is thus recorded by his son-in-law 
as follows: — “In the latter time of king 
Henry VII. he was made a burgess of the 
parliament, wherein was demanded by the 
king about three fifteenths for the marriage 
of his eldest daughter, that then should be 
the Scottish queen. At the last debating 
whereof he made such arguments and rea¬ 
sons there against, that the king’s demands 
were thereby clean overthrown; so that one 
of the king’s privy chamber, named maister 
Tyler, being present thereat, brought word 
to the king out of the parliament house, 
that a beardless boy had disappointed all his 
purpose. Whereupon the king, conceiving 
great indignation towards him, could not be 
satisfied until he had some way revenged it. 
And forasmuch as he, nothing having, could 
nothing lose, his grace devised a causeless 
quarrel against his father; keeping him in 
the Tower till he had made him to pay 100Z. 
fine ” (probably on a charge of having in¬ 
fringed some obsolete penal law). “ Shortly 
after, it fortuned that Sir T. More, coming 


* From communications obtained for me from 
the records of the City, I am enabled to ascertain 
some particulars of the nature of More’s appoint¬ 
ment, which have occasioned a difference of opinion. 
On the 8th of May, 1514, it was agreed by the 
common council, “ that Thomas More, gentleman, 
one of the under-sheriffs of London, should occupy 
his office and chamber by a sufficient deputy, during 
his absence as the king’s ambassador in Flanders.” 
It appears from several entries in the same records, 
from 1496 to 1502 inclusive, that the under-sheriff 
was annually elected, or rather confirmed; for the 
practice was not to remove him without his own 
application or some serious fault. For six years of 
Henry’s reign, Edward Dudley was one of tbe 
under-sheriffs; a circumstance which renders the 
superior importance of the office at that time pro- 
bab’e. Thomas Marowe, the author of works on 
law esteemed in his time, though not published, 
appears also in the above records as under-sheriff. 

Q 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


194 

in a suit to Dr. Fox, bishop of Winchester, 
one of the king’s privy council, the bishop 
called him aside, and, pretending great 
favour towards him, promised that if he 
would be ruled by him he would not fail 
into the king’s favour again to restore him; 
meaning, as it was afterwards conjectured, 
to cause him thereby to confess his offences 
against the king, whereby his highness might, 
with the better colour, have occasion to 
revenge his displeasure against him. But 
when he came from the bishop he fell into 
communication with one maister Whitforde, 
his familiar friend, then chaplain to that 
bishop, and showed him what the bishop 
had said, praying for his advice. Whitforde 
prayed him by the passion of God not to 
follow the counsel; for my lord, to serve 
the king’s turn, will not stick to agree to 
his own father’s death. So Sir Thomas 
More returned to the bishop no more; and 
had not the king died soon after, he was 
determined to have gone over sea.” * That 
the advice of Whitforde was wise, appeared 
from a circumstance which occurred nearly 
ten years after, which exhibits a new feature 
in the character of the king and of his 
bishops. When Dudley was sacrificed to 
popular resentment, under Henry VIII., 
and when he was on his way to execution, 
he met Sir Thomas, to whom he said, — 
“ Oh More, More! God was your good 
friend, that you did not ask the king for¬ 
giveness, as manie would have had you do ; 
for if you had done so, perhaps you should 
have been in the like case with us now." j* 

It was natural that the restorer of poli¬ 
tical eloquence, which had slumbered for a 
long series of ages J, should also be the 
earliest of the parliamentary champions of 
liberty. But it is lamentable that we have 


* Roper, p. 7. There seems to be some forget¬ 
fulness of dates in the latter part of this passage, 
which has been copied by succeeding writers. 
Margaret, it is well known, was married in 1503; 
the debate was not, therefore, later than that year: 
but Henry VII. lived till 1509. 
f More, p. 38. 

J “ Postquam pugnatum est apud Actium, magna 
ilia ingenia cessere.”—Tacitus, Hist. lib. i. cap. 1. 


so little information respecting the oratorical 
powers which alone could have armed him 
for the noble conflict. He may be said to 
hold the same station among us which is 
assigned by Cicero, in his dialogue On the 
Celebrated Orators of Rome, to Cato the 
censor, whose consulship was only about 
ninety years prior to his own. His answer, 
as Speaker of the House of Commons, to 
Wolsey, of which more will be said pre¬ 
sently, is admirable for its promptitude, 
quickness, seasonableness, and caution, com¬ 
bined with dignity and spirit. It unites 
presence of mind and adaptation to the per¬ 
son and circumstances, with address and 
management seldom surpassed. If the tone 
be more submissive than suits modern ears, 
it is yet remarkable for that ingenious re¬ 
finement which for an instant shows a 
glimpse of the sword generally hidden under 
robes of state. “ His eloquent tongue,” says 
Erasmus, “ so well seconds his fertile in¬ 
vention, that no one speaks better when 
suddenly called forth. His attention never 
languishes; his mind is always before his 
words; his memory has all its stock so turned 
into ready money, that, without hesitation 
or delay, it gives out whatever the time and 
the case may require. His acuteness in 
dispute is unrivalled, and he often perplexes 
the most renowned theologians when he 
enters their province.”* Though much of 
this encomium may be applicable rather to 
private conversation than to public debate, 
and though this presence of mind may refer 
altogether to promptitude of repartee, and 
comparatively little to that readiness of 
reply, of which his experience must have 
been limited; it is still obvious that the 
great critic has ascribed to his friend the 
higher part of those mental qualities which, 
when justly balanced and perfectly trained, 
constitute a great orator. 

As if it had been the lot of More to open 
all the paths through the wilds of our old 
English speech, he is to be considered also 
as our earliest prose writer, and as the first 
Englishman who wrote the history of his 

* Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 476. 













LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 195 


country in its present language. The his¬ 
torical fragment* commands belief by sim¬ 
plicity, and by abstinence from too confident 
affirmation. It betrays some negligence 
about minute particulars, which is not dis¬ 
pleasing as a symptom of the absence of 
eagerness to enforce a narrative. The com¬ 
position has an ease and a rotundity (which 
gratify the ear without awakening the sus¬ 
picion of art) of which there was no model 
in any preceding writer of English prose. 

In comparing the prose of More with the 
modern style, we must distinguish the words 
from the composition. A very small part of 
his vocabulary has been superannuated; the 
number of terms which require any ex¬ 
planation is inconsiderable: and in that 
respect the stability of the language is re¬ 
markable. He is, indeed, in his words, more 
English than the great writers of a century 
after him, who loaded their native tongue 
with expressions of Greek or Latin deriva¬ 
tion. Cicero, speaking of “ old Cato,” seems 
almost to describe More. “ His style is 
rather antiquated; he has some words dis¬ 
pleasing to our ears, but which were then in 
familiar use. Change those terms, which he 
could not, you will then prefer no speaker 
to Cato.” | 

But in the combination and arrangement 
of words, in ordinary phraseology and com¬ 
mon habits of composition, he differs more 
widely from the style that has now been 
prevalent among us for nearly two cen¬ 
turies. His diction seems a continued ex¬ 
periment to discover the forms into which 
the language naturally runs. In that at¬ 
tempt he has frequently failed. Fortunate 
accident, or more varied experiment in after¬ 
times, led to the adoption of other combina¬ 
tions, which could scarcely have succeeded, 
if they had not been more consonant to the 
spirit of the language, and more agreeable 
to the ear and the feelings of the people. 
The structure of his sentences is frequently 
not that which the English language has 
finally adopted: the language of his country - 


* History of Richard III. 
f De Clar. Orat. cap. 17. 


men has decided, without appeal, against 
the composition of the father of English 
prose. 

The speeches contained in his fragment, 
like many of those in the ancient historians, 
were probably substantially real, but bright¬ 
ened by ornament, and improved in com¬ 
position. It could, indeed, scarcely be 
otherwise: for the history was written in 
1513*, and the death of Edward IV., with 
which it opens, occurred in 1483; while Car¬ 
dinal Morton, who became prime minister 
two years after that event, appears to have 
taken young More into his household about 
the year 1493. There is, therefore, little 
scope, in so short a time, for much falsifica¬ 
tion, by tradition, of the arguments and 
topics really employed. These speeches 
have the merit of being accommodated, to 
the circumstances, and of being of a ten¬ 
dency to dispose those to whom they were 
addressed to promote the object of the 
speaker; and this merit, rare in similar 
compositions, shows that More had been 
taught, by the practice of speaking in con¬ 
tests where objects the most important are 
the prize of the victor, that eloquence is the 
art of persuasion, and that the end of the 
orator is not the display of his talents, but 
dominion over the minds of his hearers. 
The dying speech, in which Edward exhorts 
the two parties of his friends to harmony, is 
a grave appeal to their prudence, as well as 
an affecting address from a father and a 
king to their public feelings. The surmises 
thrown out by Richard against the Wid- 
villes are short, dark, and well adapted to 
awaken suspicion and alarm. The insinua¬ 
tions against the queen, and the threats of 
danger to the lords themselves from leaving 


* Ilolinshed, vol. iii. p. 360. Holinshed called 
More’s work “ unfinished.” That it was meant to 
extend to the death of Richard III. seems probable 
from the following sentence : — “ But, forasmuch 
as this duke’s (the Duke of Gloucester) demeanour 
ministereth in effect all the whole matter whereof 
this book shall entreat, it is therefore convenient 
to show you, as we farther go, what manner of man 
this was that could find in his heart such mischief 
to conceive.” (P. 361.) 


O 2 













MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


196 

the person of the Duke of York in the hands 
of that princess, in Richard’s speech to the 
Privy Council, before the Archbishop of 
York was sent to Westminster to demand 
the surrender of the boy, are admirable 
specimens of the address and art of crafty 
ambition. Generally speaking, the speeches 
have little of the vague common-place of 
rhetoricians and declaimers; and time is not 
wasted in parade. In the case, indeed, of 
the dispute between the archbishop and the 
queen, about taking the Duke of York out 
of his mother’s care, and from the Sanc¬ 
tuary at Westminster, there is more inge¬ 
nious argument than the scene allows; and 
the mind rejects logical refinements, of which 
the use, on such an occasion, is quite irre¬ 
concilable to dramatic verisimilitude. The 
Duke of Buckingham alleged in council, that 
sanctuary could be claimed only against 
danger; and that the royal infant had 
neither wisdom to desire sanctuary, nor the 
malicious intention in his acts without which 
he could not require it. To this notable 
paradox, which amounted to an affirmation 
that no certainly innocent person could ever 
claim protection from a sanctuary, when it 
was .carried to the queen, she answered 
readily, that if she could be in sanctuary, it 
followed that her child, who was her ward, 
was included in her protection, as much as 
her servants, who were, without contradic¬ 
tion, allowed to be. 

The Latin epigrams of More, a small 
volume which it required two years to carry 
through the press at Basle, are mostly trans¬ 
lations from the Anthologia, which were 
rather made known to Europe by the fame 
of the writer, than calculated to increase it. 
They contain, however, some decisive proofs 
that he always entertained the opinions re¬ 
specting the dependence of all government 
on the consent of the people, to which he 
professed his adherence almost in his dying 
moments. Latin versification was not in that 
early period successfully attempted in any 
Transalpine country. The rules of prosody, 
or at least the laws of metrical composition, 
were not yet sufficiently studied for such 
attempts. His Latinity was of the same 


school with that of his friend Erasmus; which 
was, indeed, common to the first generation 
of scholars after the revival of classical study. 
Finding Latin a sort of general language 
employed by men of letters in their conver¬ 
sation and correspondence, they continued 
the use of it in the mixed and corrupted 
state to which such an application had ne¬ 
cessarily reduced it: they began, indeed, to 
purify it from some grosser corruptions ; but 
they built their style upon the foundation 
of this colloquial dialect, with no rigorous 
observation of the good usage of the Roman 
language. Writings of business, of plea¬ 
santry, of familiar intercourse, could never 
have been composed in pure Latinity ; which 
was still more inconsistent with new man¬ 
ners, institutions, and opinions, and with 
discoveries and inventions added to those 
which were transmitted by antiquity. Eras¬ 
mus, who is the master and model of this 
system of composition, admirably shows how 
much had been gained by loosening the fet¬ 
ters of a dead speech, and acquiring in its 
stead the nature, ease, variety, and vivacity 
of a spoken and living tongue. The course 
of circumstances, however, determined that 
this language should not subsist, or at least 
flourish, for much more than a century. It 
was assailed on one side by the purely clas¬ 
sical, whom Erasmus, in derision, calls “ Ci- 
ceronians; ” and when it was sufficiently 
emascidated by dread of their censure, it 
was finally overwhelmed by the rise of 
a national literature in every European 
language. 

More exemplified the abundance and flexi¬ 
bility of the Erasmian Latinity in Utopia, 
with which this short view of all his writings, 
except those of controversy, may be fitly 
concluded. The idea of the work had been 
suggested by some of the dialogues of Plato, 
who speaks of vast territories, formerly cul¬ 
tivated and peopled, but aftenvards, by some 
convulsion of nature, covered by the Atlantic 
Ocean. These Egyptian traditions, or le¬ 
gends, harmonised admirably with that dis¬ 
covery of a new continent by Columbus, 
which had roused the admiration of Europe 
about twenty years before the composition 






LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 197 

of Utopia. This was the name of an island 
feigned to have been discovered by a sup¬ 
posed companion of Amerigo Vespucci, who 
is made to tell the wondrous tale of its con¬ 
dition to More, at Antwerp, in 1514: and 
in it was the seat of the Platonic conception 
of an imaginary commonwealth. All the 
names which he invented for men or places * 
were intimations of their being unreal, and 
were, perhaps, by treating with raillery his 
own notions, intended to silence gainsayers. 
The first book, which is preliminary, is na¬ 
turally and ingeniously opened by a con¬ 
versation, in which Raphael Hytliloday, the 
Utopian traveller, describes his visit to Eng¬ 
land ; where, as much as in other countries, 
he found all proposals for improvement en¬ 
countered by the remark, that, — “ Such 
things pleased our ancestors, and it were 
well for us if we could but match them : as 
if it were a great mischief that any should 
be found wiser than his ancestors.” “ I 
met,” he goes on to say, “ these proud, mo¬ 
rose, and absurd judgments, particularly 
once when dining with Cardinal Morton at 
London.” “ There happened to be at table 
an English lawyer, who run out into high 
commendation of the severe execution of 
justice upon thieves, who were then hanged 
so fast that there were sometimes twenty 
hanging upon one gibbet, and added, ‘ that 
he could not wonder enough how it came to 
pass that there were so many thieves left 
robbing in all places.’ ” Raphael answered, 
“that it was because the punishment of 

death was neither just in itself, nor good for 
the public ; for as the severity was too great, 
so the remedy was not effectual. You, as 
well as other nations, like bad schoolmasters, 
chastise their scholars because they have not 
the skill to teach them.” Raphael after¬ 
wards more specially ascribed the gangs of 
banditti who, after the suppression of Perkin 
Warbeck’s Cornish revolt, infested England, 
to two causes; of which the first was the 
frequent disbanding of the idle and armed 
retainers of the nobles, who, when from 
necessity let loose from their masters, were 
too proud for industry, and had no resource 
but rapine; and the second was the conver¬ 
sion of much corn-field into pasture for 
sheep, because the latter had become more 
profitable,—by which base motives many 
landholders were tempted to expel their 
tenants and destroy the food of man. Ra¬ 
phael suggested the substitution of hard 
labour for death; for which he quoted the 
example of the Romans, and of an imagi¬ 
nary community in Persia. “ The lawyer 
answered, ‘ that it could never be so settled 
in England, without endangering the whole 
nation by it: ’ he shook his head, and 
made some grimaces, and then held his 
peace, and all the company seemed to be of 
his mind. But the cardinal said, 4 It is not 
easy to say whether this plan would succeed 
or not, since no trial has been made of it; 
but it might be tried on thieves condemned 
to death, and adopted if found to answer; 
and vagabonds might be treated in the same 
way.’ When the cardinal had said this, 
they all fell to commend the motion, though 
they had despised it when it came from me. 
They more particularly commended that 
concerning the vagabonds, because it had 
been added by him.” * 

From some parts of the above extracts it 
is apparent that More, instead of having 
anticipated the economical doctrines of Adam 
Smith, as some modern writers have fan¬ 
cied, was thoroughly imbued with the pre¬ 
judices of his contemporaries against the 
inclosure of commons, and the extension of 

* The following specimen of Utopian etymologies 
may amuse some readers : — 

Utopia ourotros nowhere. 

Achorians cc-%£eos of no country. 

Ademians of no people. 

Anvderfa ) , , , The invisible 

{ A waterless. .. . 

river) J city is on 

Amaurot (a) , .. « , the river 

city J waterless. 

Hytliloday lotiu-SJxos a learner of trifles, &c. 

Some are intentionally unmeaning, and others 
are taken from little known language in order to 
perplex pedants. Joseph Scaliger represents Uto¬ 
pia as a word not formed according to the analogy 
which regulates the formation of Greek words. 

* Burnet’s translation, p. 13, et scq. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


198 

pasture. It is, however, observable, that he 
is perfectly consistent with himself, and 
follows his principles through all their legi¬ 
timate consequences, though they may end 
in doctrines of very startling sound. Con¬ 
sidering separate property as always pro¬ 
ductive of unequal distribution of the fruits 
of labour, and regarding that inequality of 
fortune as the source of bodily suffering to 
those who labour, and of mental depravation 
to those who are not compelled to toil for 
subsistence, Hythloday is made to say, that 
“ as long as there is any property, and 
while money is the standard of all other 
things, he cannot expect that a nation can 
be governed either justly or happily.” * 
More himself objects to Hythloday: “It 
seems to me that men cannot live conve¬ 
niently where all things are common. How 
can there be any plenty where every man 
will excuse himself from labouring ? for as 
the hope of gain doth not excite him, so the 
confidence that he has in other men’s in¬ 
dustry may make him slothful. And if people 
come to be pinched with want, and yet can¬ 
not dispose of any thing as their own, what 
can follow but perpetual sedition and blood¬ 
shed? especially when the reverence and 
authority due to magistrates fall to the 
ground; for I cannot imagine how they can 
be kept up among those that are in all 
things equal to one another.” These remarks 
do in reality contain the germs of unanswer¬ 
able objections to all those projects of a 
community of goods, which suppose the 
moral character of the majority of mankind 
to continue, at the moment of their adop¬ 
tion, such as it has been heretofore in the 
most favourable instances. If, indeed, it be 
proposed only on the supposition, that by 
the influence of laws, or by the agency of 
any other cause, mankind in general are 
rendered more honest, more benevolent, 
more disinterested than they have hitherto 
been, it is evident that they will, in the same 


* Burnet’s translation, p. 57. Happening to 
write where I have no access to the original, I use 
Burnet’s translation. There can be no doubt of 
Burnet’s learning or fidelity. 


proportion, approach to a practice more near 
the principle of an equality and a commu¬ 
nity of all advantages. The hints of an 
answer to Plato, thrown out by More, are 
so decisive, that it is not easy to see how he 
left this speck on his romance, unless we 
may be allowed to suspect that the specula¬ 
tion was in part suggested as a convenient 
cover for that biting satire on the sordid and 
rapacious government of Henry VII. which 
occupies a considerable portion of Hythlo- 
day’s first discourse. It may also be sup¬ 
posed that More, not anxious to save vision¬ 
ary reformers from a few light blows in an 
attack aimed at corrupt and tyrannical states¬ 
men, thinks it suitable to his imaginary per¬ 
sonage, and conducive to the liveliness of 
his fiction, to represent the traveller in 
Utopia as touched by one of the most allur¬ 
ing and delusive of political chimeras. 

In Utopia, farm-houses were built over 
the whole country, to which inhabitants were 
sent in rotation from the fifty-four cities. 
Every family had forty men and women, 
besides two slaves; a master and mistress 
preside over every family; and over thirty 
families a magistrate. Every year twenty 
of the family return to town, being two 
years in the country; so that all acquire 
some knowledge of agriculture, and the land 
is never left in the hands of persons quite 
unacquainted with country labours. When 
they want any thing in the country which it 
doth not produce, they fetch it from the city 
without carrying any thing in exchange : 
the magistrates take care to see it given to 
them. The people of the towns carry their 
commodities to the market-place, where they 
are taken away by those who need them. 
The chief business of the magistrates is to 
take care that no man may live idle, and 
that every one should labour in his trade for 
six hours of every twenty-four ; — a portion 
of time which, according to Hythloday, 
was sufficient for an abundant supply of all 
the necessaries and moderate accommoda¬ 
tions of the community; and which is not 
inadequate where all labour, and none ap¬ 
ply extreme labour to the production of 
superfluities to gratify a few, — where there 






LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 


are no idle priests, or idle rich men, — and 
where women of all sorts perform then- 
light allotment of labour. To women all 
domestic offices which did not degrade or 
displease were assigned. Unhappily, how¬ 
ever, the iniquitous and unrighteous ex¬ 
pedient was devised, of releasing the better 
order of females from offensive and noisome 
occupations, by throwing them upon slaves. 
Their citizens were forbidden to be butchers, 
“ because they think that pity and good¬ 
nature, which are among the best of those 
affections that are born within us, are much 
impaired by the butchering of animals ; ” — 
a striking representation, indeed, of the de¬ 
praving effects of cruelty to animals, but 
abused for the iniquitous and cruel purpose 
of training inferiors to barbarous habits, in 
order to preserve for their masters the ex¬ 
clusive benefit of a discipline of humanity. 
Slaves, too, were employed in hunting, 
which was deemed too frivolous and bar¬ 
barous an amusement for citizens. “ They 
look upon hunting as one of the basest 
parts of a butcher’s business, for they ac¬ 
count it more decent to kill beasts for the 
sustenance of mankind, than to take plea¬ 
sure in seeing a weak, harmless, and fearful 
hare torn in pieces by a strong, fierce, and 
cruel dog.” An excess of population was 
remedied by planting colonies; a defect, by 
the recall of the necessary number of former 
colonists; irregularities of distribution, by 
transferring the superfluous members of one 
township to supply the vacancies in another. 
They did not enslave their prisoners, nor 
the children of their own slaves. In those 
maladies where there is no hope of cure 
or alleviation, it was customary for the 
Utopian priests to advise the patient volun¬ 
tarily to shorten his useless and burthen- 
some life by opium or some equally easy 
means. In cases of suicide, without per¬ 
mission of the priests and the senate, the 
party is excluded from the honours of a 
decent funeral. They allow divorce in 
cases of adultery, and incorrigible perverse¬ 
ness. Slavery is the general punishment of 
the highest, crime. They have few laws, 
and no lawyers. “ Utopus, the founder of 


199 

the state, made a law that every man might 
be of what religion he pleased, and might 
endeavour to draw others to it by force of 
argument and by amicable and modest 
ways; but those who used reproaches or 
violence in their attempts were to be con¬ 
demned to banishment or slavery.” The 
following passage is so remarkable, and has 
hitherto been so little considered in the 
history of toleration, that I shall insert it at 
length : — “ This law was made by Utopus, 
not only for preserving the public peace, 
which, he said, suffered much by daily conten¬ 
tions and irreconcileable heat in these mat¬ 
ters, but because he thought the interest of 
religion itself required it. As for those 
who so far depart from the dignity of human 
nature as to think that our souls died with 
our bodies, or that the world was governed 
by chance without a wise and over-ruling 
Providence, the Utopians never raise them 
to honours or offices, nor employ them in 
any public trust, but despise them as men 
of base and sordid minds; yet they do not 
punish such men, because they lay it down 
as a ground, that a man cannot make him¬ 
self believe any thing he pleases : nor do 
they drive any to dissemble their thoughts; 
so that men are not tempted to lie or 
disguise their opinions among them, which, 
being a sort of fraud, is abhorred by the 
Utopians:” — a beautiful and conclusive' 
reason, which, when it was used for the first 
time, as it probably was in Utopia, must 
have been drawn from so deep a sense of 
the value of sincerity as of itself to prove 
that he who thus employed it was sincere. 
“ These unbelievers are not allowed to 
argue before the common people ; but they 
are suffered and even encouraged to dispute 
in private with their priests and other grave 
men, being confident that they will be cured 
of these mad opinions by having reason 
laid before them.” 

It may be doubted whether some extra¬ 
vagancies in other parts of Utopia were not 
introduced to cover such passages as the 
above, by enabling the writer to call the 
whole a mere sport of wit, and thus ex¬ 
empt him from the perilous responsibility of 









200 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


having maintained such doctrines seriously. 
In other cases he seems diffidently to pro¬ 
pose opinions to which he was in some 
measure inclined, but in the course of his 
statement to have warmed himself into an 
indignation against the vices and corruptions 
of Europe, which vents itself in eloquent 
invectives not unworthy of Gulliver. He 
makes Hythloday at last declare, — “As I 
hope for mercy, I can have no other notion 
of all the other governments that I see or 
know, but that they are a conspiracy of the 
richer sort, who, on pretence of managing 
the public, do only pursue their private 
ends.” The true notion of Utopia is, how¬ 
ever, that it intimates a variety of doctrines, 
and exhibits a multiplicity of projects, which 
the writer regards with almost every pos¬ 
sible degree of approbation and shade of 
assent; from the frontiers of serious and 
entire belief, through gradations of descend¬ 
ing plausibility, where the lowest are 
scarcely more than the exercises of inge¬ 
nuity, and to which some wild paradoxes 
are appended, either as a vehicle, or as an 
easy means (if necessary) of disavowing the 
serious intention of the whole of this Pla¬ 
tonic fiction. 

It must be owned, that though one class 
of More’s successors was more susceptible of 
judicious admiration of the beauties of Plato 
and Cicero than his less perfectly formed 
taste could be, and though another division 
of them had acquired a knowledge of the 
words of the Greek language, and percep¬ 
tion of their force and distinctions, for the 
attainment of which More came too early 
into the world, yet none would .have been 
so heartily welcomed by the masters of the 
Lyceum and the Academy, as qualified to 
take a part in the discussion of those grave 
and lofty themes which were freely agitated 
in these early nurseries of human reason. 

The date of the publication of Utopia 
would mark, probably, also the happiest 
period of its author’s life. He had now ac¬ 
quired an income equivalent to four or five 
thousand pounds sterling of our present 
money, by his own independent industry 
and well-earned character. He had leisure 


for the cultivation of literature, for corre¬ 
spondence with his friend Erasmus, for keep¬ 
ing up an intercourse with European men 
of letters, who had already placed him in 
their first class, and for the composition of 
works, from which, unaware of the rapid 
changes which were to ensue, he probably 
promised himself more fame, or at least 
more popularity, than they have procured 
for him. His affections and his temper con¬ 
tinued to ensure the happiness of his home, 
even when his son with a wife, three daugh¬ 
ters with their husbands, and a proportion- 
able number of grandchildren, dwelt under 
his patriarchal roof. 

At the same period the general progress 
of European literature, and the cheerful 
prospects of improved education and dif¬ 
fused knowledge, had filled the minds of 
More and Erasmus with delight. The ex¬ 
pectation of an age of pacific improvement 
seems to have prevailed among studious 
men in the twenty years which elapsed be¬ 
tween the migration of classical learning 
across the Alps, and the rise of the religious 
dissensions stirred up by the preaching of 
Luther. “ I foresee,” says Bishop Tunstall, 
writing to Erasmus, “ that our posterity 
will rival the ancients in every sort of study ; 
and if they be not ungrateful, they will pay 
the greatest thanks to those who have re¬ 
vived these studies. Go on, and deserve 
well of posterity, who will never suffer the 
name of Erasmus to perish.” * Erasmus 
himself, two years after, expresses the same 
hopes, which, with unwonted courtesy, he 
chooses to found on the literary character of 
the conversation in the palace of Henry 
VIII. : — “ The world is recovering the 
use of its senses, like one awakened from 
the deepest sleep; and yet there are some 
who cling to their old ignorance with their 
hands and feet, and will not suffer them¬ 
selves to be torn from it.” f To Wolsey he 
speaks in still more sanguine language, 
mixed with the like personal compliment: 
— “I see another golden age arising, if 


* Erasmi Opera, voL iii. p. 2G7. 
t Ibid. p. 321. 






LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 201 

other rulers be animated by your spirit. 
Nor will posterity be ungrateful. This new 
felicity, obtained for the world by you, will 
be commemorated in immortal monuments 
by Grecian and Roman eloquence.” * Though 
the judgment of posterity in favour of kings 
and cardinals is thus confidently foretold, 
the writers do not the less betray their 
hope of a better age, which will bestow the 
highest honours on the promoters of know¬ 
ledge. A better age was, in truth, to come; 
but the time and circumstances of its ap¬ 
pearance did not correspond to their sanguine 
hopes. An age of iron was to precede, in 
which the turbulence of reformation and the 
obstinacy of establishment w T ere to meet in 
long and bloody contest. 

When the storm seemed ready to break 
out, Erasmus thought it his duty to incur 
the obloquy which always attends media¬ 
torial counsels. “ You know the character 
of the Germans, who are more easily led 
than driven. Great danger may arise, if 
the native ferocity of that people be ex¬ 
asperated by untimely severities. We see 
the pertinacity of Bohemia and the neigh¬ 
bouring provinces. A bloody policy has 
been tried without success. Other remedies 
must be employed. The hatred of Rome is 
fixed in the minds of many nations, chiefly 
(from the rumours believed of the dissolute 
manners of that city, and from the immo¬ 
ralities of the representatives of the supreme 
pontiff abroad.” The uncharitableness, the 
turbulence, the hatred, the bloodshed, which 
followed the preaching of Luther, closed the 
bright visions of the two illustrious friends, 
who agreed in an ardent love of peace, 
though not without a difference in the shades 
and modifications of their pacific temper, 
arising from some dissimilarity of original 
character. The tender heart of More clung 
more strongly to the religion of his youth; 
while Erasmus more anxiously apprehended 
the disturbance of his tastes and pursuits. 

The last betrays in some of his writings a 
temper which might lead us to doubt, whe¬ 
ther he considered the portion of truth which 
was within reach of his friend as equivalent 
to the evils attendant on the search. 

The public life of More may be said to 
have begun in the summer of 1514*, with a 
mission to Bruges, in which Tunstall, then 
Master of the Rolls, and afterwards Bishop 
of Durham, was his colleague, and of which 
the object was to settle some particulars 
relating to the commercial intercourse of 
England with the Netherlands. He was 
consoled for a detention, unexpectedly long, 
by the company of Tunstall, whom he de¬ 
scribes f as one not only fraught with all 
learning, and severe in his life and morals, 
but inferior to no man as a delightful com¬ 
panion. On this mission he became ac¬ 
quainted with several of the friends of 
Erasmus in Flanders, where he evidently 
saw a progress in the accommodations and 
ornaments of life, to which he had been 
hitherto a stranger. With Peter Giles of 
Antwerp, to whom he intrusted the publica¬ 
tion of Utopia by a prefatory dedication, he 
continued to be closely connected during 
the lives of both. In the year following, he 
was again sent to the Netherlands on the 
like mission;—the intricate relations of 
traffic between the two countries having 
given rise to a succession of disputes, in 
which the determination of one case gene¬ 
rally produced new complaints. 

In the beginning of 1516 More was made 
a privy-councillor; and from that time may 
be dated the final surrender of his own tastes 
for domestic life, and his predilections for 
studious leisure, to the flattering impor¬ 
tunities of Henry VIII. “ He had re¬ 
solved,” says Erasmus, “ to be content with 
his private station; but having gone on 
more than one mission abroad, the king, 
not discouraged by the unusual refusal of a 
pension, did not rest till he had drawn More 
into the palace. For why should I not say 
‘ drawn ,’ since no man ever laboured with 

* Erasmi Opera, vol. iii. p. 591. To this theory 
neither of the parties about to contend could have 
assented; but it is not on that account the less 
likely to be in a great measure true. 

* Records of the Commoii Council of London, 
f In a letter to Erasmus, 30lh April, 1516. 






















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


202 

more industry for admission to a court, than 
More to avoid it ? The King would scarcely 
ever suffer the philosopher to quit him. 
For if serious affairs were to be considered, 
who could give more prudent counsel? or 
if the king’s mind was to be relaxed by 
cheerful conversation, where could there be 
a more facetious companion?”* Roper, 
who was an eye-witness of these circum¬ 
stances, relates them with an agreeable sim¬ 
plicity. “ So from time to time was he by 
the king advanced, continuing in his singular 
favour and trusty service for twenty years. 
A good part thereof used the king, upon 
holidays, when he had done his own devo¬ 
tion, to send for him; and there, sometimes 
in matters of astronomy, geometry, divinity, 
and such other faculties, and sometimes on 
his worldly affairs, to converse with him. 
And other whiles in the night would he have 
him up into the leads, there to consider with 
him the diversities, courses, motions, and 
operations of the stars and planets. And 
because he was of a pleasant disposition, 
it pleased the king and queen, after the 
council had supped at the time of their own 
(i. e. the royal) supper, to call for him to be 
merry with them.” What Roper adds could 
not have been discovered by a less near ob¬ 
server, and would scarcely be credited upon 
less authority: “When them he perceived 
so much in his talk to delight, that he could 
not once in a month get leave to go home 
to his wife and children (whose company 
he most desired), he, much misliking this 
restraint on his liberty, began thereupon 
somewhat to dissemble his nature, and so by 
little and little from his former mirth to 
disuse himself, that he was of them from 
thenceforth, at such seasons, no more so 
ordinarily sent for.”f To his retirement at 
Chelsea, however, the king followed him. 
“ He used of a particular love to come of 
a sudden to Chelsea, and, leaning on his 
shoulder, to talk with him of secret counsel 
in his garden, yea, and to dine with him 
upon no inviting.”j The taste for More’s 


* Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 476. 
t Roper, p. 12. J More, p. 49. 


conversation, and the eagerness for his com¬ 
pany, thus displayed, would be creditable to 
the king, if his behaviour in after-time had 
not converted them into the strongest proofs 
of utter depravity. Even in Henry’s favour 
there was somewhat tyrannical; and his very 
friendship was dictatorial and self-willed. 
It was reserved for him afterwards to ex¬ 
hibit the singular, and perhaps solitary, exam¬ 
ple of a man unsoftened by the recollection 
of a communion of counsels, of studies, of 
amusements, of social pleasures with such 
a companion. In the moments of Henry’s 
partiality, the sagacity of More was not so 
utterly blinded by his good-nature, that he 
did not in some degree penetrate into the 
true character of these caresses from a beast 
of prey. “ When I saw the king,” says his 
son-in-law, “ walking with him for an hour, 
holding his arm about his neck, I rejoiced, 
and said to Sir Thomas, liow happy he was 
whom the king had so familiarly enter¬ 
tained, as I had never seen him to do to any 
one before, except Cardinal Wolsey. ‘I 
thank our Lord, son,’ said he, 4 1 find his 
grace my very good lord indeed, and I be¬ 
lieve he doth as singularly favour me as any 
other subject within this realm: howbeit, 
son Roper, I may tell thee, I have no cause 
to be proud thereof; for if my head would 
win him a castle in France, when there was 
war between us, it should not fail to go.’ ” * 
An edition of Utopia had been printed 
incorrectly, perhaps clandestinely, at Paris ; 
but, in 1518, Erasmus’s friend and printer, 
Froben, brought out a correct one at Basle, 
the publication of which had been retarded 
by the expectation of a preface from Bu- 
dams, the restorer of Greek learning in 
France, and probably the most critical 
scholar in that province of literature on' the 
north of the Alps. The book was received 
with loud applause by the scholars of France 
and Germany. Erasmus in confidence ob- 


* Roper, pp. 21, 22. Compare this insight into 
Henry’s character with a declaration, post, of an 
opposite nature, though borrowed also from castles 
and towns, made by Charles Y. when he heard of 
More’s murder. 











LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 


203 


served to an intimate friend, that the second 
book having been written before the first, 
had occasioned some disorder and inequality 
of style ; but he particularly praised its no¬ 
velty and originality, and its keen satire on 
the vices and absurdities of Europe. 

So important was the office of under¬ 
sheriff then held to be, that More did not 
resign it till the 23d of July, 1519*, though 
he had in the intermediate time served the 
public in stations of trust and honour. In 
1521 he was knighted, and raised to the 
office of treasurer of the exchequer f, a 
station in some respects the same with that 
of chancellor of the exchequer, who at pre¬ 
sent is on his appointment designated by the 
additional name of under-treasurer. It is a 
minute, but somewhat remarkable, stroke 
in the picture of manners, that the honour 
of knighthood should be spoken of by Eras¬ 
mus, if not as of superior dignity to so 
important an office, at least as observably 
adding to its consequence. 

From 1517 to 1522, More was employed 
at various times at Bruges, in missions like 
his first to the Flemish government, or at 
Calais in watching and conciliating Francis I., 
with whom Henry and Wolsey long thought 
it convenient to keep up friendly appear¬ 
ances. To trace the date of More’s re¬ 
luctant journeys in the course of the un¬ 
interesting attempts of politicians on both 
sides to gain or dupe each other, would be 
vain, without some outline of the nego- 


* Records of the City of London. 

f Est quod Moro gratuleris; nam Rex hunc ncc 
ambientem nec flagitantem munere magnifico honesta- 
vit, addito salario nequaquam penitendo: est enim 
principi suo h thesauris. . . . Nec hoc contentus, 
equitis aurati dignitatem adjecit. — Erasmus, Op. 
vol. iii. p. 378. 

« Then died Master Weston, treasurer of the 
exchequer, whose office the king of his own accord , 
without any asking , freely gave unto Sir Thomas 
More.” — Roper, 13. 

The minute verbal coincidences which often occur 
between Erasmus and Roper, cannot be explained 
otherwise than by the probable supposition, that 
copies or originals of the correspondence between 
More and Erasmus were preserved by Roper after 
the death of the former. 


tiations in which he was employed, and re¬ 
pulsive to most readers, even if the inquiry 
promised a better chance of a successful 
result. Wolsey appears to have occasionally 
appointed commissioners to conduct his own 
affairs, as well as those of his master, at 
Calais. At this place they could receive 
instructions from London with the greatest 
rapidity, and it was easy to manage nego¬ 
tiations, and to shift them speedily, with 
Brussels and Paris; with the additional ad¬ 
vantage, that it might be somewhat easier 
to conceal from each one in turn of those 
jealous courts the secret dealings of his em¬ 
ployers with the other, than if the des¬ 
patches had been sent directly from London 
to the place of their destination. Of this 
commission More was once at least an un¬ 
willing member. Erasmus, in a letter to 
Peter Giles on the 15 th of November, 1518, 
says, “ More is still at Calais, of which he 
is heartily tired. He lives with great ex¬ 
pense, and is engaged in business most 
odious to him. Such are the rewards re¬ 
served by kings for their favourites.” * Two 
years afterwards, More writes more bitterly 
to Erasmus, of his own residence and occu¬ 
pations. “ I approve your determination 
never to be involved in the busy trifling of 
princes; from which, as you love me, you 
must wish that I were extricated. You can¬ 
not imagine how painfully I feel myself 
plunged in them, for nothing can be more 
odious to me than this legation. I am here 
banished to a petty sea-port, of which the 
air and the earth are equally disagreeable to 
me. Abhorrent as I am by nature from 
strife, even when it is profitable, as at home, 
you may judge how wearisome it is here 
where it is attended by loss.” f On one of 
his missions, — that of the summer 1519,— 
More had harboured hopes of being con¬ 
soled by seeing Erasmus at Calais, for all 
the tiresome pageantry, selfish scuffles, and 
paltry frauds, which he was to witness at 
the congress of kings J, where he could find 


* Op. vol. iii. p. 357. f Ibid* P- 589. 

X Ibid. From the dates of the following letters 















204 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


little to alter those splenetic views of courts 
which his disappointed benevolence breathed 
in Utopia. Wolsey twice visited Calais during 
the residence of More, who appears to have 
then had a weight in council, and a place in 
the royal favour, second only to those of the 
cardinal. 

In 1523*, a parliament was held in the 
middle of April, at Westminster, in which 
More took a part so honourable to his me¬ 
mory, that though it has been already men¬ 
tioned when touching on, his eloquence, it 
cannot be so shortly passed over here, be¬ 
cause it was one of those signal acts of his 
life which bears on it the stamp of his cha¬ 
racter. Sir John, his father, in spite of 
very advanced age, had been named at the 
beginning of this parliament one of “ the 
triers of petitions from Gascony,” — an 
office of which the duties had become nomi¬ 
nal, but which still retained its ancient dig¬ 
nity; while of the House of Commons, Sir 
Thomas himself was chosen to be the speaker. 
He excused himself, as usual, on the ground 
of alleged disability; but his excuse was 
justly pronounced to be inadmissible. The 
Journals of Parliament are lost, or at least 
have not been printed; and the Rolls ex¬ 
hibit only a short account of what occurred, 
which is necessarily an unsatisfactory sub¬ 
stitute for the deficient Journals. But as 
the matter personally concerns Sir Thomas 
More, and as the account of it given by his 
son-in-law, then an inmate in his house, 
agrees with the abridgment of the Rolls, as 
far as the latter goes, it has been thought 
proper in this place to insert the very words 
of Roper’s narrative. It may be reasonably 
conjectured that the speeches of More were 
copied from his manuscript by his pious son- 
in-law.f “ Sith I perceive, most redoubted 


of Erasmus, it appears that the hopes of More were 
disappointed. 

* 14 Hen. VIII. 

j- This conjecture is almost raised above that 
name by what precedes. “ Sir Thomas More made 
an oration, not now extant, to the king’s highness, 
for his discharge from the speakership, wliereunto 
when the king would not consent, the speaker 
spoke to his grace in form following.” — It cannot 


sovereign, that it standeth not with your 
pleasure to reform this election, and cause 
it to be changed, but have, by the mouth of 
the most reverend father in God the legate, 
your highness’s chancellor, thereunto given 
your most royal assent, and have of your 
benignity determined far above that I may 
bear for this office to repute me meet, rather 
than that you should seem to impute unto 
your commons that they had unmeetly 
chosen, I am ready obediently to conform 
myself to the accomplishment of your high¬ 
ness’s pleasure and commandment. In most 
humble wise 1 beseech your majesty, that I 
may make to you two lowly petitions ; — the 
one privately concerning myself, the other 
the whole assembly of your commons’ house. 
For myself, most gracious sovereign, that if 
it mishap me in any thing hereafter, that is, 
on the behalf of your commons in your 
high presence to be declared, to mistake my 
message, and in lack of good utterance by 
my mishearsal to prevent or impair their 
prudent instructions, that it may then like 
your most noble majesty to give me leave to 
repair again unto the commons’ house, and 
to confer with them and take their advice 
what things I shall on their behalf utter and 
speak before your royal grace. 

“ Mine other humble request, most ex¬ 
cellent prince, is this: forasmuch as there 
be of your commons here by your high com¬ 
mandment assembled for your parliament, a 
great number which are after the accustomed 
manner appointed in the commons’ house to 
heal and advise of the common affairs among 
themselves apart; and albeit, most dear liege 
lord, that according to your most prudent 
advice , by your honourable writs every 
where declared, there hath been as due dili¬ 
gence used in sending up to your highness’s 
court of parliament the most discreet per¬ 
sons out of every quarter that men could 
esteem meet thereunto ; whereby it is not to 
be doubted but that there is a very substantial 


be doubted, without injustice to the honest and 
amiable biographer, that he would have his readers 
to understand that the original of the speeches, 
which actually follow, were extant in his hands. 









LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 205 

assembly of right wise, meet, and politique 
persons; yet, most victorious prince, sith 
among so many wise men, neither is every 
man wise alike, nor, among so many alike well 
witted, every man well spoken; and it often 
happeth that as much folly is uttered with 
painted polished speech, so many boisterous 
and rude in language give right substantial 
counsel; and sith also in matters of great 
importance, the mind is often so occupied in 
the matter, that a man rather studieth what 
to say than how; by reason whereof the 
wisest man and best spoken in a whole coun¬ 
try fortuneth, when his mind is fervent in 
the matter, somewhat to speak in such wise 
as he would afterwards wish to have been 
uttered otherwise, and yet no worse will had 
when he spake it than he had when he would 
so gladly change it; therefore, most gracious 
sovereign, considering that in your high 
court of parliament is nothing treated but 
matter of weight and importance concerning 
your realm, and your own royal estate, it 
could not fail to put to silence from the giving 
of their advice and counsel many of your 
discreet commons, to the great hindrance of 
your common affairs, unless every one of 
your commons were utterly discharged from 
all doubt and fear how anything that it 
should happen them to speak, should happen 
of your highness to be taken. And in this 
point, though your well-known and proved 
benignity putteth every man in good hope; 
yet such is the weight of the matter, such is 
the reverend dread that the timorous hearts 
of your natural subjects conceive towards 
your highness, our most redoubted king and 
undoubted sovereign, that they cannot in 
this point find themselves satisfied, except 
your gracious bounty therein declared put 
away the scruple of their timorous minds, 
and put them out of doubt. It may there¬ 
fore like your most abundant grace to give 
to all your commons here assembled your 
most gracious licence and pardon freely, 
without doubt of your dreadful displeasure, 
every man to discharge his conscience, and 
boldly in every thing incident among us to 
declare his advice; and whatsoever happen- 
eth any man to say, that it may like your 

noble majesty, of your inestimable goodness, 
to take all in good part, interpreting every 
man’s words, how uncunningly soever they 
may be couched, to proceed yet of good zeal 
towards the profit of your realm, and honour 
of your royal person; and the prosperous 
estate and preservation whereof, most excel¬ 
lent sovereign, is the thing which we all, 
your majesty’s humble loving subjects, ac¬ 
cording to the most bounden duty of our 
natural allegiance, most highly desire and 
pray for.” 

This speech, the substance of which is in 
the Rolls denominated “ the protest,” is con¬ 
formable to former usage, and the model of 
speeches made since that time in the like 
circumstances. What follows is more singu¬ 
lar, and not easily reconciled with the inti¬ 
mate connection then subsisting between the 
speaker and the government, especially with 
the cardinal: — 

“At this parliament Cardinal Wolsey 
found himself much aggrieved with the bur¬ 
gesses thereof; for that nothing was so soon 
done or spoken therein, but that it was im¬ 
mediately blown abroad in every alehouse. 

It fortuned at that parliament a very great 
subsidy to be demanded, which the cardinal, 
fearing would not pass the commons’ house, 
determined, for the furtherance thereof, to 
be there present himself. Before where 
coming, after long debating there, whether 
it was better but with a few of his lords, as 
the most opinion of the house was, or with 
his whole train royally to receive him; 

‘ Masters,’ quoth Sir Thomas More, ‘ foras¬ 
much as my lord cardinal lately, ye wot 
well, laid to our charge the lightness of our 
tongues for things uttered out of this house, 
it shall not in my mind be amiss to receive 
him with all his pomp, with his maces, his 
pillars, his poll-axes, his hat, and great seal 
too; to the intent, that if he find the like 
fault with us hereafter, we may be the bolder 
from ourselves to lay the blame on those 
whom his grace bringeth here with him.’ 
Whereunto the house wholly agreeing, he 
was received accordingly. Where after he 
had by a solemn oration, by many reasons, 
proved how necessary it was the demand 







206 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


then moved to be granted, and farther 
showed that less would not serve to maintain 
the prince’s purpose ; he seeing the company- 
sitting still silent, and thereunto nothing 
answering, and, contrary to his expectation, 
showing in themselves towards his request 
no towardness of inclination, said to them, 
‘ Masters, you have many wise and learned 
men amongst you, and sith I am from the 
king’s own person sent hitherto unto you, to 
the preservation of yourselves and of all the 
realm, I think it meet you give me some 
reasonable answer.’ Whereat every man 
holding his peace, then began to speak to 
one Master Marney, afterwards Lord Mar- 
ney; ‘ IIow say you,’ quoth he, ‘ Master 
Marney?’ who making him no answer nei¬ 
ther, he severally asked the same question of 
divers others, accounted the wisest of the 
company; to whom, when none of them all 
would give so much as one word, being 
agreed before, as the custom was, to give 
answer by their speaker; ‘ Masters,’ quoth 
the cardinal, ‘unless it be the manner of 
your house, as of likelihood it is, by the 
mouth of your speaker, whom you have 
chosen for trusty and wise (as indeed he is), 
in such cases to utter your minds, here is, 
without doubt, a marvellously obstinate si¬ 
lence : ’ and thereupon he required answer 
of Mr. Speaker ; who first reverently, on his 
knees, excusing the silence of the house, 
abashed at the presence of so noble a per¬ 
sonage, able to amaze the wisest and best 
learned in a realm, and then, by many pro¬ 
bable arguments, proving that for them to 
make answer was neither expedient nor 
agreeable with the ancient liberty of the 
house, in conclusion for himself, showed, that 
though they had all with their voices trusted 
him, yet except every one of them could put 
into his own head their several wits, he alone 
in so weighty a matter was unmeet to make 
his grace answer. Whereupon the cardinal, 
displeased with Sir Thomas More, that had 
not in this parliament in all things satisfied 
his desire, suddenly arose and departed.” * 
This passage deserves attention as a spe¬ 


* Eoper, pp. 13—21. 


cimen of the mild independence and quiet 
steadiness of More’s character, and also as a 
proof how he perceived the strength which 
the commons had gained by the power of 
the purse, which was daily and silently grow¬ 
ing, and which could be disturbed only by 
such an unseasonable show of an immature 
authority as might too soon have roused the 
crown to resistance. It is one among many 
instances of the progress of the influence of 
parliaments in the midst of their apparently 
indiscriminate submission, and it affords a 
pregnant proof that we must not estimate 
the spirit of our forefathers by the humility 
of their demeanour. 

The reader will observe how nearly the 
example of More was followed by a succeed¬ 
ing speaker, comparatively of no distinction, 
but in circumstances far more memorable, 
in the answer of Lenthall to Charles I., when 
that unfortunate prince came to the House 
of Commons to arrest the five members of 
that assembly who had incurred his dis¬ 
pleasure. 

There is another point from which these 
early reports of parliamentary speeches may 
be viewed, and from which it is curious to 
consider them. They belong to that critical 
moment in the history of our language when 
it was forming a prose style, — a written 
diction adapted to grave and important 
occasions. In the passage just quoted, there 
are about twenty words and phrases (some 
of them, it is true, used more than once) 
which would not now be employed. Some 
of them are shades, such as “ lowly,” where 
we say “ humble; ” “ company,” for “ a 
house of parliament;” “ simpleness,” for 
“ simplicity,” with a deeper tinge of folly 
than the single word now ever has; w right,” 
then used as a general sign of the super¬ 
lative, where we say “ very,” or “ most; ” 
“ reverend,” for “ reverent ” or “ reveren¬ 
tial.” “ If it mishap me,” if it should so 
happen, “ to mishap in me,” “ it often hap- 
peth,” are instances of the employment of 
the verb “ hap ” for happen, or of a conju¬ 
gation of the former, w T hieh has fallen into 
irrecoverable disuse. A phrase was then so 
frequent as to become, indeed, the esta- 






• LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 


blished mode of commencing an address to a 
superior, in which the old usage was, “ It 
may like,” or “ It may please your Majesty,” 
where modern language absolutely requires 
us to say, “ May it please,” by a slight in¬ 
version of the words retained, but with the 
exclusion of the word “ like” in that com¬ 
bination. “ Let ” is used for “ hinder,” as 
is still the case in some public forms, and 
in the excellent version of the Scriptures. 
“Well witted” is a happy phrase lost to the 
language except on familiar occasions with 
a smile, or by a master in the art of combin¬ 
ing words. Perhaps “ enable me,” for “ give 
me by your countenance the ability which I 
have not,” is the only phrase which savours 
of awkwardness or of harsh effect in the 
excellent speaker. The whole passage is a 
remarkable example of the almost impercep¬ 
tible differences which mark various stages 
in the progress of a language. In several of 
the above instances we see a sort of contest 
for admission into the language between two 
phrases extremely similar, and yet a victory 
which excluded one of them as rigidly as if 
the distinction had been very wide. Every 
case where subsequent usage has altered or 
rejected words and phrases must be regarded 
as a sort of national verdict, which is neces¬ 
sarily followed by their disfranchisement. 
They have no longer any claim on the En¬ 
glish language, other than that which may 
be possessed by all alien suppliants for na¬ 
turalisation. Such examples should warn a 
writer, desirous to be lastingly read, of the 
danger which attends new words, or very 
new acceptations of those which are esta¬ 
blished, or even of attempts to revive those 
which are altogether superannuated. They 
show in the clearest light that the learned 
and the vulgar parts of language, being 
those which are most liable to change, are 
unfit materials for a durable style ; and they 
teach us to look to those words which form 
the far larger portion of ancient as well as of 
modern language, — that “ well of English 
undefiled,” which has been happily resorted 
to from More to Cowper, as being proved 
by the unimpeachable evidence of that long 
usage to fit the rest of our speech more per- 


207 

fectly, and to flow more easily, clearly, and 
sweetly in our composition. 

Erasmus tells us that Wolsey rather 
feared than liked More. When the short 
session of parliament was closed, Wolsey, in 
his gallery of Whitehall, said to More, “ I 
wish to God you had been at Rome, Mr. 
More, when I made you speaker.”—“ Your 
Grace not offended, so would I too, my 
lord,” replied Sir Thomas; “ for then should 
I have seen the place I long have desired to 
visit.” * More turned the conversation by 
saying that he liked this gallery better than 
the cardinal’s at Hampton Court. But the 
latter secretly brooded over his revenge, 
which he afterwards tried to gratify by ba¬ 
nishing More, under the name of an ambas¬ 
sador to Spain. He tried to effect his pur¬ 
pose by magnifying the learning and wisdom 
of More, his peculiar fitness for a concilia¬ 
tory adjustment of the difficult matters 
which were at issue between the king and 
his kinsman the emperor. The king sug¬ 
gested this proposal to More, who, con¬ 
sidering the unsuitableness of the Spanish 
climate to his constitution, and perhaps 
suspecting Wolsey of sinister purposes, 
earnestly besought Henry not to send his 
faithful servant to his grave. The king, who 
also suspected Wolsey of being actuated by 
jealousy, answered, “ It is not our meaning, 
Mr. More, to do you any hurt; but to do 
you good we should be glad; we shall there¬ 
fore employ you otherwise.” f More could 
boast that he had never asked the king the 
value of a penny for himself, when on the 
25th of December, 1525 j, the king ap- 


* Boper, p. 20. 

f More, p. 53. with a small variation, 
j Such is the information which I have received 
from the records in the Tower. The accurate 
WTiter of the article on More, in the Biographia 
Britannica, is perplexed by finding Sir Thomas 
More, chancellor of the duchy, as one of the nego¬ 
tiators of a treaty in August, 1526, which seems to 
the writer in the Biographia to bring down the 
death of Wingfield to near that time; he being on 
all sides acknowledged to be More’s immediate pre¬ 
decessor. But there is no difficulty, unless we 
needlessly assume that the negotiation with which 
Wingfield w r as concerned related to the same treaty 








208 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


pointed him. chancellor of the duchy of Lan¬ 
caster, as successor of Sir Anthony Wing¬ 
field — an office of dignity and profit, which 
he continued to hold for nearly three years. 

In the summer of 1527, Wolsey went on 
his magnificent embassy to France, in which 
More and other officers of state were joined 
with him. On this occasion the main, 
though secret, object of Henry was to pave 
the way for a divorce from Queen Catha¬ 
rine, with a view to a marriage with Anne 
Boleyn, a young beauty who had been bred 
at the French court, where her father, Sir 
Thomas Boleyn, created Earl of Wiltshire, 
had been repeatedly ambassador. 

On their journey to the coast, Wolsey 
sounded Archbishop War eh am and Bishop 
Fisher on the important secret with which 
he was intrusted. Wareham, an estimable 
and amiable prelate, appears to have inti¬ 
mated that his opinion was favourable to 
Henry’s pursuit of a divorce.* Fisher, 
bishop of Rochester, an aged and upright 
man, promised Wolsey that he would do or 
say nothing in the matter, nor in any way 
counsel the queen, except what stood with 
Henry’s pleasure; “ for,” said he, “ though 
she be queen of this realm, yet he acknow- 
ledgeth you to be his sovereign lord:” f as 
if the rank or authority of the parties had 
any concern with the duty of honestly giving 
counsel where it is given at all. The over¬ 
bearing deportment of Wolsey probably 
overawed both these good prelates: he un¬ 
derstood them in the manner most suitable 
to his purpose ; and, confident that he should 
by some means finally gain them, he pro¬ 
bably coloured very highly their language 
in his communication to Henry, whom he 


which More concluded. On the contrary, the first 
appears to have been a treaty with Spain; the last 
a treaty with France. 

* State Papers, Henry VIII., vol. i. p. 196. 
Wolsey’s words are,—“ He expressly affirmed, that 
however displeasantlv the queen took this matter, 
yet the truth and judgment of the law must take 
place. I have instructed him how he shall order 
himself if the queen shall demand his counsel, which 
he promises me to follow.” 

f State Papers, Hen. VIII., vol. i. p. 168. 


had himself just before displeased by un¬ 
expected scruples. 

It was generally believed by their con¬ 
temporaries that More and Fisher had cor¬ 
rected the manuscript of Henry’s answer to 
Luther ; while it is certain that the propen¬ 
sity of the king to theological discussions 
constituted one of the links of his intimacy 
with the former. As More’s writings against 
the Lutherans were of great note in his own 
time, and as they were probably those of 
his works on which he exerted the most 
acuteness, and employed most knowledge, it 
would be wrong to omit all mention of them 
in an estimate of his mind, or as proofs of j 
his disposition. They contain many anec- j 
dotes which throw considerable light on our j 
ecclesiastical history during the first prose¬ 
cution of the Protestants, or, as they were 
then called, Lutherans, under the old statutes 
against Lollards, during the period which 
extended from 1520 to 1532; and they do 
not seem to have been enough examined 
with that view by the historians of the 
Church. 

Legal responsibility, in a well-constituted 
commonwealth, reaches to all the avowed 
advisers of the government, and to all those 
whose concurrence is necessary to the va¬ 
lidity of its commands; but moral responsi¬ 
bility is usually or chiefly confined to the 
actual authors of each particular measure. 
It is true, that when a government has 
attained a state of more than usual reeu- 
larity, the feelings of mankind become so 
well adapted to it, that men are held to be 
even morally responsible for sanctioning, by 
a base continuance in office, the bad policy 
which may be known not to originate with 
themselves. These refinements were, how¬ 
ever, unknown in the reign of Henry VIII. 
The administration was then carried on 
under the personal direction of the monarch, 
who generally admitted one confidential 
servant only into his most secret counsels; 
and all the other ministers, whatever their 
rank might be, commonly confined their 
attention to the business of their own offices, 
or to the execution of special commands 
intrusted to them. This system was pro- 













LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 209 


bably carried to its utmost height under so 
self-willed a prince as Henry, and by so do¬ 
mineering a minister as Wolsey. Although 
there can be no doubt that More, as a privy 
councillor, attended and co-operated at the 
examination of the unfortunate Lutherans, 
his conduct in that respect was regarded by 
his contemporaries as little more than the 
enforcement of orders which he could not 
lawfully decline to obey. The opinion that 
a minister who disapproves measures which 
he cannot control is bound to resign his 
office, is of very modern origin, and still not 
universally entertained, especially if fidelity 
to a party be not called in to its aid. In 
the time of Henry, he was not thought even 
entitled to resign. The fact of More’s at¬ 
tendance, indeed, appears in his controver¬ 
sial writings, especially by his answer to 
Tyndal. It is not equitable to treat him as 
effectively and morally, as well as legally, 
answerable for measures of state, till the 
removal of Wolsey, and the delivery of the 
great seal into his own hands. The injus¬ 
tice of considering these transactions in any 
other light appears from the circumstance, 
that though he was joined with Wolsey in 
the splendid embassy to France in 1527, 
there is no reason to suppose that More was 
intrusted with the secret and main purpose 
of the embassy—that of facilitating a di¬ 
vorce and a second marriage. His responsi¬ 
bility, in its most important and only prac¬ 
tical part, must be contracted to the short 
time which extends from the 25th of Octo¬ 
ber, 1529, when he was appointed chancel¬ 
lor, to the 16th of May, 1532, when he was 
removed from his office, not much more 
than two years and a half.* Even after 
confining it to these narrow limits, it must 
be remembered, that he found the system 
of persecution established, and its machinery 
in a state of activity. The prelates, like 
most other prelates in Europe, did their 
part in convicting the Protestants of Lol- 
lardy in the spiritual courts, which were the 
competent tribunals for trying that offence. 
Our means of determining what executions 


* Records in the Tower. 


for Lollardy (if any) took place when More 
had a decisive ascendant in the royal coun¬ 
cils, are very imperfect. If it were certain 
that he was the adviser of such executions, 
it would only follow that he executed one 
part of the criminal law, without approving 
it, as succeeding judges have certainly done 
in cases of fraud and theft; — where they no 
more approved the punishment of death 
than the author of Utopia might have done 
in its application to heresy. If the progress 
of civilisation be not checked, we seem not 
far from the period when such capital punish¬ 
ments will appear as little consistent with 
humanity, and indeed with justice, as the 
burning of heretics now appears to us. More 
himself deprecates an appeal to his writings 
and those of his friend Erasmus, innocently 
intended by themselves, but abused by in¬ 
cendiaries to inflame the fury of the igno¬ 
rant multitude.* “ Men,” says he (alluding 
evidently to Utopia), “ cannot almost now 
speak of such things insomuch as in play, 
but that such evil hearers were a great deal 
the worse.” “ I would not now translate 
the Moria of Erasmus, even some works 
that I myself have written ere this, into 
English, albeit there be none harm therein.” 
It is evident that the two philosophers 
deeply felt the injustice of citing against 
them, as a proof of inconsistency, that they 
departed from the pleasantries, the gay 
dreams, — at most the fond speculations, of 
their early days, when they saw these harm¬ 
less visions turned into weapons of destruc¬ 
tion in the blood-stained hands of the boors 
of Saxony, and of the ferocious fanatics of 
Munster. The virtuous love of peace might 
be more prevalent in More ; the Epicurean 
desire of personal ease predominated more 
in Erasmus: but both were, doubtless from 
commendable or excusable causes, incensed 
against those odious disciples, who now, 
“ with no friendly voice,” invoked their 
authority against themselves. 

If, however, we examine the question on 
the grounds of positive testimony, it is im- 


* More’s Answer to Tyndal, part i. p. 128. 
(Printed by John Rastell, 1532.) 


P 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


210 


possible to appeal to a witness of more 
weight than Erasmus. “ It is,” said he, “ a 
sufficient proof of his clemency, that while 
he was chancellor no man was put to death 
for these pestilent dogmas, while so many 
have suffered capital punishment for them in 
France, in Germany, and in the Nether¬ 
lands.”* The only charges against him on 
this subject which are adverted to by him¬ 
self relate to minor severities ; but as these 
may be marks of more cruelty than the in¬ 
fliction of death, let us listen on this subject 
to the words of the merciful and righteous 
man I: “Divers of them have said that of 
such as were in my house when I was chan¬ 
cellor, I used to examine them with tor¬ 
ments, causing them to be bound to a tree 
in my garden, and there piteously beaten. 
Except their sure keeping, I never did else 
cause any such thing to be done unto any of 
the heretics in all my life, except only twain : 
one was a child and a servant of mine in 
mine own house, whom his father, ere he 
came to me, had nursed up in such matters, 
and set him to attend upon George Jay. 
This Jay did teach the child his ungracious 
heresy against the blessed sacrament of the 
altar-; which heresy this child in my house 
began to teach another child. And upon 
that point I caused a servant of mine to 
strip him like a child before mine household, 
for amendment of himself and ensample of 
others.” “ Another was one who, after he 
had fallen into these frantic heresies, soon 
fell into plain open frensy: albeit that he 
had been in Bedlam, and afterwards by 
beating and correction gathered his remem¬ 
brance |; being therefore set at liberty, his 
old frensies fell again into his head. Being 
informed of his relapse, I caused him to be 
taken by the constables and bounden to a 
tree in the street before the whole town, 
and there striped him till he waxed weary. 
Verily, God be thanked, I hear no harm of 
him now. And of all who ever came in my 
hand for heresy, as help me God, else had 


* Op. vol. iii. p. 1811. 

f More’s Apology, chap. 36. 

t Such was then the niode of curing insanity! 


never any of them any stripe or stroke 
given them, so much as a fillip in the fore¬ 
head ,.”* 

This statement, so minute, so capable of 
easy confutation if in any part false, was 
made public after his fall from power, when 
he was surrounded by enemies, and could 
have no friends but the generous. It relates 
circumstances of public notoriety, or at least 
so known to all his own household (from 
which it appears that Protestant servants 
were not excluded), which it would have 
been rather a proof of insanity than of im¬ 
prudence to have alleged in his defence, if 
they had not been indisputably and con¬ 
fessedly true. Wherever he touches this 
subject, there is a quietness and a circum¬ 
stantiality, which are among the least equi¬ 
vocal marks of a man who adheres to the 
temper most favourable to the truth, because 
he is conscious that the truth is favourable 
to him.| Without relying, therefore, on the 
character of More for probity and veracity 
(which it is derogatory to him to employ for 
such a purpose), the evidence of his hu¬ 
manity having prevailed over his opinion 
decisively outweighs the little positive testi¬ 
mony produced against him. The charge 
against More rests originally on Fox alone, 
from whom it is copied by Burnet, and with 
considerable hesitation by Strype. But the 
honest martyrologist writes too inaccurately 
to be a weighty witness in this case ; for he 
tells us that Firth was put to death in June 
1533, and yet imputes it to More, who had 
resigned his office a year before. In the 
case of James Baynham, he only says that 

* Apology, chap. 36. 

t There is a remarkable instance of this observa¬ 
tion in More’s Dialogue, book iii. chap, xvi., where 
he tells, with some prolixity, the story of Richard 
Dunn, who was found dead, and hanging in the 
Lollard’s Tower. The only part taken by More in 
this affair was his share as a privy councillor in the 
inquiry, whether Dunn hanged himself, or was 
murdered and then hanged up by the Bishop of 
London’s chancellor. The evidence to prove that 
the death could not be suicide, was as absurd as 
the story of the bishop’s chancellor was improbable. 
He was afterwards, however, convicted by a jury, 
but pardoned, it should seem rightly, by the king. 







LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 


the accused was chained to two posts for two 
nights in More’s house, at some unspecified 
distance of time before his execution. 

Burnet, in mentioning the extreme tole¬ 
ration taught in Utopia, truly observes, that 
if More had died at the time of its pub¬ 
lication, “he would have been reckoned 
among those who only wanted a fit oppor¬ 
tunity of declaring themselves openly for a 
reformation.”* * The same sincere and up¬ 
right writer was too zealous for an historian 
when he added—“ When More was raised 
to the chief post in the ministry, he became 
a persecutor even to blood, and defiled those 
hands which were never polluted with 
bribes.” In excuse for the total silence of 
the honest bishop respecting the opposite 
testimony of More himself (of whom Burnet 
speaks even then with reverence), the reader 
must be reminded that the third volume of 
the History of the Reformation was written 
in the old age of the Bishop of Salisbury, 
thirty years after those more laborious re¬ 
searches which attended the composition of 
the two former volumes, and under the in¬ 
fluence of those animosities against the 
Roman Catholic Church which the con¬ 
spiracy of Queen Anne’s last ministers 
against the Revolution had revived with 
more than their youthful vigour. It must 
be owned that he from the commencement 
acquiesced too lightly in flie allegations of 
Fox; and it is certain, that if the fact, how¬ 
ever deplorable, had been better proved, yet 
in that age it would not have warranted 
such asperity-of condemnation.! 


* History of the Reformation (Lond. 1820), 
vol. iii. part i. p. 45. 

f The change of opinion in Erasmus, and the 
less remarkable change of More in the same respect, 
is somewhat excused by the excesses and disorders 
which followed the Reformation. “ To believe,” 
says Bayle, “ that the Church required reformation, 
and to approve a particular manner of reforming it, 
are two very different things. To blame the op¬ 
ponents of reformation, and to disapprove the con¬ 
duct of the reformers, are two things very com¬ 
patible. A man may then imitate Erasmus, without 
being an apostate or a traitor.”—Dictionary, art. 
Castellan. These are positions too reasonable to be 


211 

The date of the work in which More 
denies the charge, and challenges his ac¬ 
cusers to produce their proofs, would have 
roused the attention of Burnet if he had 
read it. This book, entitled “ The Apology 
of Sir Thomas More,” was written in 1533, 
“ after he had given over the office of lord 
chancellor,” and when he was in daily ex¬ 
pectation of being committed to the Tower. 
Defenceless and obnoxious as he then was, 
no man was hardy enough to dispute his 
truth. Fox was the first who, thirty years 
afterwards, ventured to oppose it in a vague 
statement, which we know to be in some 
respects inaccurate; and on this slender au¬ 
thority alone has rested such an imputation 
on the veracity of the most sincere of men. 
Whoever reads the Apology will perceive, 
from the melancholy ingenuousness with 
which he speaks of the growing unpopu¬ 
larity of his religion in the court and coun¬ 
try, that he could not have hoped to escape 
exposure, if it had been then possible to 
question his declaration.* 

On the whole, then, More must not only 
be absolved; but when we consider that his 
administration occurred during a hot pa¬ 
roxysm of persecution, — that intolerance 
was the creed of his age, — that he himself, 
in his days of compliance and ambition, had 
been drawn over to it as a theory, — that he 
was filled with alarm and horror by the ex¬ 
cesses of the heretical insurgents in Ger¬ 
many, we must pronounce him, by his absti¬ 
nence from any practical share in it, to have 
given stronger proofs than any other man, 
of a repugnance to that execrable practice, 
founded on the unshaken basis of his natural 
humanity. 

The fourth book of the Dialogue! exhibits 


practically believed at the time when their adoption 
would be most useful. 

* In the Apology, More states that four-tenths 
of the people were unable to read;—probably an 
overrated estimate of the number of readers. 

f Dialogue of Sir Thomas More, touching the 
pestilent sect of Luther, composed and published 
when he was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, 
“ but newly oversene by the said Sir T. More, 
chancellor of England,” 1530. 


P 2 











212 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


a lively picture of tlie horror with which the 
excesses of the Reformers had filled the mind 
of this good man, whose justice and even 
humanity were disturbed, so far at least as 
to betray him into a bitterness of language 
and harshness of opinion foreign from his 
general temper. The events themselves are, 
it must be owned, sufficient to provoke the 
meekest, to appal the firmest, of men. 
“ The temporal lords,” he tells us, “ were 
glad to hear the cry against the clergy ; the 
people were glad to hear it against the clergy 
and the lords too. They rebelled first against 
an abbot, and after against a bishop, where¬ 
with the temporal lords had good game and 
sport, and dissembled the matter, gaping 
after the lands of the spirituality, till they 
had almost played, as JEsop telleth of the 
dog, which, to snatch at the shadow of the 
cheese in the water, let fall and lost the 
cheese which he bare in his mouth. The 
uplandish Lutherans set upon the temporal 
lords: they slew 70,000 Lutherans in one 
summer, and subdued the remnant in that 
part of Almayne into a right miserable ser¬ 
vitude. Of this sect was the great part* of 
those ungracious people which of late en¬ 
tered. Rome with the Duke of Bourbon.” 
The description of the horrible crimes per¬ 
petrated on that occasion is so disgusting 
in some of its particulars, as to be unfit for 
the decency of historical narrative. One 
specimen will suffice, which, considering the 
constant intercourse between England and 
Rome, is not unlikely to have been related 
to More by an eye-witness : — “ Some took 
children and bound them to torches, and 
brought them gradually nearer to the fire to 
be roasted, while the fathers and mothers 
were looking on, and then began to speak 
of a price for the sparing of the children : 
asking first 100 ducats, then fifty, then 
forty, then at last offered to take twain: 
after they had taken the last ducat from the 
father, then would they let the child roast 
to death.” This wickedness (More con¬ 
tended) was the fruit of Luther’s doctrine 
of predestination ; “ for what good deed can 


* A violent exaggeration. 


a man study or labour to do, who believeth 
Luther, that he hath no free will of his 
own ? ” * “ If the world were not near an 

end, and the fervour of devotion almost 
quenched, it could never have come to pass 
that so many people should fall to the fol¬ 
lowing of so beastly a sect.” He urges at 
very great length, and with great ability, 
the tendency of belief in destiny to over¬ 
throw morality; and represents it as an 
opinion of which, on account of its incom¬ 
patibility with the order of society, the civil 
magistrate may lawfully punish the pro¬ 
mulgation ; little aware how decisively ex¬ 
perience was about to confute such reasoning, 
however specious, by the examples of na¬ 
tions, who, though their whole religion was 
founded on predestination, were, neverthe-v 
less, the most moral portion of mankind.^ 
“ The fear,” says More, “ of outrages and 
mischiefs to follow upon such heresies, with 
the proof that men have had in some coun¬ 
tries thereof, have been the cause that 
princes and people have been constrained 
to punish heresies by a terrible death; 
whereas else more easy ways had been taken 
with them. If the heretics had never begun 
with violence, good Christian people had 
peradventure used less violence against 
them: while they forbare violence, there 
was little violence done unto them. ‘ By 
my soul,’ quoth ^our friend J, 4 I would all 
the world were agreed to take violence and 
compulsion away.’ ‘ And sooth,’ said I, * if 
it were so, yet Avould God be too strong for 
his enemies.’ ” In answer, he faintly attempts 
to distinguish the case of Pagans, who may 
be tolerated in order to induce them to 
tolerate Christians, from that of heretics, 
from which no such advantage was to be 
obtained in exchange ; — a distinction, how¬ 
ever, which disappeared as soon as the sup¬ 
posed heretics acquired supreme power. At 
last, however, he concludes with a sentence 


* Dialogue, book iv. chap. 8. 
f Switzerland, Holland, Scotland, English puri-j' 
tans, New England, French Huguenots, &c. 

X This wish is put into the mouth of the adverse 
speaker in the Dialogue. 









LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 213 


which sufficiently intimates the inclination 
of his judgment, and shows that his ancient 
opinions still prevailed in the midst of fear 
and abhorrence. “ And yet, as I said in the 
beginning, never were they by any temporal 
punishment of their bodies any thing sharply 
handled till they began to be violent them¬ 
selves.” It is evident that his mind misgave 
him when he appeared to assent to in¬ 
tolerance as a principle; for otherwise there 
was no reason for repeatedly relying on the 
defence of society against aggression as its 
justification. His silence, however, respect¬ 
ing the notorious fact, that Luther strained 
every nerve to suppress the German insur¬ 
gents, can never be excused by the sophistry 
which ascribes to all reformers the evil done 
by those who abuse their names. It was too 
much to say that Luther should not have 
uttered what he believed to be sacred and 
necessary truth, because evil-doers took oc¬ 
casion from it to screen their bad deeds. 
This controversial artifice, however grossly 
unjust, is yet so plausible and popular, that 
perhaps no polemic ever had virtue enough 
to resist the temptation of employing it. 
What other controversialist can be named, 
who, having the power to crush antagonists 
whom he viewed as the disturbers of the 
quiet of his own declining age, — the 
destroyers of all the hopes which he 
had cherished for mankind, — contented 
himself with severity of language (for 
which he humbly excuses himself in his 
Apology — in some measure a dying work), 
and with one instance of unfair inference 
against opponents who were too zealous to 
be merciful? 

In the autumn of 1529, More, on his return 
from Cambray, where he had been once more 
joined in commission with his friend Tun- 
stall as ambassador to the emperor, paid a 
visit to the court, then at Woodstock. A 
letter written from thence to his wife, on 
occasion of a mishap at home, is here in¬ 
serted as affording a little glimpse into the 
management of his most homely concerns, 
and especially as a specimen of his regard 
for a deserving woman, who was, probably, 


too “ coarsely kind” even to have inspired 
him with tenderness.* 

“ Mistress Alyce, in my most harty will 
I recomend me to you. And whereas I 
am enfourmed by my son Heron of the loss 
of our barnes and our neighbours also, w* all 
the corne that was therein, albeit (saving 
God’s pleasure) it is gret pitie of so much 
good corne lost, yet sith it hath liked hym to 
send us such a chance, we must saie bounden,* 
not only to be content, but also to be glad of 
his visitation. He sent us all that we have 
lost: and sith he hath by such a chance 
taken it away againe, his pleasure be ful¬ 
filled. Let us never grudge thereat, but 
take it in good worth, and hartely thank him, 
as well for adversitie, as for prosperitie. 
And par adventure we have more cause to 
thank him for our losse, than for our win¬ 
ning : for his wisedom better seeth what is 
good for us than we do ourselves. Therefore 
I pray you be of good cheere, and take all 
the howsold with you to church, and there 
thank God both for that he hath given us, 
and for that he has left us, which if it please 
hym, he can increase when he will. And if 
it please him to leave us yet lesse, at hys 
pleasure be it. I praye you to make some 
good ensearche what my poor neighbours 
have loste, and bidde them take no thought 
therefore, and if I shold not leave myself a 
spone, there shall no poore neighbour of 
mine bere no losse by any chance happened 
in my house. I pray you be with my chil¬ 
dren and household mery in God. And de¬ 
vise somewhat with your friends, what way 
wer best to take, for provision to be made 
for corne for our household and for sede thys 
yere coming, if ye thinke it good that we 
keepe the ground still in our handes. And 
whether ye think it good y* we so shall do 
or not, yet I think it were not best sodenlye 


* In More’s metrical inscription for his own mo¬ 
nument, we find a just but long, and somewhat 
laboured, commendation of Alice, which in tender¬ 
ness is outweighed by one word applied to the 
long-departed companion of his youth: 

« Chara Thomss jacet hie Joanna uxorcula Mori.” 













214 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


thus to leave it all up, and to put away our 
folk of our farme, till we have somewhat 
advised us thereon. Howbeit if we have 
more nowe than ye shall neede, and which 
can get the other maisterg, ye may then dis¬ 
charge us of them. But I would not that 
any man wer sodenly sent away he wote nere 
wether. At my coming hither, I perceived 
none other but that I shold tary still with 
the kinges grace. But now I shall (I 
think), because of this chance, get leave this 
next weke to come home and se you; and 
then shall we further devise together uppon 
all thinges, what order shall be best to take: 
and thus as hartely fare you well with all 
our children as you can wishe. At Wood- 
stok the tliirde daye of Septembre, by the 
hand of 

“ Your loving husband, 

“ Thomas More, Knight.” 

A new scene now opened on More, of 
whose private life the above simple letter 
enables us to form no inadequate or un¬ 
pleasing estimate. On the 25th of October 
1529, sixteen days after the commencement 
of the prosecution - against Wolsey, the king, 
by delivering the great seal to him at Green¬ 
wich, constituted him lord chancellor, — the 
highest dignity of the state and of the law, 
and which had previously been generally 
held by ecclesiastics.* A very summary 
account of the nature of this high office may 
perhaps prevent some confusion respecting 
it among those who know it only in its pre¬ 
sent state. The office of chancellor was 
known to all the European governments, 
who borrowed it, like many other institutions, 
from the usage of the vanquished Romans. 
In those of England and France, which most 
resembled each other, and whose history is 
most familiar and most interesting to usf, 
the chancellor, whose office had been a con¬ 
spicuous dignity under the Lower Empire, 
was originally a secretary who derived a 


* Thorpe, in 1371, and Knivet, in 1372, seem to 
be the last exceptions. 

t Ducange and Spelman, voce Cancellarius, who 
give us the series of chancellors in both countries. 


great part of his consequence from the trust 
of holding the king’s seal, the substitute for 
subscription under illiterate monarchs, and 
the stamp of legal authority in more culti¬ 
vated times. From his constant access to 
the king, he acquired every where some 
authority in the cases which were the fre¬ 
quent subject of complaint to the crown. 
In France, he became a minister of state 
with a peculiar superintendence over courts 
of justice, and some remains of a special 
jurisdiction, which continued till the down- 
fal of the French monarchy. In the En¬ 
glish chancellor were gradually united the 
characters of a legal magistrate and a poli¬ 
tical adviser; and since that time the office 
has been confined to lawyers in eminent 
practice. He has been presumed to have a 
due reverence for the law, as well as a fami¬ 
liar acquaintance with it; and his presence 
and weight in the councils of a free com¬ 
monwealth have been regarded as links 
which bind the state to the law. 

One of the earliest branches of the chan¬ 
cellor’s duties seems, by slow degrees, to 
have enlarged his jurisdiction to the extent 
which it reached in modern times.* From 
the chancery issued those writs which first 
put the machinery of law in motion in every 
case where legal redress existed. In that 
court new writs were framed, when it was fit 
to adapt the proceedings to the circumstances 
of a new case. When a case arose in which 
it appeared that the course and order of the 
common law could hardly be adapted, by 
any variation in the forms of procedure, to 
the demands of justice, the complaint was 
laid by the chancellor before the king, who 
commanded it to be considered in council,— 
a practice which, by degrees, led to a refer¬ 
ence to that magistrate by himself. To 
facilitate an equitable determination in such 
complaints, the writ was devised called the 
writ of “ subpoena ,” commanding the person 
complained of to appear before the chancel¬ 
lor, and to answer the complaint. The essen- 


* “ Non facile est digito monstrare quibus gradi- 
bus, sed conjecturam accipe.”—Spelman, voce Can¬ 
cellarius. 










LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 215 


tial words of a petition for this writ, which 
in process of time has become of so great 
importance, were in the reign of Richard III. 
as follows : “ Please it therefore, your lord- 
ship, — considering that your orator has no 
remedy by course of the common law,—to 
grant a writ subpoena , commanding T. Coke 
to appear in chancery, at a certain day, and 
upon a certain pain to be limited by you, 
and then to do what by this court shall be 
thought reasonable and according to con¬ 
science.” The form had not been materially 
different in the earliest instances, which ap¬ 
pear to have occurred from 1380 to 1400. 
It would seem that this device was not first 
employed, as has been hitherto supposed*, 
to enforce the observance of the duties of 
trustees who held lands, but for cases of an 
extremely different nature, where the failure 
of justice in the ordinary courts might ensue, 
not from any defect in the common law, but 
from the power of turbulent barons, who, in 
their acts of outrage and lawless violence, 
bade defiance to all ordinary jurisdiction. 
In some of the earliest cases we find a state¬ 
ment of the age and poverty of the com¬ 
plainant, and of the power, and even learn¬ 
ing, of the supposed wrong-doer ;—topics 
addressed to compassion, or at most to equity 
in a very loose and popular sense of the 
word, which throw light on the original 
nature of this high jurisdiction.! It is ap¬ 


* Blackstone, book iii. chap. 4. 
f Calendars of Proceedings in Chancery, temp. 
Eliz. London, 1827. Of ten of these suits which 
occurred in the last ten years of the fourteenth 
century, one complains of ouster from land by vio¬ 
lence ; another, of exclusion from a benefice, by a 
writ obtained from the king under false suggestions; 
a third, for the seizure of a freeman, under pretext 
of being a slave (or nief) ; a fourth, for being dis¬ 
turbed in the enjoyment of land by a trespasser, 
abetted by the sheriff; a fifth, for imprisonment 
on a false allegation of debt. No case is extant 
prior to the first year of Henry Y. which relates 
to the trust of lands, which eminent writers have 
represented as the original object of this jurisdic¬ 
tion. In the reign of Henry YI. there is a bill 
against certain Wycliffites for outrages done to the 
pfaintiff, Robert Burton, chanter of the cathedral 
of Lincoln, on account of his zeal as an inquisitor 


parent, from the earliest cases in the reign 
of Richard II., that the occasional relief 
proceeding from mixed feelings of pity and 
of regard to substantial justice, not effec¬ 
tually aided by law, or overpowered by 
tyrannical violence, had then grown into a 
regular system, and was subject to rules 
resembling those of legal jurisdiction. At 
first sight it may appear difficult to conceive 
how ecclesiastics could have moulded into a 
regular form this anomalous branch of juris¬ 
prudence. But many of the ecclesiastical 
order—originally the only lawyers—were 
eminently skilled in the civil and canon law, 
which had attained an order and precision 
unknown to the digests of barbarous usages 
then attempted in France and England. 
The ecclesiastical chancellors of those coun¬ 
tries introduced into their courts a course of 
proceeding very similar to that adopted by 
other European nations, who all owned the 
authority of the canon law, and were en¬ 
lightened by the wisdom of the Roman code. 
The proceedings in chancery, lately reco¬ 
vered from oblivion, show the system to have 
been in regular activity about a century 
and a half before the chancellorship of Sir 
Thomas More, — the first common lawyer 
who held the great seal since the chancellor 
had laid any foundations (known to us) of 
his equitable jurisdiction. The course of 
education, and even of negotiation, in that 
age, conferred on More, who was the most 
distinguished of the practisers of the common 
law, the learning and ability of a civilian 
and a canonist. 

Of his administration, from the 25th of 
October 1529 to the 16th of May 1532, four 
hundred bills and answers are still pre¬ 
served, which afford an average of about a 
hundred and sixty suits annually. Though 
this average may by no means adequately 
represent the whole occupations of a court 
which had many other duties to perform, it 
supplies us with some means of comparing 
the extent of its business under him with the 
number of similar proceedings in succeeding 


in the diocese of Lincoln, to convict and punish 
heretics. 









216 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


times. The whole amount of bills and an¬ 
swers in the reign of James I. was 32,000. 
How far the number may have differed at 
different parts of that reign, the unarranged 
state of the records does not yet enable us 
to ascertain. But supposing it, by a rough 
estimate, to have continued the same, the 
annual average of bills and answers during 
the four years of Lord Bacon’s adminis¬ 
tration was 1461, being an increase of nearly 
ten-fold in somewhat less than a century. 
Though causes connected with the progress 
of the jurisdiction and the character of the 
chancellor must have somewhat contributed 
to this remarkable increase, yet it must be 
ascribed principally to the extraordinary im¬ 
pulse given to daring enterprise and national 
wealth by the splendid administration of 
Elizabeth, which multiplied alike the occa¬ 
sions of litigation and the means of carrying 
it on.* In a century and a half after, when 
equitable jurisdiction was completed in its 
foundations and most necessary parts by 
Lord Chancellor Nottingham, the yearly 
average of suits was, during his tenure of 
the great seal, about sixteen hundred.f 
Under Lord Hardwicke, the chancellor of 
most professional celebrity, the yearly ave¬ 
rage of bills and answers appears to have 
been about two thousand ; probably in part 
because more questions had been finally de¬ 
termined, and partly also because the delays 
were so aggravated by the multiplicity of 
business, that parties aggrieved chose rather 
to submit to wrong than to be ruined in 
pursuit of right. This last mischief arose 
in a great measure from the variety of 
affairs added to the original duties of the 
judge, of which the principal were bank¬ 
ruptcy and parliamentary appeals. Both 

these causes continued to act with increasing 

© 

force ; so that, in spite of a vast increase of 
the property and dealings of the kingdom } 


* From a letter of Lord Bacon (Lords’ Journals, 
20th March, 1680), it appears that he made 2000 
decrees and orders in a year; so that in his time 
the bills and answers amounted to about two-thirds 
of the whole business. 

f The numbers have been obligingly supplied 
by the gentlemen of the Record Office in the Tower. 


the average number of bills and answers was 
considerably less from 1800 to 1802 than it 
had been from 1745 to 1754.* 

It must not be supposed that men trained 
in any system of jurisprudence, as were the 
ecclesiastical chancellors, could have been 
indifferent to the inconvenience and vexa¬ 
tion which necessarily harass the holders of 
a merely arbitrary power. Not having a 
law, they were a law unto themselves ; and 
every chancellor who contributed by a de¬ 
termination to establish a principle, became 
instrumental in circumscribing the power of 
his successor. Selden is, indeed, represented 
to have said, “ that equity is according to 
the conscience of him who is chancellor; 
which is as uncertain as if we made the 
chancellor’s foot the standard for the mea¬ 
sure which we call a foot.” f But this was 
spoken in the looseness of table-talk, and 
under the influence of the prejudices then 
prevalent among common lawyers against 
equitable jurisdiction. Still, perhaps, in his 
time what he said might be true enough for 
a smart saying: but in process of years a 
system of rules has been established which 
has constantly tended to limit the origi¬ 
nally discretionary powers of the chancery. 
Equity, in the acceptation in which that 
word is used in English jurisprudence, is no 
longer to be confounded with that moral 
equity which generally corrects the unjust 
operation of law, and with which it seems to 
have been synonymous in the days of Selden 
and Bacon. It is a part of law formed from 
usages and determinations which sometimes 
differ from what is called “ common law ” in 
its subjects, but chiefly varies from it in its 
modes of proof, of trial, and of relief; it is a 
jurisdiction so irregularly formed, and often 
so little dependent on general principles, 
that it can hardly be defined or made in¬ 
telligible otherwise than by a minute enu¬ 
meration of the matters cognisable by it. i 

* Account of Proceedings in Parliament relative 
to the Court of Chancery. By C. P. Cooper, Esq. 
(Lond. 1828), p. 102, &c.—A work equally re¬ 
markable for knowledge and acuteness. 

f Table Talk (Edinb. 1809), p. 55. 

X Blackstone, book iii. chap. 27. Lord Hard- 








_ LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 217 

It will be seen from the above that Sir 


Thomas More’s duties differed very widely 
from the various exertions of labour and 
intellect required from a modern chancellor. 
At the utmost he did not hear more than 
two hundred cases and arguments yearly, 
including those of every description. No 
authentic account of any case tried before 
him, if any such be extant, has been yet 
brought to light. No law book alludes to 
any part of his judgments or reasonings. 
Nothing of this higher part of his judicial 
life is preserved, which can warrant us in 
believing more than that it must have dis¬ 
played his never-failing integrity, reason, 
learning, and eloquence. 

The particulars of his instalment are not 
unworthy of being specified as a proof of 
the reverence for his endowments and ex¬ 
cellences professed by the king and enter¬ 
tained by the public, to whose judgment the 
ministers of Henry seemed virtually to 
appeal, with an assurance that the king's 
appointment would be ratified by the ge¬ 
neral voice. “He was led between the 
Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk up West¬ 
minster Hall to the Stone Chamber, and 
there they honourably placed him in the 
high judgment-seat of chancellor;”* * (for 
the chancellor was, by his office, the pre¬ 
sident of that terrible tribunal). “ The 
Duke of Norfolk, premier peer and lord 
high treasurer of England,” continues the 
biographer, “ by the command of the king, 
spoke thus unto the people there with great 
applause and joy gathered together: — 

“ ‘ The king’s majesty (which, I pray 
God, may prove happie and fortunate to the 
whole realme of England) hath raised to the 
most high dignitie of chancellourship Sir 
Thomas More, a man for his extraordinarie 
worth and sufficiencie well knowne to himself 
and the whole realme, for no other cause or 
earthlie respect, but for that he hath plainely 
perceaved all the gifts of nature and grace 
to be heaped upon him, which either the 
people could desire, or himself wish, for the 

wicke’s Letter to Lord Karnes, 30th June, 1757.— 
Lord Woodhouselee’s Life of Lord Kames, i. 237. 

* More, pp. 15G. 163. 


discharge of so great an office. For the ad¬ 
mirable wisedome, integritie, and innocencie, 
joyned with most pleasant facilitie of witt, 
that this man is endowed withall, have been 
sufficiently knowen to all Englishmen from 
his youth, and for these manie yeares also 
to the king’s majesty himself. This hath 
the king abundantly found in manie and 
weightie affayres, which he hath happily 
dispatched both at home and abroad,. in 
divers offices which he hath born, in most 
honourable embassages which he hath under¬ 
gone, and in his daily counsell and advises 
upon all other occasions. He hath per¬ 
ceaved no man in his realme to be more 
wise in deliberating, more sincere in opening 
to him what he thought, nor more eloquent 
to adorne the matter which he uttered. 
Wherefore, because he saw in him such 
excellent endowments, and that of his 
especiall care he hath a particular desire 
that his kingdome and people might be go¬ 
verned with all equitie and justice, integritie 
and wisedome, he of his owne most gracious 
disposition hath created this singular man 
lord chancellor; that, by his laudable per¬ 
formance of this office, his people may enjoy 
peace and justice; and honour also and 
fame may redounde to the whole kingdome. 
It may perhaps seem to manie a strange and 
unusuall matter, that this dignitie should be 
bestowed upon a layman, none of the no- 
bilitie, and one that hath wife and children; 
because heretofore none but singular learned 
prelates, or men of greatest nobilitie, have 
possessed this place; but what is wanting 
in these respects, the admirable vertues, the 
matchless guifts of witt and wisedome of this 
man, doth most plentifully recompence the 
same. For the king’s majestie hath not re¬ 
garded how great^ but what a man he was; 
he hath not cast his eyes upon the nobilitie 
of his bloud, but on the worth of his person; 
he hath respected his sufficiencie, not his 
profession; finally, he would show by this 
his choyce, that he hath some rare subjects 
amongst the rowe of gentlemen and laymen, 
who deserve to manage the highest offices of 
the realme, which bishops and noblemen 
think they only can deserve. The rarer 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


218 


therefore it was, so much both himself held 
it to be the more excellent, and to his people 
he thought it would be the more gratefull. 
Wherefore, receave this your chancellour 
with joyful acclamations, at whose hands 
you may expect all happinesse and content.’ 

“ Sir Thomas More, according to his 
wonted modestie, was somewhat abashed at 
this the duke’s speech, in that it sounded so 
much to his praise, but recollecting himself 
as that place and time would give him leave, 
he answered in this sorte : — ‘ Although, 
most noble duke, and you right honourable 
lords, and worshipfull gentlemen, I knowe 
all these things, which the king’s majestie, it 
seemeth, hath bene pleased should be spoken 
of me at this time and place, and your grace 
hath with most eloquent wordes thus am- 
plifyed, are as far from me, as I could wish 
with all my hart they were in me for the 
better performance of so great a charge; 
and although this your speach hath caused 
in me greater feare than I can well express 
in words: yet this incomparable favour of 
my dread soueraigne, by which he showeth 
how well, yea how highly he conceaveth of 
my weakenesse, having commanded that my 
meanesse should be so greatly commended, 
cannot be but most acceptable unto me; 
and I cannot choose but give your most 
noble grace exceeding thankes, that what 
his majestie hath willed you briefly to utter, 
you, of the abundance of your love unto 
me, have in a large and eloquent oration 
dilated. As for myself, I can take it no 
otherwise, but that his majestie’s incom¬ 
parable favour towards me, the good will 
and incredible propension of his royall minde 
(wherewith he has these manie yeares fa¬ 
voured me continually) hath alone without 
anie desert of mine at all, caused both this 
my new honour, and these your undeserved 
commendations of me. For who am I, or 
what is the house of my father, that the 
king’s highnesse should heape upon me by 
such a perpetuall streame of affection, these 
so high honours? I am farre lesse then 
anie the meanest of his benefitts bestowed 
on me; how can I then thinke myself worthie 
or fitt for this so peerlesse dignitie ? I have 


bene drawen by force, as the king’s majestie 
often professeth, to his highnesse’s service, 
to be a courtier; but to take this dignitie 
upon me, is most of all against my will; yet 
such is his highnesse’s benignitie, such is his 
bountie, that he highly esteemeth the small 
dutiefulnesse of his meanest subjects, and 
seeketh still magnificently to recompence 
his servants ; not only such as deserve well, 
but even such as have but a desire to de¬ 
serve well at his hands, in which number I 
have alwaies wished myself to be reckoned, 
because I cannot challenge myself to be one 
of the former ; which being so, you may all 
perceave with me how great a burden is 
layde upon my backe, in that I must strive 
in some sorte with my diligence and dutie 
to corresponde with his royall benevolence, 
and to be answerable to that great expect¬ 
ation, which he and you seeme to have of 
me; wherefore those so high praises are by 
me so much more grievous unto me, by how 
much more I know the greater charge I 
have to render myself worthie of, and the 
fewer means I have to make them goode. 
This weight is hardly suitable to my weake 
shoulders; this honour is not correspondent 
to my poore desert; it is a burden, not a 
glorie; a care, not a dignitie; the one there¬ 
fore I must beare as manfully as I can, and 
discharge the other with as much dexteritie 
as I shall be able. The earnest desire which 
I have alwaies had and doe now acknowledge 
myself to have, to satisfye by all meanes I 
can possible, the most ample benefitts of his 
highnesse, will greatly excite and ayde me to 
the diligent performance of all, which I trust 
also I shall be more able to doe, if I finde all 
your good wills and wishes both favourable 
unto me, and conformable to his royall mu¬ 
nificence : because my serious endeavours 
to doe well, joyned with your favourable 
acceptance, will easily procure that what¬ 
soever is performed by me, though it be in 
itself but small, yet will it seeme great and 
praiseworthie; for those things are alwaies 
atchieved happily, which are accepted will¬ 
ingly ; and those succeede fortunately, which 
are receaved by others courteously. As you 
therefore doe hope for great matters, and 







the best at my hands, so though I dare not 
promise anie such, yet do I promise truly j 
and affectionately to performe the best I 
shall be able.’ 

“ When Sir Thomas More had spoken 
these wordes, turning his face to the high 
judgment seate of the chancerie, he pro¬ 
ceeded in this manner:—‘ But when I looke 
upon this seate, when I thinke how greate 
and what kinde of personages have possessed 
this place before me, when I call to minde 
who he was that sate in it last of all—a man 
of what singular wisdome, of what notable 
experience, what a prosperous and favour¬ 
able fortune he had for a great space, and 
how at the last he had a most grevious fall, 
and dyed inglorious—I have cause enough 
by my predecessor’s example to think honour 
but slipperie, and this dignitie not so grate¬ 
ful to me as it may seeme to others; for 
both is it a hard matter to follow with like 
paces or praises, a man of such admirable 
witt, prudence, authoritie, and splendour, to 
whome I may seeme but as the lighting of a 
candle, when the sun is downe; and also the 
sudden and unexpected fall of so great a 
man as he was doth terribly putt me in 
minde that this honour ought not to please 
me too much, nor the lustre of this glister¬ 
ing seate dazel mine eyes. Wherefore I 
ascende this seate as a place full of labour 
and danger, voyde of all solide and true 
honour; the which by how much the higher 
it is, by so much greater fall I am to feare, 
as well in respect of the verie nature of the 
thing itselfe, as because I am warned by this 
late fearfull example. And truly I might 
even now at this verie just entrance stumble, 
yea faynte, but that his majestie’s most sin¬ 
gular favour towardes me, and all your good 
wills, which your joyfull countenance doth 
testifye in this most honorable assemblie, 
doth somewhat recreate and refresh me; 
otherwise this seate would be no more 
pleasing to me, than that sword was to 
Damocles, which hung over his head, tyed 
only by a hayre of a horse’s tail, when he 
had store of delicate fare before him, seated 
in the chair of state of Denis the tirant of 
Sicilie; this therefore shall be always fresh 


in my minde, this will I have still before 
mine eies, that this seate will be honorable, 
famous, and full of glorie unto me, if I shall 
with care and diligence, fidelitie and wise- 
dome, endeavour to doe my dutie, and shall 
persuade myself, that the enjoying thereof 
may be but short and uncertaine: the one 
whereof my labour ought to performe; the 
other my predecessor’s example may easily 
teach me. All which being so, you may 
easily perceave what great pleasure I take 
in this high dignitie, or in this most noble 
duke’s praising of me.’ 

“ All the world took notice now of Sir 
Thomas’s dignitie, whereof Erasmus writeth 
to John Fabius, bishop of Vienna, thus: — 
‘ Concerning the new increase of honour 
lately happened to Thomas More, I should 
easily make you believe it, if I should show 
you the letters of many famous men, re¬ 
joicing with much alacritie, and congratu¬ 
lating the king, the realme, himself, and 
also me, for More’s honor, in being made 
lord chancellour of England.’ ” 

At the period of the son’s promotion, Sir 
John More, who was nearly of the age of 
ninety, was the most ancient judge of the 
King’s Bench. “ What a grateful spectacle 
was it,” says their descendant, “ to see the 
son ask the blessing of the father every 
day upon his knees before he sat upon his 
own seat! ” * Even in a more unceremoni¬ 
ous age, the simple character of More would 
have protected these daily rites of filial 
reverence from that suspicion of affectation 
which could alone destroy their charm. But 
at that time it must have borrowed its chief 
power from the conspicuous excellence of 
the father and son. For if inward worth 
had then borne any proportion to the grave 
and reverend ceremonial of the age, we 
might be well warranted in regarding our 
forefathers as a race of superior beings. 

The contrast which the humble and affable 
More afforded to the haughty cardinal, 
astonished and delighted the suitors. No 
application could be made to Wolsey which 
did not pass through many hands; and no 


* More, p. 163. 










220 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

man could apply whose fingers were not 
tipped with gold : but More sat daily in an 
open hall, that he might receive in person 
the petitions of the poor. If any reader 
should blame his conduct in this respect, as 
a breach of an ancient and venerable pre¬ 
cept,— “ Ye shall do no unrighteousness in 
judgment; thou shalt not respect the person 
of the poor, nor honour the person of the 
mighty; but in righteousness shalt thou 
judge thy neighbour,” * let it be remembered 
that there still clung to the equitable juris¬ 
diction some remains of that precarious and 
eleemosynary nature from which it origi¬ 
nally sprung; which, in the eyes of the com¬ 
passionate chancellor, might warrant more 
preference for the helpless poor than could 
be justified in proceedings more rigorously 
legal. 

Courts of law were jealous then, as since, 
of the power assumed by chancellors to issue 
injunctions to parties to desist from doing 
certain acts which they were by law entitled 
to do, until the court of chancery should 
determine whether the exercise of the legal 
right would not work injustice. There are 
many instances in which irreparable wrong 
may be committed before a right can be 
ascertained in the ordinary course of pro¬ 
ceedings. In such cases it is the province 
of the chancellor to take care that affairs 
shall continue in their actual condition until 
the questions in dispute be determined. A 
considerable outcry against this necessary, 
though invidious, authority was raised at 
the commencement of More’s chancellor¬ 
ship. He silenced this clamour with his 
wonted prudence and meekness. Having 
caused one of the six clerks to make out a 
list of the injunctions issued by him, or 
pending before him, he invited all the judges 
to dinner. He laid the list before them; 
and explained the circumstances of each 
case so satisfactorily, that they all confessed 
that in the like case they would have done 
no less. Nay, he offered to desist from the 
jurisdiction, if they would undertake to 
contain the law within the boundaries of 

righteousness, which he thought they ought 
in conscience to do. The judges declined 
to make the attempt; on which he observed 
privately to Roper, that he saw they trusted 
to their influence for obtaining verdicts 
which would shift the responsibility from 
them to the juries. “Wherefore,” said he, 

“ I am constrained to abide the adventure 
of their blame.” 

Dauncey, one of his sons-in-law, alleged 
that under Wolsey “ even the door-keepers 
got great gains,” and was so perverted by 
the venality there practised that he expos¬ 
tulated with More for his churlish integrity. 
The chancellor said, that “ if his father, 
whom he reverenced dearly, were on the 
one side, and the devil, whom he hated with 
all his might, on the other, the devil should 
have his right.” He is represented by his 
descendant as softening his answer by pro¬ 
mising minor advantages, such as priority of 
hearing, and recommendation of arbitration, 
where the case of a friend was bad. The 
biographer, however, not being a lawyer, 
might have misunderstood the conversation, 
which had to pass through more than one 
generation before the tradition reached him; 
or the words may have been a hasty effusion 
of good-nature, uttered only to qualify the 
roughness of his honesty. If he had been 
called on to perform these promises, his 
head and heart would have recoiled alike 
from breaches of equality which he would 
have felt to be altogether dishonest. When 
Heron, another of his sons-in-law, relied on 
the bad practices of the times, so far as to 
entreat a favourable judgment in a cause of 
his own, More, though the most affectionate 
of fathers, immediately undeceived him by 
an adverse decree. This act of common 
justice is made an object of panegyric by 
the biographer, as if it were then deemed 
an extraordinary instance of virtue: a de¬ 
plorable symptom of that corrupt state of 
general opinion, which, half a century later, 
contributed to betray into ignominious vices 
the wisest of men, and the most illustrious 
of chancellors,—if the latter distinction be 
not rather due to the virtue of a More or a 
Somers. 

* Leviticus, chap. xix. ver. 15. 












LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 221 

He is said, to have despatched the causes 


before him so speedily, that, on asking for 
the next, he was told that none remained: 
which is boastfully contrasted by Mr. More, 
his descendant, with the arrear of a thousand 
in the time of that gentleman, who lived in 
the reign of Charles I.; though we have 
already seen that this difference may be 
referred to other causes, and therefore that 
the fact, if true, proves no more than his 
exemplary diligence and merited reputation. 

The scrupulous and delicate integrity of 
More (for so it must be called in speaking 
of that age) was more clearly shown after 
his resignation, than it could have been 
during his continuance in office. One Par¬ 
nell complained of him for a decree obtained 
by his adversary Yaughan, whose wife had 
bribed the chancellor by a gilt cup. More 
surprised the counsel at first, by owning 
that he received the cup as a new year’s 
gift. Lord Wiltshire, a zealous Protestant, 
indecently but prematurely exulted : “ Did 
I not tell you, my lords,” said he, “ that you 
would find this matter true ? ” “ But, my 

lords,” replied More, “ hear the other part of 
my tale.” He then told them that, “ having 
drank to her of wine with which his butler 
had filled the cup, and she having pledged 
him, he restored it to her, and would listen 
to no refusal.” When Mrs. Croker, for 
whom he had made a decree against Lord 
Arundel, came to him to request his accept¬ 
ance of a pair of gloves, in which were con¬ 
tained 40 1. in angels, he told her, with a 
smile, that it were ill manners to refuse a 
lady’s present; but though he should keep 
the gloves, he must return the gold, which 
he enforced her to receive. Gresham, a 
suitor, sent him a present of a gilt cup, of 
which the fashion pleased him : More ac¬ 
cepted it; but would not do so till Gresham 
received from him another cup of greater 
value, but of which the form and workman¬ 
ship were less suitable to the chancellor. 
It would be an indignity to the memory of 
such a man to quote these facts as proofs 
of his probity; but they may be mentioned 
as specimens of the simple and unforced 
honesty of one who rejected improper offers 


with all the ease and pleasantry of common 
courtesy. 

Henry, in bestowing the great seal on 
More, hoped to dispose his chancellor to 
lend his authority to the projects of divorce 
and second marriage, which were now agi¬ 
tating the king’s mind, and were the main 
objects of his policy.* Arthur, the eldest 
son of Henry VII., having married Catha¬ 
rine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, 
sovereigns of Castile and Aragon, and dying 
very shortly after his nuptials, Henry had 
obtained a dispensation from Pope Julius II. 
to enable the princess to marry her brother- 
in-law, afterwards Henry VIII.; and in this 
last-mentioned union, of which the Princess 
Mary was the only remaining fruit, the 
parties had lived sixteen years in apparent 
harmony. But in the year 1527 arose a v 
concurrence of events, which tried and 
established the virtue of More, and revealed 
to the world the depravity of his master. 
Henry had been touched by the charms of 
Anne Boleyn, a beautiful young lady, in her 
twenty-second year, the daughter of Sir 
Thomas Boleyn, earl of Wiltshire, who had 
lately returned from the court of France, 
where her youth had been spent. At the 
same moment it became the policy of Fran¬ 
cis I. to loosen all the ties which joined the 
King of England to the Emperor. When 
the Bishop of Tarbes, his ambassador in 
England, found, on his arrival in London, 
the growing distaste of Henry for his in¬ 
offensive and exemplary wife, he promoted 
the king’s inclination towards divorce, and 
suggested a marriage with Margaret, duchess 
of Alenqon, the beautiful and graceful sister 
of Francis Lf 


* “ Thomas Morus, doctrina et probitate specta- 
bilis vir, cancellarius in Wolssei locum constituitur. 
Neutiquam Regis causes cequior .” — Thuanus, His- 
toria sui Temporis, lib. ii. c. 16. 

f “ Margarita, Francisci soror, spectatse form® 
et venustatis foemina, Carolo Alenconio duce marito 
paulo ante mortuo, vidua permanserat. Ea desti- 
nata uxor Henrico: missique Wolsaeus et Biger- 
ronum Praesul qui de dissolvendo matrimonio cum 
Gallo agerent. Ut Caletum appulit, Wolsseus man- 
datum a rege contrarium accipit, rescivitque per 








222 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


At this period Henry for the first time 
professed to harbour conscientious doubts 
whether the dispensation of Julius II. could 
suspend the obligation of the divine prohi¬ 
bition pronounced against such a marriage 
as his in the Levitical law. * * The court of 
Rome did not dare to contend that the dis¬ 
pensation could reach the case if the prohi¬ 
bition were part of the universal law of 
God. Henry, on the other side, could not 
consistently question its validity, if he con¬ 
sidered the precept as belonging to merely 
positive law. To this question, therefore, 
the dispute was confined, though both par¬ 
ties shrunk from an explicit and precise 
avowal of their main ground. The most 
reasonable solution, that it was a local and 
temporary law, forming a part of the He¬ 
brew code, might seem at first sight to 
destroy its authority altogether. But if 
either party had been candid, this prohibi¬ 
tion, adopted by all Christendom, might be 
justified by that general usage, in a case 
where it was not remarkably at variance 
with reason or the public, welfare. But 
such a doctrine would have lowered the 
ground of the papal authority too much to 
be acceptable to Rome, and yet, on the 
other hand, rested it on too unexceptionable 
a foundation to suit the case of Henry. 
False allegations of facts in the preamble of 
the bull were alleged on the same side ; but 
they were inconclusive. The principal ar¬ 
guments in the king’s favour were, that no 
precedents of such a dispensation seem to 
have been produced; and that if the Levi- 


amicos Henricum non tam Galli adfinitatem quara 
insanum amorem, quo Annum Bolenam proseque- 
batur, explere velle.”—Ibid. No trace of the latter 
part appears in the State Papers just (1831) pub¬ 
lished. 

* Leviticus, chap. xx. ver 22. But see Deutero¬ 
nomy, chap. xxv. ver. 5. The latter text, which 
allows an exception in the case of a brother’s wife 
being left childless, may be thought to strengthen 
the prohibition in all cases not excepted. It may 
seem applicable to the precise case of Henry. But 
the application of that text is impossible; for it 
contains an injunction, of which the breach is 
chastised by a disgraceful' punishment. 


tical prohibitions do not continue in force 
under the Gospel, there is no prohibition 
against incestuous marriages in the system 
of the New Testament. It was a disadvan¬ 
tage to the Church of Rome in the contro¬ 
versy, that being driven from the low ground 
by its supposed tendency to degrade the 
subject, and deterred from the high ground 
by the fear of the reproach of daring usurp¬ 
ation, the inevitable consequence was con¬ 
fusion and fluctuation respecting the first 
principles on which the question was to be 
determined. 

To pursue this subject through the long 
negotiations and discussions which it occa¬ 
sioned during six years, would be to lead 
us far from our subject. Clement VII. 
( Medici ) had been originally inclined to 
favour the suit* of Henry, according to the 
usual policy of the Roman court, which 
sought plausible pretexts for facilitating the 
divorce of kings whose matrimonial con¬ 
nections might be represented as involving 
the quiet of nations. The sack of Rome, 
however, and his own captivity, left him full 
of fear of the emperor’s power and dis¬ 
pleasure ; it is even said that Charles V., 
who had discovered the secret designs of the 
English court, had extorted from the pope, 
before his release, a promise that no attempt 
would be made to dishonour an Austrian 
princess by acceding to the divorce.^ The 
pope, unwilling to provoke Henry, his 
powerful and generous protector, instructed 
Campeggio to attempt, first, a reconciliation 
between the king and queen ; secondly, if 
that failed, to endeavour to persuade her 
that she ought to acquiesce in her husband’s 
desires, by entering into a cloister—(a pro¬ 
position which seems to show a readiness in 
the Roman court to waive their theological 
difficulties) ; and thirdly, if neither of these 
attempts were successful, to spin out the 
negotiation to the greatest length, in order 
to profit by the favourable incidents which 
time might bring forth. The impatience of 
the king and the honest indignation of the 


* Pallavicino, lib. ii. c. 15. 
t Ibid. 









LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 223 


queen defeated these arts of Italian policy; 
while the resistance of Anne Boleyn to the 
irregular gratification of the king’s desires, 
—without the belief of which it is impossible 
to conceive the motives for his perseverance 
in the pursuit of an unequal marriage,— 
opposed another impediment to the counsels 
and contrivances of Clement, which must 
have surprised and perplexed a Florentine 
pontiff*. The proceedings, however, termi-\ 
nated in the sentence pronounced by Cran- 
mer, annulling the marriage, the espousal of 
Anne Boleyn by the king, and the rejection 
of the papal jurisdiction by the kingdom, 
which still, however, adhered to the doc¬ 
trines of the Roman Catholic Church. / 
The situation of More during a great part 
of these memorable events was embarrassing. 
The great offices to which he had been 
raised by the king, the personal favour 
hitherto constantly shown to him, and the 
natural tendency of his gentle and quiet 
disposition, combined to disincline him to 
resistance against the wishes of his friendly 
master. On the other hand, his growing 
dread and horror of heresy with its train of 
disorders, his belief that universal anarchy 
would be the inevitable result of religious 
dissension, and the operation of seven years’ 
controversy on behalf of the Catholic Church, 
in heating his mind on all subjects involving 
the extent of her authority, made him recoil 
from designs which were visibly tending to¬ 
wards disunion with the Roman pontiff*— 
the centre of Catholic union, and the supreme 
magistrate of the ecclesiastical common- 
wealth. Though his opinions relating to 
the papal authority were of a moderate and 
liberal nature, he at least respected it as an 
ancient and venerable control on licentious 
opinions, of which the prevailing heresies 
attested the value and the necessity. Though 
he might have been better pleased with an¬ 
other determination by the supreme pontiff*, 
it did not follow that he should contribute to 
weaken the holy see, assailed as it was on 
every side, by taking an active part in re¬ 
sistance to the final decision of a lawful 
authority. Obedience to the supreme head 
of the Church, in a case which ultimately 


related only to discipline, appeared pecu¬ 
liarly incumbent on all professed Catholics. 
But however sincere the zeal of More for 
the Catholic religion and his support of the 
legitimate supremacy of the Roman see un¬ 
doubtedly were, he was surely influenced at 
the same time by the humane feelings of his 
just and generous nature, which engaged his 
heart to espouse the cause of a blameless 
and wronged princess, driven from the 
throne and the bed of a tyrannical husband. 
Though he reasoned the case as a divine and 
a canonist, he must have felt it as a man; 
and honest feeling must have glowed beneath 
.the subtleties and formalities of doubtful and 
sometimes frivolous disputations. It was 
probably often the chief cause of conduct 
for which other reasons might be sincerely 
alleged. 

In steering his course through the in¬ 
trigues and passions of the court, it is very 
observable that More most warily retired 
from every opposition but that which Con¬ 
science absolutely required : he shunned 
unnecessary disobedience as much as uncon- 
scientious compliance. If he had been in¬ 
fluenced solely by prudential considerations, 
he could not have more cautiously shunned 
every needless opposition; but in that case 
he would not have gone so far. He dis¬ 
played, at the time of which we now speak, 
that very peculiar excellence of his charac¬ 
ter, which, as it showed his submission to be 
the fruit of sense of duty, gave dignity to 
that which in others is apt to seem, and to 
be, slavish. His anxiety had increased with 
the approach to maturity of the king’s pro¬ 
jects of divorce and second marriage. Some 
anecdotes of this period are preserved by 
the affectionate and descriptive pen of Mar¬ 
garet Roper’s husband, which, as he evi¬ 
dently reports in the chancellor’s language, 
it would be unpardonable to relate in any 
other words than those of the venerable man 
himself. Roper, indeed, like another Plu¬ 
tarch, consults the unrestrained freedom of 
his story by a disregard of dates, which, 
however agreeable to a general reader, is 
sometimes unsatisfactory to a searcher after 
accuracy. Yet his office in a court of law, 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


224 ' 

where there is the strongest inducement to 
ascertain truth, and the largest experience 
of the means most effectual for that purpose, 
might have taught him the extreme import¬ 
ance of time as well as place in estimating 
the bearing and weight of testimony. 

“ On a time walking with me along the 
Thames’ side at Chelsea, he said unto me, 
‘ Now would to our Lord, son Roper, upon 
condition that three things were well esta¬ 
blished in Christendom, I were put into a 
sack, and were presently cast into the 
Thames.’ — ‘What great things be those, 
sir,’ quoth I, ‘ that should move you so to 
wish ? ’—‘ In faith, son, they be these,’ said 
he. ‘ The first is, that whereas the most 
part of Christian princes be at mortal war, 
they were all at universal peace. The second , 
that where the Church of Christ is at present 
sore afflicted with many errors and heresies, 
it were well settled in perfect uniformity of 
religion. The third, that as the matter of 
the king’s marriage is now come in question, 
it were, to the glory of God and quietness of 
all parties, brought to a good conclusion. ’ ” * 
On another occasionj, “before the matri¬ 
mony was brought in question, when I, in 
talk with Sir Thomas More (of a certain 
joy), commended unto him the happy estate 
of this realm, that had so catholic a prince, 
so grave and sound a nobility, and so loving, 
obedient subjects, agreeing in one faith. 

‘ Truth it is, indeed, son Roper ; and yet I 
pray God, as high as we sit upon the moun¬ 
tains, treading heretics under our feet like 
ants, live not the day that we gladly would 
wish to be at league and composition with 
them, to let them have their churches, so 
that they would be contented to let us have 
ours quietly.’ I answered, ‘ By my troth, it 
is very desperately spoken.’ He, perceiving 
me to be in a fume, said merrily, — ‘Well, 
well, son Roper, it shall not be so.’ Whom,” 
concludes Roper, “ in sixteen years and 

* The description of the period appears to suit 
the year 1529, before the peace of Cambray and the 
recall of the legate Campeggio. 

f Probably in the beginning of 1527, after the 
promotion of More to be chancellor of the Duchy 
of Lancaster. 


more, being in his house, conversant with 
him, I never could perceive him as much as 
once in a fume.” Doubtless More was some¬ 
what disquieted by the reflection, that some 
of those who now appealed to the freedom 
of his youthful philosophy against himself 
would speedily begin to abuse such doctrines 
by turning them against the peace which he 
loved, — that some of the spoilers of Rome 
might exhibit the like scenes of rapine and 
blood in the city which was his birth-place 
and his dwelling-place: yet, even then, the 
placid mien, which had stood the test of 
every petty annoyance for sixteen years, was 
unruffled by alarms for the impending fate 
of his country and of his religion. 

Henry used every means of procuring an 
opinion favourable to his wishes from his 
chancellor, who, however, excused himself 
as unmeet for such matters, having never 
professed the study of divinity. But the 
king “ sorely ” pressed him*, and never 
ceased urging him until he had promised to 
give his consent, at least, to examine the 
question, conjointly with his friend Tunstall 
and other learned divines. -This examination 
over, More, with his wonted ingenuity and 
gentleness, conveyed the result to his master. 
“ To be plain with your grace, neither your 
bishops, wise and virtuous though they be, 
nor myself, nor any other of your council, 
by reason of your manifold benefits bestowed 
on us, are meet counsellors for your grace 
herein. If you mind to understand the truth, 
consult St. Jerome, St. Augustin, and other 
holy doctors of the Greek and Latin churches, 
who will not be inclined to deceive you by 
respect of their own worldly commodity, or 
by fear of your princely displeasure.” f 
Though the king did not like what “ was 
disagreeable to his desires, yet the language 
of More was so wisely tempered, that for the 
present he took it in good part, and often¬ 
times had conferences with the chancellor 
thereon.” The native meekness of More 
was probably more effectual than all the arts 
by which courtiers ingratiate themselves, or 
insinuate unpalatable counsel. 


* Roper, p. 82. f Ibid. p. 48. 










LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 225 


Shortly after, the king again moved him 
to weigh and consider the great matter: 
the chancellor fell down on his knees, and 
reminding Henry of his own words on deli¬ 
vering the great seal, which were, — “ First 
look upon God, and after God upon me,” 
added, that nothing had ever so pained him 
as that he was not able to serve him in that 
matter, without a breach of that original in¬ 
junction. The king said he was content to 
continue his favour, and never with that 
matter molest his conscience afterwards; 
but when the progress towards the marriage 
was so far advanced that the chancellor saw 
how soon his active co-operation must be 
required, he made suit to his “ singular dear''' 
friend,” the Duke of Norfolk, to procure 
his discharge from office. The duke, often 
solicited by More, then obtained, by impor¬ 
tunate suit, a clear discharge for the chan¬ 
cellor ; and upon the repairing to the king, 
to resign the great seal into his hands, Henry 
received him with thanks and praise for his 
worthy service, and assured him, that in any 
suit that should either concern his honour or 
appertain unto his profit, he would show 
himself a good and gracious master to his 
faithful servant. He then further directed 
Norfolk, when he installed his successor, to 
declare publicly, “that his majesty had with 
pain yielded to the prayers of Sir Thomas 
More, by the removal of such a magis¬ 
trate.” * 

At the time of his resignation More as¬ 
serted, and circumstances, without reference 
to his character, demonstrate the truth of 
his assertion, that his whole income, inde¬ 
pendent of grants from the crown, did not 
amount to more than 50?. yearly. This was 
not more than an eighth part of his gains at 
the bar and his judicial salary from the city 
of London taken together; — so great was 
the proportion in which his fortune had de¬ 
clined during eighteen years of employment 
in offices of such trust, advantage, and 
honour.-)* In this situation the clergy voted, 

* “ Honorific^ jussit rex de me testatum reddere 
quod aegre ad preces meas me demiserit.” — More 
to Erasmus. 

f Apology, chap. x. 


as a testimonial of their gratitude to him, 
the sum of 5000?., which, according to the 
rate of interest at that time, would have 
yielded him 500?. a year, being ten times 
the yearly sum which he could then call his 
own. But good and honourable as he knew 
their messengers, of whom Tunstall was one, 
to be, he declared “ that he would rather cast 
their money into the sea than take it —not 
speaking from a boastful pride, most foreign 
from his nature, but shrinking with a sort 
of instinctive delicacy from the touch of 
money, even before he considered how much 
the acceptance of the gift might impair his 
usefulness. 

His resources were of a nobler nature. 
The simplicity of his tastes and the mo¬ 
deration of his indulgences rendered re¬ 
trenchment a task so easy to himself, as to 
be scarcely perceptible in his personal habits. 
His fool or jester, then a necessary part of a 
great man’s establishment, he gave to the 
lord mayor for the time being. His first 
care was to provide for his attendants, by 
placing his gentlemen and yeomen with 
peers and prelates, and his eight watermen 
in the service of his successor, Sir X. Audley, 
to whom he gave his great barge, — one of 
the most indispensable appendages of his 
office in an age when carriages were un¬ 
known. His sorrows were for separation 
from those whom he loved. He called to¬ 
gether his children and grandchildren, who 
had hitherto lived in peace and love under 
his patriarchal roof, and, lamenting that he 
could not, as he was wont, and as he gladly 
would, bear out the whole charges of them all 
himself, to continue living together as they 
were wont, he prayed them to give him their 
counsel on this trying occasion. When he 
saw them silent, and unwilling to risk their 
opinion, he gave them his, seasoned with his 
natural gaiety, and containing some strokes 
illustrative of the state of society at that 
time : — “I have been brought up,” quoth 
he, “ at Oxford, at an inn of chancery, at 
Lincoln’s Inn, and also in the king’s court, 
from the lowest degree to the highest, and 
yet I have at present left me little above 
100?. a year (including the king’s grants); 


Q 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


226 

“ so that now if we like to live together we 
must be content to be contributaries toge¬ 
ther ; but we must not fall to the lowest fare 
first:—we will begin with Lincoln’s Inn 
diet, where many right worshipful and of 
good years do live full well; which, if we 
find not ourselves the first year able to 
maintain, then will we the next year go one 
step to New Inn fare ; if that year exceed 
our ability, we will the next year descend to 
Oxford fare, where many grave, learned, 
and ancient fathers are continually con¬ 
versant. If our ability stretch not to main¬ 
tain either, then may we yet with bags and 
wallets go a begging together, and hoping 
for charity at every man’s door, to sing Salve 
regina; and so still keep company and be 
merry together.” * On the Sunday follow¬ 
ing his resignation, he stood at the door of 
his wife’s pew in the church, where one of 
his dismissed gentlemen had been used to 
stand, and making a low obedience to Alice 
as she entered, said to her with perfect gra¬ 
vity, — “ Madam, my lord is gone.” He 
who for seventeen years had not raised his 
voice in displeasure, could riot be expected 
to sacrifice the gratification of his innocent 
merriment to the heaviest blows of fortune. 

Nor did he at fit times fail to prepare his 
beloved children for those more cruel strokes 
which he began to foresee. Discoursing 
with them, he enlarged on the happiness of 
suffering, for the love of God, the loss of 
goods, of liberty, of lands, of life. He would 
further say unto them, “ that if he might 
perceive his wife and children would en¬ 
courage him to die in a good cause, it should 
so comfort him, that, for very joy, it would 
make him run merrily to death.” 

It must be owned that Henry felt the 
weight of this great man’s opinion, and tried 
every possible means to obtain at least the 
appearance of his spontaneous approbation. 
Tunstall and other prelates were commanded 
to desire his attendance at the coronation of 
Anne at Westminster. They wrote a letter 
to persuade him to comply, and accompa¬ 
nied it with the needful present of 20 1. to 


* Roper, pp. 51, 52. 


buy a court dress. Such overtures he had 
foreseen; for he said some time before to 
Roper, when he first heard of that marriage, 
“ God grant, son Roper, that these matters 
within a while be not confirmed with oaths! ” 
/He accordingly answered his friends the 
bishops well: — “ Take heed, my lords : by 
procuring your lordships to be present at 
the coronation, they will next ask you to 
preach for the setting forth thereof; and 
finally to write books to all the world in 
defence thereof.” 

Another opportunity soon presented itself 
for trying to subdue the obstinacy of More, 
whom a man of violent nature might believe 
to be fearful, because he was peaceful. 
Elizabeth Barton, called “ the holy maid of 
Kent,” who had been, for a considerable 
number of years, afflicted by convulsive 
maladies, felt her morbid susceptibility so 
excited by Henry’s profane defiance of the 
Catholic Church, and his cruel desertion of 
Catharine, his faithful wife, that her pious 
and humane feelings led her to represent, 
and probably to believe, herself to be 
visited by a divine revelation of those 
punishments which the king was about to 
draw down on himself and on the kingdom. 
In the universal opinion of the sixteenth 
century, such interpositions were considered 
as still occurring. The neighbours and 
visiters of the unfortunate young woman be¬ 
lieved her ravings to be prophecies, and the 
contortions of her body to be those of a 
frame heaving and struggling under the 
awful agitations of divine inspiration, and 
confirmed that conviction of a mission from 
God, for which she was predisposed by her 
own pious benevolence, combined with the 
general error of the age. Both Fisher and 
More appear not to have altogether dis¬ 
believed her pretensions: More expressly 
declared, that he durst not and would not 
be bold in judging her miracles.* In the 
beginning of her prophecies, the latter had 
been commanded by the king to inquire 
into her case; and he made a report to 


* Letter to Cromwell, probably written in the 
end of 1532. 








LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 


Henry, who agreed with him in considering 
the whole of her miraculous pretensions as 
frivolous, and deserving no farther regard. 
But in 1532, several monks * so magnified 
her performances to More that he was pre¬ 
vailed on to see her; but refused to hear 
her speak about the king, saying to her, in 
general terms, that he had no desire to pry 
into the concerns of others. Pursuant, as 
it is said, to a sentence by or in the Star 
Chamber, she stood in the pillory at Paul’s 
Cross, acknowledging herself to be guilty of 
the imposture of claiming inspiration, and 
saying that she was tempted to this fraud by 
the instigation of the devil. Considering 
the circumstances of the case, and the cha¬ 
racter of the parties, it is far more probable 
that the ministers should have obtained a 
false confession from her hopes of saving 
her life, than that a simple woman should 
have contrived and carried on, for many 
years, a system of complicated and elaborate 
imposture. It would not be inconsistent 
with this acquittal to allow that, in the 
course of her self-delusion, she should have 
been induced, by some ecclesiastics of the 
tottering Church, to take an active part in 
these pious frauds, which there is too much 
reason to believe that persons of unfeigned 
religion have been often so far misguided 
by enthusiastic zeal as to perpetrate or to 
patronise. But whatever were the motives 
or the extent of the “ holy maid’s ” confes¬ 
sion, it availed her nothing; for in the ses¬ 
sion of parliament which met in January, 
1534, she and her ecclesiastical prompters 
were attainted of high treason, and ad¬ 
judged to suffer death as traitors. Fisher, 
bishop of Rochester, and others, were at¬ 
tainted of misprision, or concealment of trea¬ 
son, for which they were adjudged to for¬ 
feiture and imprisonment during the king’s 
pleasure.] - The “holy maid,” with her 
spiritual guides, suffered death at Tyburn 
on the 21st of April; she confirming her 
former confession, but laying her crime to 
the charge of her companions, if we may 


* Of whom some were afterwards executed, 
f 25 H. VIII. c. 12. 


227 

implicitly believe the historians of the vic¬ 
torious party.* 

Fisher and his supposed accomplices in 
misprision remained in prison according to 
their attainder. Of More the statute makes 
no mention; but it contains a provision, 
which, when it is combined with other cir¬ 
cumstances to be presently related, appears 
to have been added to the bill for the pur¬ 
pose of providing for his safety. By this 
provision, the king’s majesty, at the humble 
suit of his well-beloved wife Queen Anne, 
pardons all persons not expressly by name 
attainted by the statute, for all misprision 
and concealments relating to the false and 
feigned miracles and prophecies of Elizabeth 
Barton, on or before the 20th day of Oc¬ 
tober, 1533. Now we are told by Roper f, 
“ that Sir Thomas More’s name was ori¬ 
ginally inserted in the bill,” the king sup¬ 
posing that this bill would “ to Sir Thomas 
More be so troublous and terrible, that it 
would force him to relent and condescend 
to his request; wherein his grace was much 
deceived.” More was personally to have 
been received to make answer in his own 
defence ; but the king, not liking that, sent 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chan¬ 
cellor, the Duke of Norfolk, and Cromwell, 
to attempt his conversion. Audley reminded 
More of the king’s special favour and many 
benefits. More admitted them; but mo¬ 
destly added, that his highness had most 
graciously declared that on this matter he 
should be molested no more. When in the 
end they saw that no persuasion could move 
him, they then said “ that the king’s high¬ 
ness had given them in commandment, if 
they could by no gentleness win him, in the 
king’s name with ingratitude to charge him, 
that never was servant to his master so vil¬ 
lainous]:, nor subject to his prince so trai- 


* Such as Hall and Holinshed. 
f P. 62. 

J Like a slave or a villain. The word in the 
mouth of these gentlemen appears to have been in 
a state of transition, about the middle point between 
the original sense of “ like a slave,” and its modem 
acceptation of mean or malignant offenders. What 
proof is not supplied by this single fact in the his- 

Q 2 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


228 


torous, as he.” They even reproached him 
for having either written in the name of his 
master, or betrayed his sovereign into writ¬ 
ing, the book against Luther, which had so 
deeply pledged Henry to the support of 
papal pretensions. To these upbraidings he 
calmly answered: — “ The terrors are argu¬ 
ments for children, and not for me. As to 
the fact, the king knoweth, that after the 
book was finished by his highness’s appoint¬ 
ment, or the consent of the maker, I was 
only a sorter out and placer of the principal 
matters therein contained.” He added, that 
he had warned the king of the prudence of 
“ touching the pope’s authority more slen¬ 
derly, and that he had reminded Henry of 
the statutes of premunire ,” whereby “ a good 
part of the pope’s pastoral care was pared 
away;” and that impetuous monarch had 
answered, “We are so much bounden unto 
the see of Rome, that we cannot do too 
much honour unto it.” On More’s return 
to Chelsea from his interview with these 
lords, Roper said to him — “I hope all is 
well, since you are so merry ? ” — “ It is so, 
indeed,” said More, “I thank God.” — “Are 
you, then, out of the parliament bill ? ” said 
Roper, — “ By my troth, I never remem¬ 
bered it: but,” said More, “ I will tell thee 
why I was so merry; because I had given 
the devil a foul fall, and that with those 
lords I had gone so far, as without great 
shame I can never go back again.” This 
frank avowal of the power of temptation, 
and this simple joy at having at the hazard 
of life escaped from the farther seductions 
of the court, bestows a greatness on these 
few and familiar words which scarcely be¬ 
longs to any other of the sayings of man. 

Henry, incensed at the failure of wheedling 
and threatening messages, broke out into 
violent declarations of his resolution to in¬ 
clude More in the attainder, and said that 
he should be personally present to ensure 
the passing of the bill. Lord Audley and 
his colleagues on their knees besought their 

o o 


tory of the language of the masters, of their con¬ 
viction that the slavery maintained by them 
doomed the slaves to depravity! 


master to forbear, lest, by an overthrow in 
his own presence, he might be contemned by 
his own subjects, and dishonoured through¬ 
out Christendom for ever; adding, that they 
doubted not that they should find a more 
meet occasion “ to serve his turn ; ” for that 
in this case of the nun he was so clearly 
innocent, that men deemed him far worthier 
of praise than of reproof. Henry was com¬ 
pelled to yield.* Such was the power of 
defenceless virtue over the slender remains 
of independence among slavish peers, and 
over the lingering remnants of common hu¬ 
manity which might still be mingled with a 
cooler policy in the bosoms of subservient 
politicians. One of the worst of that race, 
Thomas Cromwell, on meeting Roper in the 
Parliament House next day after the king 
assented to the prayer of his ministers, told 
him to tell More that he was put out of the 
bill. Roper sent a messenger to Margaret 
Roper, who hastened to her beloved father 
with the tidings. More answered her, with 
his usual gaiety and fondness, “ In faith, 
Megg, what is put off is not given up.” j' 
Soon after, the Duke of Norfolk said to him, 
— “ By the mass! Master More, it is pe¬ 
rilous striving with princes ; the anger of a 
prince brings death.” — “ Is that all, my 
lord ? then the difference between you and 
me is but this, — that I shall die to-day, and 
you to-morrow .” No life in Plutarch is more 
full of happy sayings and striking retorts 
than that of More; but the terseness and 
liveliness of his are justly overlooked in the 
contemplation of that union of perfect sim¬ 
plicity with moral grandeur, which, perhaps, 
no other human being has so uniformly 
reached. 

* The House of Lords addressed the king, pray¬ 
ing him to declare whether it would be agreeable 
to his pleasure that Sir Thomas More and others 
should not be heard in their own defence before 
“ the lords in the royal senate called the Stere 
Chamber.” Nothing more appears on the Journals 
relating to this matter. Lords’ Journals, 6th March, 
1533. The Journals prove the narrative of Roper, 
from which the text is composed, to be as accurate 
as it is beautiful. 

t He spoke to her in his conversational Latin, — 
“ Quod differtur non aufertur .” 








LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 229 


By a tyrannical edict, miscalled “ a law,” 
in the same session of 1533-4, it was made 
high treason, after the 1st of May, 1534, by 
writing, print, deed or act, to do or to pro¬ 
cure, or cause to be done or procured, any 
thing to the prejudice, slander, disturbance, 
or derogation of the king’s lawful matri¬ 
mony with Queen Anne. If the same 
offences should be committed by words, 
they were to be only misprision. The same 
act enjoined all persons to take an oath to 
maintain its whole contents; and an obstinate 
refusal to make such oath was subjected to 
the penalties of misprision. No form of the 
oath was enacted, but on the 30th of March *, 
1534, which was the day of closing the 
session, the chancellor Audley, when the 
commons were at the bar, but when they 
could neither deliberate nor assent, read the 
king’s letters patent, containing one, and 
appointing the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
the Chancellor, the Dukes of Norfolk and 
Suffolk, to be commissioners for adminis¬ 
tering it. 

More was summoned to appear before 
these commissioners at Lambeth, on Monday 
the 13th of April. On other occasions he 
had used, at his departure from his wife and 
children, whom he tenderly loved, to have 
them brought to his boat, and there to kiss 
them, and bid them all farewell. At this 
time he would suffer none of them to follow 
him forth of the gate, but pulled the wicket 
after him, and shut them all from him, and 
with Roper and four servants took boat 
towards Lambeth. He sat for a while; but 
at last, his mind being lightened and relieved 
by those high principles to which with him 
every low consideration yielded, whispered, 
— “ Son Roper! I thank our Lord, the field 
is won.”—“As I conjectured,” says Roper, 
“it was for that his love to God conquered' 
his carnal affections.” What follows is from 
an account of his conduct during the subse¬ 
quent examination at Lambeth sent to his 
darling child, Margaret Roper. After hav¬ 
ing read the statute and the form of the 
oath, he declared his readiness to swear that 


* Lords’ Journals, vol. i. p. 82. 


he would maintain and defend the order of 
succession to the crown as established by 
parliament. He disclaimed all censure of 
those who had imposed, or on those who had 
taken, the oath, but declared it to be impos¬ 
sible that he could swear to the whole con¬ 
tents of it, without offending against his own 
conscience; adding, that if they doubted 
whether his refusal proceeded from pure 
scruple of conscience or from his own phan¬ 
tasies, he was willing to satisfy their doubts 
by oath. The commissioners urged that he 
was the first who refused it; they showed 
him the subscriptions of all the lords and 
commons who had sworn; and they held 
out the king’s sure displeasure against him 
should he be the single recusant. When he 
was called on a second time, they charged 
him with obstinacy for not mentioning any 
special part of the oath which wounded his 
conscience. He answered, that if he were 
to open his reasons for refusal farther, he 
should exasperate the king still more : he 
offered, however, to assign them if the lords 
would procure the king’s assurance that the 
avowal of the grounds of his defence should 
not be considered as offensive to the king, 
nor prove dangerous to himself. The com¬ 
missioners answered that such assurances 
would be no defence against a legal charge : 
he offered, however, to trust himself to the 
kind’s honour. Cranmer took some advan- 
tage of More’s candour, urging that, as he 
had disclaimed all blame of those who had 
sworn, it was evident that he thought it 
only doubtful whether the oath was unlaw¬ 
ful ; and desired him to consider whether 
the obligation to obey the king was not ab¬ 
solutely certain. More was struck with the 
subtilty of this reasoning, which took him 
by surprise, — but not convinced of its so¬ 
lidity : notwithstanding his surprise, he seems 
to have almost touched upon the true an¬ 
swer, that as the oath contained a profession 
of opinion, — such, for example, as the law¬ 
fulness of the king’s marriage, on which 
men might differ, — it might be declined by 
some and taken by others with equal honesty. 
Cromwell, whom More believed to favour 
him, loudly swore that he would rather see 








230 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


his only son had lost his head than that More 
had thus refused the oath; he it was who 
bore the answer to the king, tk£ chancellor 
Audley distinctly enjoining him to state very 
clearly More’s willingness to swear to the 
succession. “ Surely,” said More, “ as to 
swearing to the succession, I see no peril.” 
Cromwell was not a good man ; but the 
gentle virtue of More subdued even the bad. 
To his own house More never more re¬ 
turned, being on the same day committed to 
the custody of the Abbot of Westminster, in 
which he continued four days; and at the 
end of that time, on Friday the 17th, he was 
conveyed to the Tower.* * * § * 

Soon after the commencement of the ses¬ 
sion, which began on the 3d of November 
following f, an act was passed which ratified, 
and professed to recite, the form of oath 
promulgated on the day of the prorogation; 
and enacted that the oath therein recited 
should be reputed to be the very oath in¬ 
tended by the former act J; though there 
were, in fact, some substantial and important 
interpolations in the latter act;—such as 
the words “ most dear and entirely beloved, 
lawful wife, Queen Anne,” which tended to 
render that form still less acceptable than 
before to the scrupulous consciences of 
More and Fisher. Before the end of the 
same session two statutes § were passed at¬ 
tainting More and Fisher of misprision of 
treason, and specifying the punishment to be 
imprisonment of body and loss of goods. 
By that which relates to More, the king’s 
grants of land to him in 1523 and 1525 are 


* Roper tells us that the king, who had intended 
to desist from his importunities, was exasperated 
by Queen Anne’s clamour to tender the oath at 
Lambeth; but he detested that unhappy lady, 
whose marriage was the occasion of More’s ruin: 
and though Roper was an unimpeachable witness 
relating to Sir Thomas’s conversation, he is of less 
weight as to what passed in the interior of the 
palace. The ministers might have told such a 
story to excuse themselves to Roper: Anne could 
have had no opportunity of contradiction. 

f 2G H. VIII. c. 2. 

j 25 Id. c. 22. § 9. Compare Lords’ Journals, 
vol. i. p. 82. 

§ 2G H. VIII. c. 22, 28. 


resumed; it is also therein recited that he 
refused the oath since the 1st of May of 
1534, with an intent to sow sedition ; and he 
is reproached for having demeaned himself 
in other respects ungratefully and unkindly 
to the king, his benefactor. 

That this statement of the legislative mea¬ 
sures which preceded it is necessary to a 
consideration of the legality of More’s trial, 
which must be owned to be a part of its 
justice, will appear in its proper place. In 
the mean time, the few preparatory incidents 
which occurred during thirteen months’ im¬ 
prisonment must be briefly related. His 
wife Alice, though an excellent housewife, 
yet in her visits to the Tower handled his 
misfortunes and his scruples too roughly. 
“Like an ignorant and somewhat worldly 
woman, she bluntly said to him, — ‘ How 
can a man taken for wise, like you, play the 
fool in this close filthy prison, when you 
might be abroad at your liberty, if you 
would but do as the bishops have done ? ’ ” 
She enlarged on his fair house at Chelsea — 
“ his library, gallery, garden, and orchard, 
together with the company of his wife and 
children.” Ho bore with kindness in its 
most unpleasing form, and answered her 
cheerfully after his manner, which was to 
blend religious feelings with quaintness and 
liveliness : — “Is not this house as nigh 
heaven as mine own ? ” She answered him 
in what then appears to have been a homely 
exclamation of contempt *, “ Tilly valle , filly 
valle." t He treated her harsh language as 
a wholesome exercise for his patience, and 
replied with equal mildness, though with 
more gravity, “ Why should I joy in my 
gay house, when, if I should rise from the 
grave in seven years, I should not fail to 
find some one there who would bid me to 
go out of doors, for it was none of mine ? ” 
It was not thus that his Margaret Roper 
conversed or corresponded with him during 
his confinement. A short note written to 
her a little while after his commitment, with 
a coal (his only pen and ink), begins, “ Aline 


* Roper, p. 78. 

f Nares’s Glossary, London, 1822. 
















LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 231 


own good daughter,” and is closed in the 
following fond and pious words:—“ Written 
with a coal, by your tender loving father, 
who in his poor prayers forgetteth none of 
you, nor your babes, nor your good husband, 
nor your father’s shrewd wife neither.” 
Shortly after, mistaking the sense of a letter 
from her, which he thought advised him to 
compliance, he wrote a rebuke of her sup¬ 
posed purpose with the utmost vehemence 
of affection, and the deepest regard to her 
judgment! — “I hear many terrible things 
towards me ; but they all never touched me, 
never so near, nor were they so grievous 
unto me as to see you, my well beloved 
child, in such a piteous and vehement 
manner, labour to persuade me to a thing 
whereof I have of pure necessity, for respect 
unto myne own soul, so often given you so 
precise an answer before. The matters that 
move my conscience I have sundry times 
shown you, that I will disclose them to no 
one.” * Margaret’s reply was worthy of 
herself: she acquiesces in his “ faithful and 
delectable letter, the faithful messenger of 
his virtuous mind,” and almost rejoices in 
his victory over all earthborn cares ; — con¬ 
cluding thus : — “ Your own most loving 
obedient daughter and bedeswoman f, Mar¬ 
garet Roper, who desireth above all worldly 
things to be in John Wood’s j stede to do 
you some service.” After some time pity 
prevailed so far that she obtained the king’s 
licence to resort to her father in the Tower. 
On her first visit, after gratefully performing 
their accustomed devotions, his first care was 
to soothe her afflicted heart by the assurance 
that he saw no cause to reckon himself in 
worse case there than in his own house. On 
another occasion he asked her how Queen 
Anne did ? “ In faith, father,” said she, 

“ never better.” — “ Never better, Megg! ” 
quoth he; “alas! Megg, it pitieth me to 
remember into what misery, poor soul, she 
shall shortly come.” Various attempts con- 


* English Works, vol. i. p. 1430. 
f His waiting-man, Ibid. p. 1431. Bedesman— 
one who prays for another. 

X Roper, p. 72. 


tinued still to be made to cajole him; partly, 
perhaps, with the hope that his intercourse 
with the beloved Margaret might have soft¬ 
ened him. Cromwell told him that the king 
was still his good master, and did not wish 
to press his conscience. The lords commis¬ 
sioners went twice to the Tower to tender 
the oath to him ; but neither he nor Fisher 
would advance farther than their original 
declaration of perfect willingness to main¬ 
tain the settlement of the crown, which, 
being a matter purely political, was within 
the undisputed competence of parliament. 
They refused to include in their oath any 
other matter on account of scruples of con¬ 
science, which they forbore to particularise, 
lest they might thereby furnish their enemies 
with a pretext for representing their defence 
as a new crime. A statement of their real 
ground of objection, — that it would be in¬ 
sincere in them to declare upon oath, that 
they believed the king’s marriage with Anne 
to be lawful, — might, in defending them¬ 
selves against a charge of misprision of trea¬ 
son, have exposed them to the penalties of 
high treason. 

Two difficulties occurred in reconciling 
the destruction of the victim with any form 
or colour of law. The first of them con¬ 
sisted in the circumstance that the naked 
act of refusing the oath was, even by the 
late statute, punishable only as a misprision ; 
and though concealment of treason was never 
expressly declared to be only a misprision till 
the statute to that effect was passed under 
Philip and Mary*, — chiefly perhaps occa¬ 
sioned by the case of More, — yet it seemed 
strange thus to prosecute him for the re¬ 
fusal, as an act of treason, after it had been 
positively made punishable as a misprision 
by a general statute, and after a special act 
of attainder for misprision had been passed 
against him. Both these enactments were, 
on the supposition of the refusal being in¬ 
dictable for treason, absolutely useless, and 
such as tended to make More believe that 
he was safe as long as he remained silent. 
The second has been already intimated, that 


* 1 & 2 Phil, and Mar. c. 10. 

















232 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

he had yet said nothing which could be tor¬ 
tured into a semblance of those acts dero¬ 
gatory to the king’s marriage, which had 
been made treason. To conquer this last 
difficulty, Sir Robin Rich, the solicitor- 
general, undertook the infamous task of be¬ 
traying More into some declaration, in a 
confidential conversation, and under pretext 
of familiar friendship, which might be pre¬ 
tended to be treasonable. What the success 
of this flagitious attempt was, the reader will 
see in the account of More’s trial. It ap¬ 
pears from a letter of Margaret Roper, 
apparently written sometime in the winter, 
that his persecutors now tried another ex¬ 
pedient for vanquishing his constancy, by 
restraining him from attending church; and 
she adds, “from the company of my good 
mother and his poor children.” * More, in 
his answer, expresses his wonted affection in 
very familiar, but in most significant, lan¬ 
guage : — “If I were to declare in writing 
how much pleasure your daughterly loving 
letters gave me, a peck of coals would not 
suffice to make the pens.” So confident was 
he of his innocence, and so safe did he deem 
himself on the side of law, that “ he believed 
some new causeless suspicion, founded upon 
some secret sinister information,” had risen 
up against him.f 

On the 2d or 3d of May, 1535, More in¬ 
formed his dear daughter of a visit from 
Cromwell, attended by the attorney and 
solicitor-general, and certain civilians, at 
which Cromwell had urged to him the 
statute which made the king head of the 
Church, and required an answer on that 
subject; and that he had replied: — “I am 
the king’s true faithful subject, and daily 
bedesman: I say no harm, and do no harm; 
and if this be not enough to keep a man 
alive, in good faith I long not to live.” This 
ineffectual attempt was followed by another 
visit from Cranmer, the Chancellor, the 
Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Wiltshire, and 
Cromwell, who, after much argument, ten¬ 
dered an oath, by which he was to promise 

to make answers to questions which they 
might put *; and on his decisive refusal, 
Cromwell gave him to understand that, 
agreeably to the language at the former con¬ 
ference, “ his grace would follow the course 
of his laws towards such as he should find 
obstinate.” Cranmer, who too generally com¬ 
plied with evil counsels, but nearly always 
laboured to prevent their execution, wrote 
a persuasive letter to Cromwell, earnestly 
praying the king to be content with More 
and Fisher’s proffered engagement to main¬ 
tain the succession, which would render the 
whole nation unanimous on the practical 
part of that great subject. 

/ On the 6th of the same month, almost im¬ 
mediately after the defeat of every attempt 
to practise on his firmness, More was brought 
to trial at Westminster ; and it will scarcely 
be doubted, that no such culprit stood at any 
European bar for a thousand years. It is 
rather from caution than from necessity that 
the ages of Roman domination are excluded 
from the comparison. It does not seem that 
in any moral respect Socrates himself could 
claim a superiority. It is lamentable that 
the records of the proceedings against such 
a man should be scanty. We do not cer¬ 
tainly know the specific offence of which he 
was convicted. There does not seem, how¬ 
ever, to be much doubt that the prosecution 
was under the act “ for the establishment of 
the king’s succession,” passed in the session 

1533-41, which made it high treason “to do 
any thing to the prejudice, slander, disturb¬ 
ance, or derogation of the lawful marriage” 
between Henry and Anne. Almost any act, 
done or declined, might be forced within the 
undefined limits of such vague terms. In 
this case the prosecutors probably repre¬ 
sented his refusal to answer certain ques¬ 
tions which, according to them, must have 
related to the marriage, his observations at 
his last examination, and especially his con¬ 
versation with Rich, as overt acts of that 
treason, inasmuch as it must have been 
known by him that his conduct on these 

* English Works, vol. i. p. 1446. 
t Ibid. p. 1447. 

* English Works, p. 1452. 
t 25 H. VIII. e. 22. 















LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 233 


occasions tended to create a general doubt 
of the legitimacy of the marriage. 

To the first alleged instance of his resist¬ 
ance to the king, which consisted in his 
original judgment against the marriage, he 
answered in a manner which rendered reply 
impossible ; “ that it could never be treason 
for one of the king’s advisers to give him 
honest advice.” On the like refusal respect¬ 
ing the king’s headship of the Church, he 
answered that “ no man could be punished 
for silence.” The attorney-general said, 
that the prisoner’s silence was “ malicious : ” 
More justly answered, that “ he had a right 
to be silent where his language was likely to 
be injuriously misconstrued.” Respecting 
his letters to Bishop Fisher, they were burnt, 
and no evidence was offered of their con¬ 
tents, which he solemnly declared to have 
no relation to the charges. And as to the 
last charge, that he had called the Act of 
Settlement “ a two-edged sword, which 
would destroy his soul if he complied with 
it, and his body if he refused,” it was an¬ 
swered by him, that “he supposed the 
reason of his refusal to be equally good, 
whether the question led to an offence 
against his conscience, or to the necessity of 
criminating himself.” 

Cromwell had before told him, that though 
he was suffering perpetual imprisonment for 
the misprision, that punishment did not re¬ 
lease him from his allegiance, and that he 
was amenable to the law for treason; —• 
overlooking the essential circumstances, that 
the facts laid as treason were the same on 
which the attainder for misprision was 
founded. Even if this were not a strictly 
maintainable objection in technical law, it 
certainly showed the flagrant injustice of the 
whole proceeding. 

The evidence, however, of any such strong 
circumstances attendant on the refusal as 
could raise it into an act of treason must 
have seemed defective; for the prosecutors 
were reduced to the necessity of examining 
Rich, one of their own number, to prove 
circumstances of which he could have had no 
knowledge, without the foulest treachery on 
his part. He said, that he had gone to More 


as a friend, and had asked him, if an act of 
parliament had made him, Rich, king, would 
not he, More, acknowledge him ? More had 
said, “ Yes, sir, that I would.” — “ If they 
declared me pope, would you acknowledge 
me ? ” — “ In the first case, I have no doubt 
about temporal governments; but suppose 
the parliament should make a law that God 
should not be God, would you then, Mr. 
Rich, say that God should not be God ? ” — 
“No,” says Rich, “no parliament could 
make such a law.” Rich went on to swear 
that More had added, “No more could the 
parliament make the king supreme head of 
the Church.” More denied the latter part 
of Rich’s evidence altogether ; which is, in¬ 
deed, inconsistent with the whole tenour of 
his language: he was then compelled to 
expose the profligacy of Rich’s character. 
“ I am,” he said, “ more sorry for your per¬ 
jury, than for mine own peril. Neither I, 
\nor any man, ever took you to be a person 
of such credit as I could communicate with 
on such matters. We dwelt near in one 
parish, and you were always esteemed very 
light of your tongue, and not of any com¬ 
mendable fame. Can it be likely to your 
lordships that I should so unadvisedly over¬ 
shoot myself, as to trust Mr. Rich with what 
I have concealed from the king, or any of 
his noble and grave counsellors ? ” The 
credit of Rich was so deeply wounded, that 
he was compelled to call Sir Richard South- 
well and Mr. Palmer, who were present at 
the conversation, to prop his tottering evi¬ 
dence. They made a paltry excuse, by 
alleging that they were so occupied in re¬ 
moving More’s books, that they did not 
listen to the words of this extraordinary 
conversation. 

The jury*, in spite of all these circum¬ 
stances, returned a verdict of “ guilty.” 
Chancellor Audley, who was at the head of 
the commission, of which Spelman and Fitz- 


* Sir T. Palmer, Sir T. Bent, G. Lovell, esquire, 
Thomas Burbage, esquire, and G. Chamber, Edward 
Stockmore, William. Brown, Jasper Leake, Thomas 
Bellington, John Parnell, Richard Bellamy, and 
G. Stoakes, gentlemen, were the jury. 







234 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

lierbert, eminent lawyers, were members, 
was about to pronounce judgment, when he 
was interrupted by More, who claimed the 
usual privilege of being heard to show that 
judgment should not be passed. More urged, 
that he had so much ground for his scruples 
as at least to exempt his refusal from the 
imputation of disaffection, or of what the 
law deems to be malice. The chancellor 
asked him once more how his scruples could 
balance the weight of the parliament, people, 
and church of England? — a topic which 
had been used against him at every inter¬ 
view and conference since he was brought 
prisoner to Lambeth. The appeal to weight 
of authority influencing Conscience was, 
however, singularly unfortunate. More an¬ 
swered, as he had always done, “Nine out 
of ten of Christians now in the world think 
with me ; nearly all the learned doctors and 
holy fathers who are already dead, agree 
with me; and therefore I think myself not 
bound to conform my conscience to the 
councell of one realm against the general 
consent of all Christendom.” Chief Justice 
Fitzjames concurred in the sufficiency of the 
indictment; which, after the verdict of the 
jury, was the only matter before the court. 

The chancellor then pronounced the savage 
sentence which the law then directed in 
cases of treason. More, having no longer 
any measures to keep, openly declared, that 
after seven years’ study “he could find no 
colour for holding that a layman could be 
head of the church.” The commissioners 
once more offered him a favourable audience 
for any matter which he had to propose. — 

“ More have I not to say, my lords,” he 
replied, “ but that as St. Paul held the 
clothes of those who stoned Stephen to 
death, and as they are both now saints in 
heaven, and shall continue there friends for 
ever; so I verily trust, and shall therefore 
right heartily pray, that though your lord- 
ships have now here on earth been judges to 
my condemnation, we may, nevertheless, 
hereafter cheerfully meet in heaven, in ever¬ 
lasting salvation.” * 

Sir W. Kingston, “ his very dear friend,” 
constable of the Tower, as, with tears run¬ 
ning down his cheeks, he conducted him 
from Westminster, condoled with his pri¬ 
soner, who endeavoured to assuage the sor¬ 
row of his friend by the consolations of 
religion. The same gentleman said after¬ 
wards to Roper, — “I was ashamed of my¬ 
self when I found my heart so feeble, and 
his so strong.” Margaret Roper, his good 
angel, watched for his landing at the Tower 
wharf. “ After his blessing upon her knees 
reverently received, without care of herself, 
pressing in the midst of the throng, and the 
guards that were about him with halberts 
and bills, she hastily ran to him, and openly, 
in sight of them all, embraced and kissed 
him. He gave her again his fatherly blessing. 
After separation she, all ravished with the 
entire love of her dear father, suddenly 
turned back again, ran to him as before, 
took him about the neck, and divers times 
kissed him most lovingly — a sight which 
made many of the beholders weep and 
mourn.”* Thus tender was the heart of 
the admirable woman who had at the same 
time the greatness of soul to strengthen her 
father’s fortitude, by disclaiming the advice 
for which he, having mistaken her meaning, 
had meekly rebuked her, — to prefer life to 
right. 

On the 14th of June, More was once more 
examined by four civilians in the Tower. 

“ He was asked, first, whether he would 
obey the king as supreme head of the 
Church of England on earth immediately 
under Christ ? to which he said, that he 
could make no answer: secondly, whether 
he would consent to the king’s marriage 
with Queen Anne, and affirm the marriage 
with the lady Catharine to have been un¬ 
lawful ? to which he answered that he did 
never speak nor meddle against the same : 
and, thirdly, whether he was not bound to 
answer the said question, and to recognise 
the headship as aforesaid ? to which he said, 
that he could make no answer.” f It is evi¬ 
dent that these interrogatories, into which 

* Roper, p. 90. 

* Roper, p. 90. j- Ibid. p. 92. 







LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 235 


some terms peculiarly objectionable to More 
were now for the first time inserted, were 
contrived for the sole purpose of reducing 
the illustrious victim to the option of utter¬ 
ing a lie, or of suffering death. The con¬ 
spirators against him might, perhaps, have 
had a faint idea that they had at length 
broken his spirit; and if he persisted, they 
might have hoped that he could be repre¬ 
sented as bringing destruction on himself 
by his own obstinacy. Such, however, was 
his calm and well-ordered mind, that he said 
and did nothing to provoke his fate. Had 
he given affirmative answers, he would have 
sworn falsely: he was the martyr of veracity 
he perished only because he was sincere. 

On Monday, the 5th of July, he wrote a 
farewell letter to Margaret Roper, with his 
usual materials of coal. It contained bless¬ 
ings on all his children by name, with a kind 
remembrance even to one of Margaret’s 
maids. Adverting to their last interview, on 
the quay, he says, — “I never liked your 
manner towards me better than when you 
kissed me last; for I love when daughterly 
love and dear charity have no leisure to 
look to worldly courtesy.” 

Early the next morning Sir Thomas Pope, 
“ his singular good friend,” came to him with 
a message from the king and council, to say 
that he should die before nine o’clock of the 
same morning. “ The king’s pleasure,” said 
Pope, “is that you shall not use many 
words.” — “I did purpose,” answered More, 
“ to have spoken somewhat, but I will con¬ 
form myself to the king’s commandment, 
and I beseech you to obtain from him that 
my daughter Margaret may be present at 
my burial.” — “ The king is already content 
that your wife, children, and other friends 
shall be present thereat.” The lieutenant 
brought him to the scaffold, which was so 
weak that it was ready to fall; on which he 
said, merrily, “ Master lieutenant, I pray you 
see me safe up, and for my coming down let 
me shift for myself.” When he laid his head 
on the block he desired the executioner to 
wait till he had removed his beard, “ for that 
had never offended his highness,” — ere the 
axe fell. 


He has been censured by some for such 
levities at the moment of death. These are 
censorious cavils, which would not be worthy 
of an allusion if they had not occasioned 
some sentences of as noble reflection, and 
beautiful composition, as the English lan¬ 
guage contains. “ The innocent mirth, which 
had been so conspicuous in his life, did not 
forsake him to the last. His death was of a 
piece with his life; there was nothing in it 
new, forced, or affected. He did not look 
upon the severing his head from his body as 
a circumstance which ought to produce any 
change in the disposition of his mind; and 
v as he died in a fixed and settled hope of im¬ 
mortality, he thought any unusual degree of 
sorrow and concern improper.” * 

According to the barbarous practice of 
laws which vainly struggle to carry their 
cruelty beyond the grave, the head of Sir 
Thomas More was placed on London Bridge. 
His darling daughter, Margaret, had the 
courage to procure it to be taken down, that 
she might exercise her affection by continuing 
to look on a relic so dear ; and, carrying her 
love beyond the grave, she desired that it 
might be buried with her when she died.f 
The remains of this precious relic are said to 
have been since observed, lying on what had 
once been her bosom. The male descendants 
of this admirable woman appear to have 
been soon extinct: her descendants through 
females are probably numerous.| She re¬ 
sembled her father in mind, in manner, in 
the features and expression of her coun¬ 
tenance, and in her form and gait. Her 
learning was celebrated throughout Christen¬ 
dom. It is seldom that literature wears a 
more agreeable aspect than when it becomes 
a bond of union between such a father and 
such a daughter. 

Sir Thomas More’s eldest son, John, mar¬ 
ried Anne Cresacre, the heiress of an estate, 
still held by his posterity through females, at 

* Spectator, No. 349. 

■j- She survived her father about nine years. 

X One of them, Mr. James Hinton Baverstock, 
inserted his noble pedigree from Margaret, in 1819, 
in a copy of More’s English Works, at this moment 
before me. 















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


236 

Barnborough, near Doncaster*, where the 
mansion of the Mores still subsists. The last 
male descendant was Thomas More, a Jesuit, 
who was principal of the college of Jesuits 
at Bruges, and died at Bath in 1795, having 
survived his famous order, and, according to 
the appearances of that time, his ancient re¬ 
ligion ; — as if the family of More were one 
of the many ties which may be traced, through 
the interval of two centuries and a half, be¬ 
tween the revolutions of religion and those 
of government. 

The letters and narratives of Erasmus dif¬ 
fused the story of his friend’s fate through¬ 
out Europe. Cardinal Pole bewailed it with 
elegance and feeling. It filled Italy, then 
the most cultivated portion of Europe, with 
horror. Paulo Jovio called Henry “ a Pha- 
laris,” though we shall in vain look in the 
story of Phalaris, or of any other real or 
legendary tyrant, for a victim worthy of 
being compared to More. The English mi¬ 
nisters throughout Europe were regarded 
with averted eyes as the agents of a monster. 
At Venice, Henry, after this deed, was 
deemed capable of any crimes: he was be¬ 
lieved there to have murdered Catharine, 
and. to be about to murder his daughter 
Mary.f The Catholic zeal of Spain, and 
the resentment of the Spanish people against 
the oppression of Catharine, quickened their 
sympathy with More, and aggravated their 
detestation of Henry. Mason, the envoy at 
Valladolid, thought every pure Latin phrase 
too weak for More, and describes him by 
one as contrary to the rules of that language 
as “ thrice greatest ” J would be to those of 
ours. When intelligence of his death was 
brought to the Emperor Charles V., he sent 
for Sir T. Elliot, the English ambassador, 
and said to him, “ My lord ambassador, we 
understand that the king your master has 
put his wise counsellor, Sir Thomas More, to 
death.” Elliot, abashed, made answer that 
he understood nothing thereof. “ Well,” 
said the emperor, “ it is too true; and this 


* Hunter’s South Yorkshire, vol. i. pp. 374, 375. 
f Ellis’s Original Letters, 2d series, lett. cxvii. 
j Ibid. lett. cx. “ Ter raaximus file Morus.” 


we will say, that, if we had been master of 
such a servant, we should rather have lost 
the best city in our dominions than have lost 
such a worthy counsellor; ” — “ which mat¬ 
ter,” says Roper, in the concluding words of 
his beautiful narrative, “ was by Sir T. Elliot 
told to myself, my wife , to Mr. Clement and 
his wife, and to Mr. Heywood and his wife.” * 
Of all men nearly perfect, Sir Thomas 
More had, perhaps, the clearest marks of 
individual character. His peculiarities, 
though distinguishing him from all others, 
were yet withheld from growing into moral 
faults. It is not enough to say of him that 
he was unafFected, that he was natural, that 
he was simple; so the larger part of truly 
great men have been. But there is some¬ 
thing homespun in More which is common 
to him with scarcely any other, and which 
gives to all his faculties and qualities the 
appearance of being the native growth of 
the soil. The homeliness of his pleasantry 
purifies it from show. He walks on the 
scaffold clad only in his household goodness. 
The unrefined benignity with which he ruled 
his patriarchal dwelling at Chelsea enabled 
him to look on the axe without being dis¬ 
turbed by feeling hatred for the tyrant. 
This quality bound together his genius and 
learning, his eloquence and fame, with his 
homely and daily duties,—bestowing a 
genuineness on all his good qualities, a dig¬ 
nity on the most ordinary offices of life, and 
an accessible familiarity on the virtues of a 
hero and a martyr, which silences every 
suspicion that his excellences were mag¬ 
nified. He thus simply performed great 
acts, and uttered great thoughts, because 
they were familiar to his great soul. The 
charm of this inborn and homebred charac¬ 
ter seems as if it would have been taken off 
by polish. It is this household character 
which relieves our notion of him from vague¬ 
ness, and divests perfection of that generality 


* Instead of Heywood, perhaps we ought to 
read “ Heron ” ? In that case the three daughters 
of Sir Thomas More would be present: Mrs. Roper 
was the eldest, Mrs. Clement the second, and 
Cecilia Heron the youngest. 












APPENDIX TO THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 237 


and coldness to which the attempt to paint 
a perfect man is so liable. 

It will naturally, and very strongly, ex¬ 
cite the regret of the good in every age, 
that the life of this best of men should have 
been in the power of one who has been rarely 
surpassed in wickedness. But the execrable 
Henry was the means of drawing forth the 
magnanimity, the fortitude, and the meek¬ 
ness of More. Had Henry been a just and 
merciful monarch, we should not have known 
the degree of excellence to which human 
nature is capable of ascending. Catholics 
ought to see in More, that mildness and can¬ 
dour are the true ornaments of all modes of 
faith. Protestants ought to be taught hu¬ 
mility and charity from this instance of the 
wisest and best of men falling into, what 
they deem, the most fatal errors. All men, 
in the fierce contests of contending factions, 
should, from such an example, learn the 
wisdom to fear lest in their most hated an¬ 
tagonist they may strike down a Sir Thomas 
More : for assuredly virtue is not so narrow 
as to be confined to any party; and we have 
in the case of More a signal example that 
the nearest approach to perfect excellence 
does not exempt men from mistakes which 
we may justly deem mischievous. It is a 
pregnant proof, that we should beware of 
hating men for their opinions, or of adopting 
their doctrines because we love and venerate 
their virtues. 


APPENDIX. 


A. 

Some particulars in the life of Sir Thomas More I 
am obliged to leave to more fortunate inquirers. 
They are, indeed, very minute; but they may 
appear to others worthy of being ascertained, as 
they appeared to me, from their connection with 
the life of a wise and good man. 

The records of the Privy Council are preserved 
only since 1540, so that we do not exactly know 


the date of his admission into that body. The 
time when he was knighted (then a matter of some 
moment) is not known. As the whole of his life 
passed during the great chasm in writs for election 
and returns of members of parliament, from 1477 
to 1542, the places for which he sat, and the year of 
his early opposition to a subsidy, are unascertained; 
—notwithstanding the obliging exertion of the 
gentlemen employed in the repositories at the 
Tower, and in the Rolls’ chapel. We know that 
he was speaker of the House of Commons in 1523 
and 1524.* Browne Willis owns his inability to 
fix the place which he represented f; but he con¬ 
jectured it to have been “ either Middlesex, where 
he resided, or Lancaster, of which duchy he was 
chancellor.” But that laborious and useful writer 
would not have mentioned the latter branch of his 
alternative, nor probably the former, if he had 
known that More was not Chancellor of the Duchy 
till two years after his speakership. 


B. 

An anecdote in More’s chancellorship is con¬ 
nected with an English phrase, of which the origin 
is not quite satisfactorily explained. An attorney 
in his court, named Tubb, gave an account in court 
of a cause in which he was concerned, which the 
chancellor (who with all his gentleness loved a 
joke) thought so rambling and incoherent, that he 
said at the end of Tubb’s speech, “ This is a tale of 
a tub; ” plainly showing that the phrase was then 
familiarly known. The learned Mr. Douce has 
informed a friend of mine, that in Sebastian Mun¬ 
ster’s Cosmography there is a cut of a ship, to 
which a whale was coming too close for her safety, 
and of the sailors throwing a tub to the whale, 
evidently to play with. The practice of throwing 
a tub or barrel to a large fish, to divert the animal 
from gambols dangerous to a vessel, is also men¬ 
tioned in an old prose translation of the Ship of 
Fools. These passages satisfactorily explain the 
common phrase of throwing a tub to a whale; but 
they do not account for leaving out the whale, and 
introducing the new word “ tale.” The transition 
from the first phrase to the second is a consider¬ 
able stride. It is not, at least, directly explained 
by Mr. Douce’s citations; and no explanation of it 
has hitherto occurred which can be supported by 
proof. It may be thought probable that, in pro¬ 
cess of time, some nautical wag compared a ram¬ 
bling story, which he suspected of being length¬ 
ened and confused in order to turn his thoughts 


* Rolls of Parliament in Lords’ Journals, vol. i. 
f Notitia Parliamentaria, vol. iii. p 112. 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


238 


* 


from a direction not convenient to the story¬ 
teller, with the tub -which he and his shipmates 
were wont to throw out to divert the whale from 
striking the bark, and perhaps said, “ This tale is, 
like our tub to the whale.” The comparison 
might have become popular; and it might gradu¬ 
ally have been shortened into “ a tale of a tub.” 


C. 

EXTRACTS FROM THE RECORDS OF THE CITY OF 
LONDON RELATING TO THE APPOINTMENT OF 
SIR THOMAS MORE TO BE UNDER-SHERIFF OF 
LONDON, AND SOME APPOINTMENTS OF HIS 
IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS AND OF HIS SUC¬ 
CESSOR. 

(a. d. 1496. 27th September.) 

“ Commune consilium tentum die Martij 
Vicesimo Septimo die Septembr. Anno 
Regni Regis Henr. Septimi duo decimo. 

“ In isto Comun Consilio Thomas Sail et Thomas 
Marowe confirmati sunt in Subvic. Civitati: Lon¬ 
don p anno sequent, &c.” 

(1497.) 

“ Comune Consiliu tent, die Lune xxv t0 
die Sept, anno Regni Regs. Henr. vii. 
xiij°. 

“ Isto die Thomas Marowe et Ed s Dudley con- 
firmat. sunt in Sub Yic. Sit 3 London p anno sequ.” 

(1498 & 1501.) 

Similar entries of the confirmation of Thomas 
Marowe and Edward Dudley are made in the 14th, 
loth, 16th, and 17th Henry VII.; and at a court 
of aldermen, held on the 

(1502.) 

17th Nov. 18 Henry 7., the following entry 
appears: — 

“ Ad hanc Cur. Thomas Marowe uns. sub vice- 
comitu sponte resignat offim. suu.” 

And at a Common Council held on the same 
day, is entered — 

“ In isto Communi Consilio Radus adye Gentil- 
man elect, est in unu Subvic. Civitats London loco 


Thome. Marwe Gentilman qui illud officiu sponte 
resignavit, capiend. feod. consuet.” 

“ Coe Consiliu tent, die Martis iij° die Sep- 
tembris anno Regni Reg s Henrici Octavi 
Secundo. 

“ Eodm. die Thoms. More Gent elect, est in unu 
Subvic. Civitats London loc. Ric. Broke Gent qui 
nup elect, fuit in Recordator London.” 

“ Martis viij die Maii 6 th Henry 8. 

“ Court of Aldermen. 

“ Yt ys agreed that Thomas More Gent oon of 
Undersheryfes of London which shall go ov. the 
Kings Ambasset. in to fflaunders shall occupie his 
Rowme and office by his sufficient Depute untyll 
his cumyng home ageyn.” 

“ Martis xj die Marcii 7 Henry VIII th 
“ Court of Aldermen, 

“ Ye shall sweare that ye shall kepe the Secrets 
of this Courte and not to disclose eny thing ther 
spoken for the coen. welthe of this citie that rayglit 
hurt eny psone or brother of the seyd courte onles 
yt be spoken to his brothr or to other which in his 
conscience and discrecon. shall thynk yt to be for 
the coen. welthe of this citie. . 

So help you God.” 

“ Jovis xiij die Marcii 7 Henry 8. 

“ Court of Aldermen. 

“ Itm. ad ista Cur. Thomas More and Wills. 
Shelley Subvice' 3 Ci ts London jur. sunt ad articlm 
supdcm. spect xj die marcii.” 

“ Venis. 23 July, 10 Henry 8. 

“ Court of Aldermen. 

“ Ad istam Cur. Thomas More Gent un Subvic. 
Ci ts in Comput. Pulletr London libe. et sponte 
Surr. et resign, officm. pdcm. in manu. Maioris et 
Aldror.” 

“ Coie Consiliu tent, die Venis. xxiij die 
Julii anno regni regis Henrici Octavi 
decimo. 

“ Isto die Johes Pakyngton Gent admissusest in 
unu. subvic. Civitats London loco Thome More qui 
spont et libe. resignavit Officiu. illud in Man. 
Maioris aldror et Cols consilii. Et jur est &c.” 











A 

REFUTATION OF THE CLAIM 

ON BEHALF OF 

KING CHARLES I. 

TO 

THE AUTHORSHIP OF 

THE 

EIKUN BA2IAIKH. * 


A succession of problems or puzzles in the 
literary and political history of modern times 
has occasionally occupied some ingenious 
writers, and amused many idle readers. 
Those who think nothing useful which does 
not yield some palpable and direct advan¬ 
tage, have, indeed, scornfully rejected such 
inquiries as frivolous and useless. But their 
disdain has not repressed such discussions; 
and it is fortunate that it has not done so. 
Amusement is itself an advantage. The 
vigour which the understanding derives from 
exercise on every subject is a great advan¬ 
tage. If there is to be any utility in history, 
the latter must be accurate,—which it never 
will be, unless there be a solicitude to ascer¬ 
tain the truth even of its minutest parts. 
History is read with pleasure, and with 
moral effect, only as far as it engages our 
feelings in the merit or demerit, in the fame 
or fortune, of historical personages. The 
breathless anxiety with which the obscure 
and conflicting evidence on a trial at law is 
watched by the bystander, is but a variety 

* Contributed to the Edinburgh Review (vol. 
xliv. p. 1.) as a review of “Who wrote Eixu» 
Bxnfazri?” by Christopher Wordsworth, D. D., 
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. London, 
1824.—Ed. 


of the same feeling which prompts the reader 
to examine the proofs against Mary, queen 
of Scots, with as deep an interest as if she 
were alive, and were now on her trial. And 
it is wisely ordered that it should be so: for 
our condition would not, upon the whole, be 
bettered by our feeling less strongly about 
each other’s concerns. 

The question “ Who wrote Icon Basilike ? ” 
seemed more than once to be finally deter¬ 
mined. Before the publication of the pri¬ 
vate letters of Bishop Gauden, the majority 
of historical inquirers had pronounced it 
spurious; and the only writers of great 
acuteness who maintained its genuineness — 
Warburton and Hume — spoke in a tone 
which rather indicated an anxious desire 
that others should believe, than a firm belief 
in their own minds. It is perhaps the only 
matter on which the former ever expressed 
himself with diffidence; and the case must 
indeed have seemed doubtful, which com¬ 
pelled the most dogmatical and arrogant 
of disputants to adopt a language almost 
sceptical. The successive publications of 
those letters in Maty’s Review, in the third 
volume of the Clarendon Papers, and lastly, 
but most decisively, by Mr. Todd, seemed to 
have closed the dispute. 







240 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


The main questions on which the whole 
dispute hinges are, Whether the acts and 
words of Lord Clarendon, of Lord Bristol, 
of Bishop Morley, of Charles II., and 
James II., do not amount to a distinct ac¬ 
knowledgment of Gauden’s authorship ? and, 
’Whether an admission of that claim by these 
persons he not a conclusive evidence of its 
truth ? If these questions can be answered 
affirmatively, the other parts of the case will 
not require very long consideration. 

The Icon Basilike was intended to produce 
a favourable effect during the king’s trial; 
but its publication was retarded till some 
days after his death, by the jealous and 
rigorous precautions of the ruling powers. 
The impression made on the public by a 
work which purported to convey the pious 
and eloquent language of a dying king, 
could not fail to be very considerable; and, 
though its genuineness was from the be¬ 
ginning doubted or disbelieved by some *, it 
would have been wonderful and unnatural 
if unbounded faith in it had not become one 
of the fundamental articles of a royalist’s 
creed.'j* Though much stress, therefore, is 
laid by Dr. Wordsworth on passages in 
anonymous pamphlets published before the 
Restoration, we can regard these as really 
no more than instances of the belief which 
must then have only prevailed among that 
great majority of Royalists who had no 
peculiar reasons for doubt. Opinion, even 
when it was impartial, of the genuineness of 
a writing given before its authenticity was 
seriously questioned, and when the attention 
of those who gave the opinion was not 
strongly drawn to the subject, must be 
classed in the lowest species of historical 
evidence. One witness who bears testimony 
to a forgery, when the edge of his discern¬ 
ment is sharpened by an existing dispute, 
outweighs many whose language only indi¬ 
cates a passive acquiescence in the un¬ 
examined sentiments of their own party. 
It is obvious, indeed, that such testimonies 


* Milton, Goodwyn, Lilly, &c. 
f See Wagstaffe’s Vindication of King Charles, 
pp. 77—79. London, 1711. 


must be of exceedingly little value; for 
every imposture, in any degree successful, 
must be able to appeal to them. Without 
them, no question on such a subject could 
ever be raised, since it would be idle to ex¬ 
pose the spuriousness of what no one ap¬ 
peared to think authentic. 

Dr. Gauden, a divine of considerable 
talents, but of a temporising and interested 
character, was, at the beginning of the Civil 
War, chaplain to the Earl of Warwick, a 
Presbyterian leader. In November 1640, 
after the close imprisonment of Lord Straf¬ 
ford, he preached a sermon before the House 
of Commons, so agreeable to that assembly, 
that it is said they presented him with a 
silver tankard, — a token of their esteem 
which (if the story be true) may seem to be 
the stronger for its singularity and unseem¬ 
liness.* This discourse seems to have con¬ 
tained a warm invective against the eccle¬ 
siastical policy of the Court; and it was 
preached not only at a most critical time, 
but on the solemn occasion of the sacrament 
being first taken by the whole House. As a 
reward for so conspicuous a service to the 
Parliamentary cause, he soon after received 
the valuable living of Booking, in Essex, 
which he held through all the succeeding 
changes of government, — forbearing, of ne¬ 
cessity, to use the Liturgy, and complying 
with all the conditions which the law then 
required from the beneficed clergy. It has 
been disputed whether he took the Covenant, 
though his own evasive answers imply that 
he had; but it is certain that he published a 
Protest f against the trial of the king in 
1648, though that never could have pre¬ 
tended to the same merit with the solemn 
Declaration of the whole Presbyterian clergy 
of London against the same proceeding, 


* The Journals say nothing of the tankard, which 
was probably the gift of some zealous members, 
but bear, “ That the thanks of this house be given 
to Mr. Gaudy and Mr. Morley for their sermons 
last Sunday, and that they be desired, if they 
please, to print the same.” Vol. ii. p. 40. 

t The Religious and Loyal Protestation of John 
Gauden, &c. London, 1648. 








ICON BASILIKE. 241 


which, however, did not save them at the 
Restoration. 

At the moment of the restoration of 
Charles II., he appears, therefore, to have 
had as little public claim on the favour of 
that prince as any clergyman who had con¬ 
formed to the ecclesiastical principles of the 
Parliament and the Protectorate; and he 
was, accordingly, long after called by a 
zealous royalist “ the false apostate! ” * 
Bishoprics were indeed offered to Baxter, 
who refused, and to Reynolds, who accepted, 
a mitre; but if they had not been, as they 
were, men venerable for every virtue, they 
were the acknowledged leaders of the Pres¬ 
byterians, whose example might have much 
effect in disposing that powerful body to 
conformity. No such benefit could be hoped 
from the preferment of Gauden; and that 
his public character must have rendered him 
rather the object of disfavour than of pa¬ 
tronage to the Court at this critical and 
jealous period, will be obvious to those who 
are conversant with one small, but not in¬ 
significant, circumstance. The Presbyterian 
party is well known to have predominated 
in the Convention Parliament, especially 
when it first assembled; and it was the 
policy of the whole assembly to give a Pres¬ 
byterian, or moderate and mediatorial, colour 
to their collective proceedings. On the 25th 
April, 1660, they chose Mr. Calamy, Dr. 
Gauden, and Mr. Baxter to preach before 
them, on the fast which they then appointed 
to be held,—thus placing Gauden between 
two eminent divines of the Presbyterian 
persuasion, on an occasion when they appear 
studiously to have avoided the appoint¬ 
ment of an Episcopalian. It is evident that 
Gauden was then thought nearer in principle 
to Baxter than to Juxon. He was suffi¬ 
ciently a Presbyterian in party to make him 
no favourite with the Court; yet he was not 
so decided a Presbyterian in opinion as to 
have the influence among his brethren which 
could make him worth so high a price as a 
mitre. They who dispute his claim to be the 
writer of the Icon, will be the last to ascribe 


* Kennet, Register, p. 773. 


his preferment to transcendent abilities : he 
is not mentioned as having ever shown 
kindness to Royalists; there is no trace of 
his correspondence with the exiled Court; 
he contributed nothing to the recall of the 
king; nor indeed had he the power of per¬ 
forming such atoning services. 

Let the reader, then, suppose himself to 
be acquainted only with the above circum¬ 
stances, and let him pause to consider whe¬ 
ther, in the summer of 1660, there could be 
many clergymen of the Established Church 
who had fewer and more scanty pretensions 
to a bishopric than Gauden: yet he was 
appointed Bishop of Exeter on the 3rd of 
November following. He received, in a few 
months, 20,000Z. in fines for the renewal of 
leases * ; and yet he had scarcely arrived at 
his episcopal palace when, on the 21st of 
December, he wrote a letter to the Lord 
Chancellor Clarendon f, bitterly complaining 
of the “distress,” “infelicity,” and “horror” 
of such a bishopric ! — “a hard fate which” 
(he reminds the chancellor) “ he had before 

deprecated.”-“ I make this complaint,” 

he adds, “ to your lordship, because you 
chiefely put me on this adventure. Your 
lordship commanded mee to trust in your 
favour for an honourable maintenance and 
some such additional support as might sup¬ 
ply the defects of the bishopric. 

Nor am I so unconscious to the service I 
have done to the Church and to his Majesty's 
family, as to beare with patience such a ruine 
most undeservedly put upon mee. Are these 
the effects of his liberall expressions , who told 
mee I might have what I would desire ? . . . 
Yf your lordship will not concern yourselfe 
in my affaire, I must make my last complaint 
to the king.” In five days after (26th De¬ 
cember, 1660) he wrote another long letter, 
less angry and more melancholy, to the same 
great person, which contains the following 
remarkable sentence : — “ Dr. Morly once 
offered mee my option , upon account of some 
service which he thought I had done extraor¬ 
dinary for the Church and the JRoyall Family , 


* Biographia Britannica, article “ Gauden.’* 
f Wordsworth, Documentary Supplement, p. 9. 


R 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


242 


of which he told mee your lordship was in¬ 
formed. This made mee modestly secure 
of your lordship’s favour; though I found 
your lordship would never owne your con- 
sciousnes to mee, as if it would have given 
mee too much confidence of a proportionable 

expectation.I knew your lord- 

ship knew my service and merit to be no 
way inferior to the best of your friends , or 
enemy es." * 

In these two letters,—more covertly in 
the first, more openly in the second,— 
Gauden apprises Lord Clarendon, that Dr. 
Morley (who was Clarendon’s most intimate 
friend) had acknowledged some extraordinary 
service done by Gauden to the Royal Family, 
which had been made known to the chan¬ 
cellor ; though that nobleman had avoided a 
direct acknowledgment of it to the bishop 
before he left London. Gauden appears 
soon after to have written to Sir E. Nicholas, 
Secretary of State, a letter of so peculiar a 
character as to have been read by the king, 
for an answer was sent to him by Nicholas, 
dated on the 19th January, 1661, in which 
the following sentence deserves attention:— 
“ As for your owne particular, he desires 
you not to be discouraged at the poverty of 
your bishoprick at present; and if that 
answer not the expectation of what was 
promised you, his Majesty will take you so 
particularly into his care , that he bids me 
assure you that you shall have no cause to re¬ 
member Boching .” f These remarkable words 
by no means imply that Gauden did not then 
believe that the nature of his “ extraordinary 
service” had been before known to the king. 
They evidently show his letter to have con¬ 
sisted of a complaint of the poverty of his 
bishoprick, with an intelligible allusion to 
this service, probably expressed with more 
caution and reserve than in his addresses to 
the chancellor. What was really then first 
made known to the king, was not his merits, 
but his poverty. On the 21st January, the 
importunate prelate again addressed to Cla¬ 
rendon a letter, explicitly stating the nature 

* Wordsworth, Documentary Supplement, pp. 

11—13. 

■f Ibid. p. 14. 


of his services, probably rendered necessary 
in his opinion by the continued silence of 
Clarendon, who did not answer his appli¬ 
cations till the 13th March. From this letter 
the following extract is inserted: — 

“ All I desire is an augment of 500Z. per annum, 
yt if cannot bee at present had in a commendam ; 
yet possible the King’s favor to me will not grudg 
mee this pension out of the first fruits and tenths 
of this diocesse; till I bee removed or otherwaves 
provided for: Nor will y r Lordship startle at this 
motion, or wave the presenting of it to hys Ma¬ 
jesty, yf you please to consider the pretensions I 
may have beyond any of my calling, not as to merit, 
but duty performed to the Royall Family. True, I 
once presumed y r Lordship had fully known that 
arcanum, for soe Dr. Morley told mee, at the 
King’s first coming; when he assured mee the 
greatnes of that service was such, that I might 
have any preferment I desired. This consciousnes 
of your Lordship (as I supposed) and Dr. Morley, 
made mee confident my affaires would bee carried 
on to some proportion of what I had done, and he 
thought deserved. Hence my silence of it to your 
Lordship: as to the King and Duke of York, whom 
before I came away I acquainted with it, when I 
saw myself not so much considered in my present 
disposition as I did hope I should have beene, what 
trace their Royall goodnes hath of it is best ex¬ 
pressed by themselves; nor do I doubt but I shall, 
by your Lordship’s favor, find the fruits as to 
something extraordinary, since the service was 
soe: not as to what was known to the world under 
my name, in order to vindicate the Crowne and the 
Church, but what goes under the late blessed King's 
name, ‘ the tlxav or portraiture of hys Majesty in 
hys solitudes and sufferings.’ This book and figure 
was wholy and only my invention, making and 
designe; in order to vindicate the King’s wisdome, 
honor and piety. My wife indeed was conscious 
to it, and had an hand in disguising the letters of 
that copy which I sent to the King in the ile of 
Wight, by favor of the late Marquise of Hartford, 
which was delivered to the King by the now 
Bishop of Winchester *: hys Majesty graciously 
accepted, owned, and adopted it as hys sense and 
genius; not only with great approbation, but ad¬ 
miration. Hee kept it with hym; and though hys 
cruel murtherers went on to perfect hys martyr- 
dome, yet God preserved and prospered this book 
to revive hys honor, and redeeme hys Majesty’s 
name from that grave of contempt and abhorrence 
or infamy, in which they aymed to bury hym. 
When it came out, just upon the King’s death; 
Good God! what shame, rage and despite, filled 


Dnppa. 










hys murtherers! What comfort hys friends! How 
many enemyes did it convert! How many hearts 
did it mollify and melt! What devotions it raysed 
to hys posterity, as children of such a father! 
What preparations it made in all men’s minds for 
this happy restauration, and which I hope shall 
not prove my affliction! In a word, it was an 
army, and did vanquish more than any sword 
could. My Lord, every good subject conceived 
hopes of restauration; meditated reveng and sepa¬ 
ration. Your Lordship and all good subjects with 
hys Majesty enjoy the reall and now ripe fruites of 
that plant. 0 let not mee wither! who was the 
author, and ventured wife, children, estate, liberty, 
life, and all but my soule, in so great an atchieve- 
ment, which hath filled England and all the world 
with the glory of it. I did lately present my fayth 
in it to the Duke of York, and by him to the King; 
both of them were pleased to give mee credit, and 
owne it as a rare service in those horrors of times. 
True, I played this best card in my hand somthing 
too late; else I might have sped as well as Dr. Rey¬ 
nolds and some others; but I did not lay it as a 
ground of ambition, nor use it as a ladder. Think¬ 
ing myselfe secure in the just valew of Dr. Morely , 
who I was sure knew it, and told mee your Lordship 
did soe too *; who, I believe, intended mee some¬ 
thing at least competent, though lesse convenient, 
in this preferment. All that I desire is, that your 
Lordship would make that good, which I think 
you designed; and which I am confident the King 
will not deny mee, agreable to hys royall munifi¬ 
cence, which promiseth extraordinary rewards to 
extraordinary services: Certainly this service is 
such, for the matter, manner, timing and efficacy, 
as was never exceeded, nor will ever be equalled, 
yf I may credit the judgment of the best and wisest 
men that have read it; and I know your Lordship, 
who is soe great a master of wisdome and elo¬ 
quence, cannot but esteeme the author of that 
piece; and accordingly, make mee to see those 
effects which may assure mee that my loyalty, 
paines, cai-e, hazard and silence, are accepted by 
the King and Royall Family, to which your Lord¬ 
ship’s is now grafted.” 

The bishop wrote three letters more to 
Clarendon, — on the 25th January, 20th Fe¬ 
bruary, and 6th of March respectively, to 
which on the 13th of the last month the 
chancellor sent a reply containing the follow- 


* It is not to be inferred from this and the like 
passages, that Gauden doubted the previous com¬ 
munication of Morley to Clarendon: he uses such 
language as a reproach to the chancellor for his 
silence. 


ing sentence: — “ The particular which you 
often renewed , I do confesse was imparted to 
me * under secrecy , and of which I did not 
take myself to he at liberty to take notice; and 
truly when it ceases to he a secrett, I know 
nobody will he gladd of it hut Mr. Milton; I 
have very often wished I had never been trusted 
with it." 

It is proper here to remark, that all the 
letters of Gauden are still extant, indorsed 
by Lord Clarendon, or by his eldest son. In 
the course of three months, then, it appears 
that Gauden, with unusual importunity and 
confidence, with complaints which were dis¬ 
guised reproaches, and sometimes with an 
approach to menaces, asserted his claim to 
be richly rewarded, as the author of the Icon. 
He affirms that it was sent to the king by 
the Duke of Somerset, who died about a 
month before his first letter, and delivered 
to his majesty by Dr.Duppa, bishop of Win¬ 
chester, who was still alive. He adds, that 
he had acquainted Charles II. with the secret 
through the Duke of York, that Morley, 
then bishop of Worcester, had informed 
Clarendon of it, and that Morley himself had 
declared the value of the service to be such 
as to entitle Gauden to choose his own pre¬ 
ferment. Gauden thus enabled Clarendon 
to convict him of falsehood — if his tale was 
untrue — in three or four circumstances, 
differing indeed in their importance as to the 
main question, but equally material to his 
own veracity. A single word from Duppa 
would have overwhelmed him with infamy. 
How easy was it for the chancellor to ascer¬ 
tain whether the information had been given 
to the king and his brother! Morley was 
his bosom friend, and the spiritual director 
of his daughter, Anne, duchess of York. 
How many other persons might have been 
quietly sounded by the numerous confiden¬ 
tial agents of a great minister, on a trans¬ 
action which had occurred only twelve years 
before ! To suppose that a statesman, then 
at the zenith of his greatness, could not dis¬ 
cover the truth on this subject, without a 
noise like that of a judicial inquiry, would 


* Evidently by Morley. 














244 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


betray a singular ignorance of affairs. Did 
Clarendon relinquish, without a struggle, his 
belief in a book which had doubtless touched 
his feelings when he read it as the work of 
his royal master ? Even curiosity might 
have led Charles II., when receiving the 
blessing of Duppa on his deathbed, to ask 
him a short confidential question. To how 
many chances of detection did Gauden ex¬ 
pose himself! How nearly impossible is it 
that the king, the duke, the chancellor, 
and Morley should have abstained from the 
safest means of inquiry, and, in opposition to 
their former opinions and prejudices, yielded 
at once to Gauden’s assertion! 

The previous belief of the Royalist party 
in the Icon very much magnifies the impro¬ 
bability of such suppositions. The truth 
might have been discovered by the parties 
appealed to, and conveyed to the audacious 
pretender, without any scandal. There was 
no need of any public exposure: a private 
intimation of the falsehood of one material 
circumstance must have silenced Gauden. 
But what, on the contrary, is the answer of 
Lord Clarendon ? Let any reader consider 
the above-cited sentence of his letter, and 
determine for himself whether it does not 
express such an unhesitating assent to the 
claim as could only have flowed from inquiry 
and evidence. By confessing that the secret 
was imparted to him, he admits the other 
material part of Gauden’s statement, — that 
the information came through Morley. Gau¬ 
den, if his story was true, chose the persons 
to whom he imparted it, both prudently and 
fairly. He dealt with it as a secret of which 
the disclosure would injure the royal cause; 
and he therefore confined his communica¬ 
tions to the king’s sons and the chancellor, 
who could not be indisposed to his cause by 
it, and whose knowledge of it was necessary 
to justify his own legitimate claims. Had it 
been false, no choice could have been more 
unfortunate. He appealed to those who, for 
aught he knew, might have in their posses¬ 
sion the means of instantly demonstrating 
that he was guilty of a falsehood so impudent 
and perilous, that nothing parallel to it has 
ever been hazarded by a man of sound mind. 


How could Gauden know that the king did 
not possess his father’s MS., and that Roys- 
ton the printer was not ready to prove that 
he had received it from Charles I. through 
hands totally unconnected with Gauden ? 
How great must have been the risk if we 
suppose, with Dr. Wordsworth and Mr. 
Wagstafle, that more than one copy of the 
MS. existed, and that parts of it had been 
seen by many! It is without any reason 
that Dr. Wordsworth and others represent 
the secrecy of Gauden’s communications to 
Clarendon as a circumstance of suspicion; 
for he was surely bound, by that sinister 
honour which prevails in the least moral con¬ 
federacies, to make no needless disclosures 
on this delicate subject. 

Clarendon’s letter is a declaration that he 
was converted from his former opinion about 
the author of the Icon: that of Sir E. Ni¬ 
cholas is a declaration to the same purport 
on his own part, and on that of the king. 
The confession of Clarendon is more im¬ 
portant, from being apparently wrung from 
him after the lapse of a considerable time; 
in the former part of which he evaded ac¬ 
knowledgment in conversation, while in the 
latter part he incurred the blame of in¬ 
civility by delaying to answer letters, — 
making his admission at last in the hurried 
manner of an unwilling witness. The deci¬ 
sive words, however, were at length extorted 
from him, “ When it ceases to he a secret , I 
know nobody will he glad of it hut Mr. Mil- 
ton .” Wagstafle argues this question as if 
Gauden’s letters were to be considered as a 
man’s assertions in his own cause; without 
appearing ever to have observed that they 
are not offered as proof of the facts which 
they affirm, but as a claim which circum¬ 
stances show to have been recognised by the 
adverse party. 

The course of another year did not abate 
the solicitations of Gauden. In the end of 
1661 and beginning of 1662, the infirmities 
of Duppa promised a speedy vacancy in the 
great bishopric of Winchester, to which 
Gauden did not fail to urge his pretensions 
with undiminished confidence, in a letter to 
the chancellor (28th December), in a letter 





ICON BASILIKE. 


245 


to the Duke of York (17th January), and in 
a memorial to the king, without a date, but 
written on the same occasion. The two 
letters allude to the particulars of former 
communications. The memorial, as the 
nature of such a paper required, is fuller 
and more minute: it is expressly founded 
on “ a private service,” for the reality of 
which it again appeals to the declarations of 
Morley, to the evidence of Duppa (“ who,” 
says Gauden, “ encouraged me in that great 
work ”), still alive, and visited on his sick¬ 
bed by the king, and to the testimony of the 
Duke of Somerset.* It also shows that 
Gauden had applied to the king for Win¬ 
chester as soon as it should become vacant, 
about or before the time of his appointment 
to Exeter. 

On the 19th of March, 1662, Gauden was 
complimented at Court as the author of the 
Ic6n, by George Digby, second earl of Bris¬ 
tol, a nobleman of fine genius and brilliant 
accomplishments, but remarkable for his in¬ 
constancy in political and religious opinion. 
The bond of connection between them seems 


* Doc. Sup. p. 30. We have no positive proof 
that these two letters were sent, or the memorial 
delivered. It seems (Ibid. p. 27.) that there are 
marks of the letters having been sealed and broken 
open; and it is said to be singular that such letters 
should be found among the papers of him who 
wrote them. But as the early history of these 
papers is unknown, it is impossible to expect an 
explanation of every fact. A collector might have 
found them elsewhere, and added them to the 
Gauden papers. An anxious writer might have 
broken open two important letters, in which he 
Avas fearful that some expression was indiscreet, 
and afterwards sent corrected duplicates, without 
material variation. Gauden might have received 
information respecting the disposal of Winchester 
and Worcester, or about the state of parties at 
Court, before the letters were despatched, Avhich 
would render them then unseasonable. What is 
evident is, that they were written Avith an inten¬ 
tion to send them, — that they coincide with his 
previous statements, — and that the determination 
not to send them was not occasioned by any doubts 
entertained by the chancellor of his veracity; for 
such doubts would have prevented his preferment to 
the bishopric of Worcester ,—one of the most coveted 
dignities of the Church. 


to have been tlieir common principles of 
toleration, which Bristol was solicitous to 
obtain for the Catholics, whom he had 
secretly joined, and which Gauden was will¬ 
ing to grant, not only to the Old Noncon¬ 
formists, but to the more obnoxious Quakers. 
On the day following Gauden writes a letter, 
in which it is supposed that “ the Grand 
Arcanum” had been disclosed to Bristol 
“ by the king or the royal duke.” In six 
days after he writes again, on the death of 
Duppa, to urge his claim to Winchester. 
This third letter is more important. He ob¬ 
serves, with justice, that he could not expect 
“ any extraordinary instance of his Majesty’s 
favour on account of his signal service only, 
because that might put the world on a dan¬ 
gerous curiosity, if he had been in other 
respects unconspicuous; but he adds, in 
effect, that his public services would be a 
sufficient reason or pretext for the great 
preferment to which he aspired. He appeals 
to a new witness on the subject of the Icon, 
— Dr. Sheldon, then bishop of London ; — 
thus, once more, if his story were untrue, 
almost wantonly adding to the chance of 
easy, immediate, and private detection. His 
danger would have, indeed, been already 
enhanced by the disclosure of the secret to 
Lord Bristol, who was very intimately ac¬ 
quainted with Charles I., and among whose 
good qualities discretion and circumspection 
cannot be numbered. The belief of Bristol 
must also be considered as a proof that 
Gauden continued to be believed by the 
king and the duke, from whom Bristol’s 
information proceeded. A friendly corre¬ 
spondence, between the bishop and the earl, 
continued till near the death of the former, 
in the autumn of 1662. 

In the mean time, the chancellor gave a 
still more decisive proof of his continued 
conviction of the justice of Gauden’s pre¬ 
tensions, by his translation in May to Wor¬ 
cester. The chancellor’s personal ascendant 
over the king was perhaps already somewhat 
impaired; but his power was still unshaken; 
and he was assuredly the effective as well as 
formal adviser of the Crown on ecclesiastical 
promotions. It would be the grossest in- 








246 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


justice to the memory of Lord Clarendon to 
believe, that if, after two years’ opportunity 
for inquiry, any serious doubts of Gauden’s 
veracity had Remained in his mind, he would 
have still farther honoured and exalted the 
contriver of a falsehood, devised for mer¬ 
cenary purposes, to rob an unhappy and be¬ 
loved sovereign of that power which, by his 
writings, he still exercised over the generous 
feelings of men. It cannot be doubted, and 
ought not to be forgotten, that a false claim 
to the Icon is a crime of a far deeper dye 
than the publication of it under the false 
appearance of a work of the king. To pub¬ 
lish such a book in order to save the king’s 
life, was an offence, attended by circum¬ 
stances of much extenuation, in one who 
believed, or perhaps knew, that it substan¬ 
tially contained the king’s sentiments, and 
who deeply deprecated the proceedings of 
the army and of the remnant of the House 
of Commons against him. But to usurp the 
reputation of the work so long after the 
death of the royal author, for sheer lucre, 
is an act of baseness perhaps without a pa¬ 
rallel. That Clarendon should wish to leave 
the more venial deception undisturbed, and 
even shrink from such refusals as might lead 
to its discovery, is not far beyond the limits 
which good men may overstep in very diffi¬ 
cult situations : but that he should have re¬ 
warded the most odious of impostors by a 
second bishopric, would place him far lower 
than a just adversary would desire. If these 
considerations seem of such moment at this 
distant time, what must have been their force 
in the years 1660 and 1662, in the minds of 
Clarendon, and Somerset, and Duppa, and 
Morley, and Sheldon! It would have been 
easy to avoid the elevation of Gauden to 
Worcester: he had himself opened the way 
for offering him a pension; and the chan¬ 
cellor might have answered almost in Gau¬ 
den’s own words, that farther preferment 
might lead to perilous inquiry. Clarendon, 
in 1662, must either have doubted who was 
the author of the Icon, or believed the claim 
of Gauden, or adhered to his original opinion. 
If he believed it to be the work of the king, 
he could not have been so unfaithful to his 


memory as to raise such an impostor to a 
second bishopric: if he believed it to be the 
production of Gauden, he might have thought 
it an excusable policy to recompense a pious 
fraud, and to silence the possessor of a dan¬ 
gerous secret: if he had doubts, they would 
have prompted him to investigation, which, 
conducted by him, and relating to transac¬ 
tions so recent, must have terminated in 
certain knowledge. 

Charles II. is well known, at the famous 
conference between the Episcopalians and 
Presbyterians, when the Icon was quoted as 
his father’s, to have said, “ All that is in that 
book is not gospel.” Knowing, as we now 
do, that Gauden’s claim was preferred to 
him in 1660, this answer must be understood 
to have been a familiar way of expressing 
his scepticism about its authenticity. In 
this view of it, it coincides with his declara¬ 
tion to Lord Anglesea twelve years after; 
and it is natural indeed to suppose, that his 
opinion was that of those whom he then most 
trusted on such matters, of whom Clarendon 
was certainly one. To suppose, with some 
late writers, that he and his brother looked 
with favour and pleasure on an attempt to 
weaken the general interest in the character 
of their father, merely because the Icon is 
friendly to the Church of England, is a wan¬ 
ton act of injustice to them. Charles II. 
was neither a bigot, nor without regard to 
his kindred; the family affections of James 
were his best qualities, — though, by a pecu¬ 
liar perverseness of fortune, they proved the 
source of his sharpest pangs. 

But to return to Lord Clarendon, who 
survived Gauden twelve years, and who, 
almost to the last day of his life, was em¬ 
ployed in the composition of an historical 
work, originally undertaken at the desire of 
Charles I., and avowed, with honest par¬ 
tiality, to be destined for the vindication of 
his character and cause. This great work, 
not intended fdr publication in the age of 
the writer, was not actually published till 
thirty years after his death, and even then 
not without the suppression of important 
passages, which it seems the public was not 
yet likely to receive in a proper temper. 







ICON BASILIKE. 247 


Now, neither in the original edition, nor in 
any of the recently restored passages*, is 
there any allusion to the supposed work of 
the king. No reason of temporary policy 
can account for this extraordinary silence. 
However the statesman might be excused 
for the momentary sacrifice of truth to quiet, 
the historian could have no temptation to 
make the sacrifice perpetual. Had he be¬ 
lieved that his royal master was the writer 
of the only book ever written by a dying 
monarch on his own misfortunes, it would 
have been unj ust as an historian, treacherous 
as a friend, and unfeeling as a man, to have 
passed over in silence such a memorable and 
affecting circumstance. Merely as a fact, 
his narrative was defective without it. But 
it was a fact of a very touching and interest¬ 
ing nature, on which his genius would have 
expatiated with affectionate delight. No 
later historian of the Royal party has failed 
to dwell on it. How should he then whom 
it must have most affected be silent, unless 
his pen had been stopped by the knowledge 
of the truth ? He had even personal in¬ 
ducements to explain it, at least in those 
more private memoirs of his administration 
which form part of what is called his “ Life.” 
Had he believed in the genuineness of the 
Icon, it would have been natural for him in 
these memoirs to have reconciled that belief 
with the successive preferments of the im¬ 
postor. He had good reason to believe that 
the claims of Gauden would one day reach 
the public; he had himself, in his remark¬ 
able letter of March 13th, 1661, spoken of 
such a disclosure as likely. This very ac¬ 
knowledgment contained in that letter, which 
he knew to be in the possession of Gauden’s 
family, increased the probability. It was 
scarcely possible that such papers should for 
ever elude the search of curiosity, of his¬ 
torical justice, or of party spirit. But be¬ 
sides these probabilities, Clarendon, a few 
months before his death, “ had learned that 
ill people endeavoured to persuade the king 
that his father was not the author of the hook 
that goes by his name'’’ This information 

* In the Oxford edition of 1826. 


was conveyed to him from Bishop Morley 
through Lord Cornbury, who went to visit 
his father in France, in May 1674. On 
hearing these words, Clarendon exclaimed, 
“ Good God! I thought the Marquis of Hert¬ 
ford had satisfied the king in that matter .” * 
By this message Clarendon was therefore 
warned, that the claim of Gauden was on its 
way to the public — that it was already as¬ 
sented to by the Royal Family themselves, 
and was likely at last to appear with the 
support of the most formidable authorities. 
What could he now conclude but that, if 
undetected and unrefuted, or, still more, if 
uncontradicted in a History destined to 
vindicate the king, the claim would be con¬ 
sidered by posterity as established by his 
silence? Clarendon’s language on this oc¬ 
casion also strengthens very much another 
part of the evidence; for it proves, beyond 
all doubt, that the authorship of the Icon 
had been discussed by the king with the Duke 
of Somerset before that nobleman's death in 
October, 1660 — a fact nearly conclusive of 
the whole question. Had the duke assured 
the king that his father was the author, 
what a conclusive answer was ready to 
Gauden, who asserted that the first had 
been the bearer of the manuscript of the 
Icon from Gauden to Charles I.! As there 
had been such a communication between the 
king and the Duke of Somerset, it is alto¬ 
gether incredible that Clarendon should not 
have recurred to the same pure source of 
information. The only admissible meaning 
of Clarendon’s words is, that “ Lord Hert¬ 
ford (afterwards Duke of Somerset) had 
satisfied the king" of the impropriety of 
speaking on the subject. We must other¬ 
wise suppose that the king and Clarendon 
had been “ satisfied,” or perfectly convinced, 
that Charles was the writer of the Icon, — a 
supposition which would convert the silence 
of the chancellor and the levity of the 

* The first letter of the second Earl of Clarendon 
to Wagstaffe in 1694, about twenty years after the 
event, has not, as far as we know, been published. 
We know only the extracts in Wagstaffe. The 
second letter, written in 1699, is printed entire in 
Wagstaffe’s Defence, p. 87. 









248 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


monarch into heinous offences. The mes¬ 
sage of Morley to Clarendon demonstrates 
that they had previous conversation on the 
subject. The answer shows that both parties 
knew of information having been given by 
Somerset to the king, before Gauden’s no¬ 
mination to Exeter; but Gauden had at 
that time appealed, in his letters, both to 
Morley and Somerset as his witnesses. That 
Clarendon therefore knew all that Morley 
and Somerset could tell, is no longer matter 
of inference, but is established by the posi¬ 
tive testimony of the two survivors in 1674. 
Wagstaffe did not perceive the consequences 
of the letter which he published, because he 
had not seen the whole correspondence of 
Gauden. But it is much less easy to under¬ 
stand how those who have compared the 
letters of Gauden with the messages between 
Clarendon and Morley should not have dis¬ 
covered the irresistible inference which arises 
from the comparison. 

The silence of Lord Clarendon, as an his¬ 
torian, is the strongest moral evidence that 
he believed the pretensions of Bishop Gauden; 
and his opinion on the question must be held 
to include the testimony in point of fact, and 
the judgment in point of opinion, of all 
those whom he had easy opportunities and 
strong inducements to consult. It may be 
added, that however Henry earl of Claren¬ 
don chose to express himself (his language 
is not free from an air of mental reservation), 
neither he nor his brother, Lord Rochester, 
when they published their father’s History in 
1702, thought fit, in their preface, to attempt 
any explanation of his silence respecting the 
Icon, though their attention must have been 
called to that subject by the controversy 
respecting it which had been carried on a 
few years before with great zeal and activity. 
Their silence becomes the more remarkable 
from the strong interest taken by Lord Cla¬ 
rendon in the controversy. He wrote two 
letters on it to Wagstaffe, in 1694 and 1699; 
he was one of the few persons present at the 
select consecration of Wagstaffe as a non- 
juring bishop, in 1693; yet there is no allu¬ 
sion to the Icon in the preface to his father’s 
History, published in 1702. 


It cannot be pretended that the final 
silence of Clarendon is agreeable to the 
rigorous rules of historical morality: it is no 
doubt an infirmity which impairs his credit 
as an historian. But it is a light and venial 
fault compared with that which must be laid 
to his charge if we suppose that, with a con¬ 
viction of the genuineness of the Icon, and 
with such testimony in support of it as the 
evidence of Somerset and Morley, — to say 
nothing of others, — he should not have 
made a single effort, in a work destined for 
posterity, to guard from the hands of the 
impostor the most sacred property of his 
unfortunate master. The partiality of Cla¬ 
rendon to Charles I, has never been severely 
blamed; his silence in his History, if he be¬ 
lieved Gauden, would only be a new instance 
of that partiality; but the same silence, if 
he believed the king to be the author, would 
be fatal to his character as an historian and 
a man. 

The knowledge of Gauden’s secret was 
obtained by Clarendon as a minister; and 
he might deem his duty with respect to 
secrets of state still to be so far in force, as 
at least to excuse him for not disturbing one 
of the favourite opinions of his party, and 
for not disclosing what he thought could 
gratify none but regicides and agitators. 
Even this excuse, on the opposite suppo¬ 
sition, he wanted. That Charles was the 
author of the Icon (if true) was no state 
secret, but the prevalent and public opinion. 
He might have collected full proofs of its 
truth, in private conversation with his friends. 
He had only to state such proof, and to 
lament the necessity which made him once 
act as if the truth were otherwise, rather 
than excite a controversy with an unprin¬ 
cipled enemy, dangerous to a new govern¬ 
ment, and injurious to the interests of mo¬ 
narchy. His mere testimony would have 
done infinitely more for the king’s author¬ 
ship, than all the volumes which have been 
written to maintain it: — even that testimony 
is withheld. If the Icon be Gauden’s, the 
silence of Clarendon is a vice to which he 
had strong temptations: if it be the king’s, 
it is a crime without a motive. Those who 










ICON BASILIKE. 249 


are -willing to ascribe the lesser fault to the 
historian, must determine against the au¬ 
thenticity of the Icon. 

That good men, of whom Lord Clarendon 
was one, were, at the period of the Re¬ 
storation, ready to use expedients of very 
dubious morality, to conceal secrets dan¬ 
gerous to the royal cause, will appear from 
a fact, which seems to have escaped the 
notice of the general historians of England. 
It is uncertain, and not worth inquiring, 
when Charles II. threw over his doubts and 
vices that slight and thin vesture of Catho¬ 
licism, which he drew a little closer round 
him at the sight of death *; but we know 
with certainty, that, in the beginning of the 
year 1659, the Duke of Ormonde accidentally 
discovered the conversion, by finding him on 
his knees at mass in a church at Brussels. 
Ormonde, after it was more satisfactorily 
proved to him, by communication with 
Henry Bennett and Lord Bristol f, imparted 
the secret in England to Clarendon and 
Southampton, who agreed with him in the 
necessity of preventing the enemies of mo¬ 
narchy, or the friends of Popery, from pro¬ 
mulgating this fatal secret. Accordingly, 
the “ Act for the better security of his Ma¬ 
jesty's person and government ” \ provided, 
that to affirm the king to be a Papist, should 
be punishable by “ disability to hold any 
office or promotion, civil, military, or eccle¬ 
siastical, besides being liable to such other 
punishments as by common or statute law 
might be inflicted.” 

As soon as we take our stand on the 
ground, that the acquiescence of all the 
Royalists in the council and court of 
Charles II., and the final silence of Claren¬ 
don in his History, on a matter so much 
within his province, and so interesting to 
his feelings*- are irreconcilable with the sup¬ 
position that they believed the Icon to be 
the work of the king, all the other circum¬ 
stances on both sides not only dwindle into 

* His formal reconciliation probably took place 
at Cologne in 1658, under tlie direction of Dr. 
Peter Talbot, Catholic archbishop of Armagh. 

f Carte, Life of Ormonde, vol. ii. pp. 254—256. 

X 13 Car. II. St. 1. 


insignificance, but assume a different colour. 
Thus, the general credit of the book among 
Royalists before the Restoration serves to 
show, that the evidence which changed the 
opinion of Clarendon and his friends must 
have been very strong, — probably far 
stronger than what we now possess; the 
firmer we suppose the previous conviction 
to have been, the more probable it becomes 
that the proofs then discovered were of a 
more direct nature than those which remain. 
Let it be very especially observed, that those 
who decided the question practically in 1660 
were within twelve years of the fact, while 
fifty years had passed before the greater 
part of the traditional and hearsay stories, 
ranged on the opposite side, were brought 
together by Wagstaffe. 

Let us consider, for example, the effect of 
the proceedings of 1660, upon the evidence 
of the witnesses who speak of the Icon as 
having been actually taken from the king at 
Naseby, and afterwards restored to him by 
the conquerors. Two of the best known are 
the Earl of Manchester and Mr. Prynne. 
Eales, a physician at Welwyn, in Hertford¬ 
shire, certifies, in 1699, that some years 
before the Restoration (i.e. about 1656), he 
heard Lord Manchester declare, that the 
MS. of the Icon was taken at Naseby, and 
that he had seen it in the king’s own hand.* 
Jones, at the distance of fifty years, says 
that he had heard from Colonel Stroud that 
Stroud had heard from Prynne in 1649, that 
he, by order of Parliament, had read the 
MS. of the Icon taken at Naseby. f Now 
it is certain that Manchester was taken into 
favour, and Prynne was patronised, at the 
Restoration. If this were so, how came 
matters, of which they spoke so publicly, to 
remain unknown to Clarendon and South¬ 
ampton ? Had the MS. Icon been intrusted 
to Prynne by Parliament, or even by a com¬ 
mittee, its existence must have been known 
to a body much too large to allow the sup¬ 
position of secrecy. The application of the 


* “ Who wrote,” &c. p. 93. Wagstaffe’s Vindi¬ 
cation, p. 19. 
f Ibid. p. 80. 












250 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


same remark disposes of the mob of second¬ 
hand witnesses. The very number of the 
witnesses increases the incredibility that 
their testimony could have escaped notice in 
1660. Huntingdon, a major in Cromwell’s 
regiment, who abandoned the Parliamentary 
cause, is a more direct witness. In the year 
1679, he informed Dugdale that he had pro¬ 
cured the MS. Icon taken at Naseby to be 
restored to the king at Hampton, — that it 
was written by Sir E. Walker, but interlined 
by the king, who wrote all the Devotions. 
In 1681 Dugdale published The Short View, 
in which is the same story, with the variation, 
“that it was written with the king’s own 
hand,” — a statement which, in the summary 
language of a general narrative, can hardly 
be said to vary materially from the former. 
Now, Major Huntingdon had particularly 
attracted the notice of Clarendon; he is 
mentioned in the History with commend¬ 
ation.* * He tendered his services to the king 
before the Restoration f ; and, what is most 
important of all to our present purpose, his 
testimony regarding the conduct of Berkeley 
and Ashburnham, in the journey from Hamp¬ 
ton Court, is expressly mentioned by the 
historian as being, in 1660, thought worthy 
of being weighed even against that of So¬ 
merset and Southampton. J When we thus 
trace a direct communication between him 
and the minister, and when we remember 
that it took place at the very time of the 
claim of Gauden, and that it related to 
events contemporary with the supposed re¬ 
covery of the Icon, it is scarcely necessary 
to ask, whether Clarendon would not have 
sounded him on that subject, and whether 
Huntingdon would not then have boasted of 
such a personal service to the late king. It 
would be contrary to common sense not to 
presume that something then passed on that 
subject, and that, if Huntingdon’s account 
at that time coincided with his subsequent 
story, it could not have been rejected, unless 
it was outweighed by contrary evidence.§ 


* Yol. v. p. 484. 

t Ibid. vol. vii. p. 432. J Ibid. vol. v. p. 495. 
§ Dr. Wordsworth admits, that if Clarendon had 


He must have been thought either a deceiver 
or deceived; for the more candid of these 
suppositions there was abundant scope. It 
is known that one MS. (not the Icon), written 
by Sir Edward Walker and corrected by the 
king, was taken with the king’s correspond¬ 
ence at Naseby, and restored to him by 
Fairfax through an officer at Hampton 
Court.* This was an account of the military 
transactions in the Civil War, written by 
Walker, and published in his Historical 
Discourses long after. It was natural that 
the king should be pleased at the recovery 
of this manuscript, which he soon after sent 
from Hampton Court to Lord Clarendon in 
Jersey, as a “ contribution” towards his 
History. How easily Huntingdon, an old 
soldier little versed in manuscripts, might, 
thirty years afterwards, have confounded 
these memorials with the Icon! A few 
prayers in the king’s handwriting might have 
formed a part of the papers restored. So 
slight and probable are the only suppositions 
necessary to save the veracity of Hunting¬ 
don, and to destroy the value of his evidence. 

Sir Thomas Herbert, who wrote his Me¬ 
moirs thirty years after the event, in the 
seventy-third year of his age, when, as he 
told Antony Wood, “he was grown old, and 
not in such a capacity as he could wish to 
publish it,” found a copy of the Icon among 
the books which Charles I. left to him, and 
thought “ the handwriting was the king’s.” 
Sir Philip Warwick states Herbert’s tes¬ 
timony (probably from a conversation more 
full than the Memoirs) to be, that “ he saw 
the MS. in the king’s hand, as he believes; 
but it was in a running character, and not in 
that which the king usually wrote! j* Now, 

consulted Duppa, Juxon, Sheldon, Morley, Kendal, 
Barwick, Legge, Herbert, &c. &c.,—nay, if he had 
consulted only Morley alone, he must have been 
satisfied — (Dr. Wordsworth, of course, says for the 
king). Now it is certain, from the message of 
Morley to Clarendon in 1674, that previous discus¬ 
sion had taken place between them. Does not this 
single fact decide the question on Dr. Wordsworth’s 
own admission ? 

* Clarendon, vol. v. p. 476. ; and Warburton’s 
note. 

+ Memoirs, p. 69. How much this coincides 











ICON BASILIKE. 


more than one copy of the Icon might have 
been sent to Charles; they might have been 
written with some resemblances to his hand¬ 
writing; but assuredly the original MS. 
would not have been loosely left to Herbert, 
while works on general subjects were be¬ 
queathed to the king’s children. It is 
equally certain that this was not the MS. 
from which the Ic6n was published a few 
days afterwards; and, above all, it is clear 
that information from Herbert* * would na¬ 
turally be sought, and would have been 
easily procured, in 1660. The ministers of 
that time perhaps examined the MS.; or, if 
it could not be produced, they might have 
asked why it was not preserved—a question 
to which, on the supposition of its being 
written by the king, it seems now impossible 
to imagine a satisfactory answer. The same 
observations are applicable to the story of 
Levett, a page, who said that he had seen 
the king writing the Icon, and had read 
several chapters of it — but more forcibly, 
from his being less likely to be intrusted, 
and more liable to confusion and misrecol- 
lection; — to say nothing of our ignorance 
of his character for veracity, and of the in¬ 
terval of forty-two years which had passed 
before his attestation on this subject. 

The Naseby copy being the only fragment 
of positive evidence in support of the king’s 
authorship, one more observation on it may 
be excused. If the parliamentary leaders 
thought the Icon so dangerous to their cause, 
and so likely to make an impression favour¬ 
able to the king, how came they to restore it 
so easily to its author, whom they had deeply 
injured by the publication of his private 
letters ? The advocates of the king charge 
this publication on them, as an act of gross 
indelicacy, and at the same time ascribe 
to them, in the restoration of the Icon, 
a singular instance of somewhat wanton 
generosity. 

It may be a question whether lawyers are 


with Gauden’s account, that his wife had disguised 
the writing of the copy sent to the Isle of Wight! 

* He was made a baronet at the Restoration, for 
his personal services to Charles I. 


251 

justified in altogether rejecting hearsay evi¬ 
dence ; but it never can be supposed, in its 
best state, to be other than secondary. When 
it passes through many hands — when it is 
given after a long time—when it is to be 
found almost solely in one party — when it 
relates to a subject which deeply interests 
their feelings, we may confidently place it 
at the very bottom of the scale; and without 
being able either to disprove many parti¬ 
cular stories, or to ascertain the proportion 
in which each of them is influenced by un¬ 
conscious exaggeration, inflamed zeal, in¬ 
tentional falsehood, inaccurate observation, 
confused recollection, or eager credulity, we 
may safely treat the far greater part as the 
natural produce of these grand causes of 
human delusion. Among the evidence first 
collected by Wagstaffe, one story fortunately 
refers to authorities still in our possession. 
Hearne, a servant of Sir Philip Warwick, 
declared that he had heard his master and 
one Oudart often say that they had tran¬ 
scribed the Icon from a copy in Charles’s 
handwriting.* Sir Philip Warwick (who is 
thus said to have copied the Icon from the 
king’s MS.) has himself positively told us, 
“ I cannot say I know that he wrote the Icon 
which goes under his name f; and Oudart 
was secretary to Sir Edward Nicholas, whose 
letter to Gauden, virtually acknowledging 
his claim, has been already quoted ! 

Two persons appear to have been privy 
to the composition of the Icon by Gauden 
— his wife, and Walker his curate. Mrs. 
Gauden, immediately after her husband’s 
death, applied to Lord Bristol for favour, 
on the ground of her knowledge of the 
secret, adding, that the bishop was pre¬ 
vented only by death from writing to him— 
surely to the same effect. Nine years after¬ 
wards she sent to one of her sons the papers 
on this subject, to be used “if there be a 
good occasion to make it manifest,” among 
which was an epitome “ drawn out by the 
hand of him that did hope to have made a 
fortune by it.” J This is followed by her 


* “ Who wrote,” &c. p. 138. t Memoirs, p. 68. 
x Doc. Sup. pp. 42—48. 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


252 

narrative of the whole transactions, on which 
two short remarks will suffice. It coincides 
with Gauden’s letters, in the most material 
particulars, in appeals to the same eminent 
persons said to be privy to the secret, who 
might and must have been consulted after 
such appeal: it proves also her firm per¬ 
suasion that her husband had been ungrate¬ 
fully requited, and that her family had still 
pretensions founded on his services, which 
these papers might one day enable them to 
assert with more effect. 

Walker, the curate, tells us that he had a 
hand in the business all along. He wrote 
his book, it is true, forty-five years after 
the events; but this circumstance, which so 
deeply affects the testimony of men who 
speak of words spoken in conversation, and 
reaching them through three or four hands, 
rather explains the inaccuracies, than lessens 
the substantial weight, of one who speaks of 
his own acts, on the most, and perhaps only, 
remarkable occasion of his life. There are 
two facts in Walker’s account which seem to 
be decisive ; namely, that Gauden told him, 
about the time of the fabrication, that the 
MS. was sent by the Duke of Somerset to 
the king, and that two chapters of it were 
added by Bishop Duppa. To both these 
witnesses Gauden appealed at the Resto¬ 
ration, and Mrs. Gauden after his death. 
These communications were somewhat in¬ 
discreet ; but, if false, what temptation had 
Gauden at that time to invent them, and to 
communicate ttiem to his curate ? They 
were new means of detecting his imposture. 
But the declaration of Gauden, that the 
book and figure was wholly and solely “ my 
invention, making, and design,” is quoted 
with premature triumph, as if it were in¬ 
compatible with the composition of two 
chapters by Duppa*—as if the contribution 
of a few pages to a volume could affect the 
authorship of the man who had planned the 
whole, and executed all the rest. That he 
mentioned the particular contribution of 
Duppa at the time to Walker, and only ap¬ 
pealed in general to the same prelate in his 


* “ Who wrote,” &c. p. 156. 


applications to Clarendon and the king, is a 
variation, but nc inconsistency. 

Walker early represented the coincidence 
of some peculiar phrases in the devotions of 
the Icon with Gauden’s phraseology, as an 
important fact in the case. That argument 
has recently been presented with much more 
force by Mr. Todd, whose catalogue of coin¬ 
cidences between the Icon and the avowed 
writings of Gauden is certainly entitled to 
serious consideration.* They are not all of 
equal importance, but some of the phrases 
are certainly very peculiar. It seems very 
unlikely that Charles should have copied 
peculiar phrases from the not very conspi¬ 
cuous writings of Gauden’s early life; and it 
is almost equally improbable that Gauden, 
in his later writings, when he is said to have 
been eager to reap the fruits of his impos¬ 
ture, should not have carefully shunned 
those modes of expression which were pecu¬ 
liar to the Icon. To the list of Mr. Todd, a 
very curious addition has been made by Mr. 
Benjamin Bright, a discerning and liberal 
collector, from a manuscript volume of 
prayers by Gauden f, which is of more value 
than the other coincidences, inasmuch as it 
corroborates the testimony of Walker, who 
said that he “met with expressions in the 
devotional parts of the Icon very frequently 
used by Dr. Gauden in his prayers ! ” With¬ 
out laying great stress on these resemblances, 
they are certainly of more weight than the 
general arguments founded either on the 
inferiority of Gauden’s talents (which Dr. 
Wordsworth candidly abandons), or on the 
impure and ostentatious character of his 
style, which have little weight, unless we 
suppose him to have had no power of vary¬ 
ing his manner when speaking in the person 
of another man. 

Conclusions from internal evidence have 
so often been contradicted by experience, 
that prudent inquirers seldom rely on them 
when there are any other means of for mi ng 
a judgment. But in such cases as the pre¬ 
sent, internal evidence does not so much 

* Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury pp. 51 
—76. 

f Ibid. Appendix, No. I. 










ICON BASILIKE. 


253 


depend on the discussion of words, or the 
dissection of sentences, as on the impression 
made by the whole composition on minds 
long accustomed to estimate and compare 
the writings of different men in various cir¬ 
cumstances. A single individual can do 
little more than describe that impression; 
and he must leave it to be determined by 
experience, how far it agrees with the im¬ 
pressions made on the minds of the majority 
of other men of similar qualifications. To 
us it seems, as it did to Archbishop Herring, 
that the Icon is greatly more like the work 
of a priest than a king. It has more of 
dissertation than effusion. It has more 
regular division and systematic order than 
agree with the habits of the king. The 
choice and arrangement of words show a 
degree of care and neatness which are sel¬ 
dom attained but by a practised writer. 
The views of men and affairs, too, are 
rather those of a by-stander than an actor. 
They are chiefly reflections, sometimes in 
themselves obvious, but often ingeniously 
turned, such as the surface of events would 
suggest to a spectator not too deeply in¬ 
terested. It betrays none of those strong 
feelings which the most vigilant regard to 
gravity and dignity could not have uni¬ 
formly banished from the composition of an 
actor and a sufferer. It has no allusion to 
facts not accessible to any moderately in¬ 
formed man; though the king must have 
(sometimes rightly) thought that his su¬ 
perior knowledge of affairs would enable 
him to correct vulgar mistakes. If it be 
really the private effusion of a man’s 
thoughts on himself and his own affairs, it 
would be the only writing of that sort in 
the world in which it is impossible to select 
a trace of peculiarities and weaknesses, — 
of partialities and dislikes, — of secret opi- 
nions, — of favourite idioms, and habitual 
familiarities of expression: every thing is 
impersonal. The book consists entirely of 
generalities; while real writings of this sort 
never fail to be characterised by those 
minute and circumstantial touches, which 
parties deeply interested cannot, if they 
would, avoid. It is also very observable, 


that the Icon dwells little on facts, where a 
mistake might so easily betray its not being 
the king’s; ’ and expatiates in reasoning and 
reflection, of which it is impossible to try 
the genuineness by any palpable test. The 
absence of every allusion to those secrets of 
which it would be very hard for the king 
himself wholly to conceal his knowledge, 
seems, indeed, to indicate the hand of a 
writer who was afraid of venturing on 
ground where his ignorance might expose 
him to irretrievable blunders. Perhaps also 
the want of all the smaller strokes of cha¬ 
racter betrays a timid and faltering forger, 
who, though he ventured to commit a pious 
fraud, shrunk from an irreverent imitation 
of the Royal feelings, and was willing, after 
the great purpose was served, so to soften 
the imposture, as to leave his retreat open, 
and to retain the means, in case of positive 
detection, of representing the book to have 
been published as what might be put into 
the king’s mouth, rather than as what was 
actually spoken by him. 

The section which relates to the civil war 
in Ireland not only exemplifies the above 
remarks, but closely connects the question 
respecting the Icon with the character of 
Charles for sincerity. It certainly was not 
more unlawful for him to seek the aid of 
the Irish Catholics, than it was for his op¬ 
ponents to call in the succour of the Scotch 
Presbyterians. The Parliament procured 
the assistance of the Scotch army, by the 
imposition of the Covenant in England; 
and the king might, on the like principle, 
purchase the help of the Irish, by pro¬ 
mising to tolerate, and even establish, the 
Catholic religion in Ireland. Warburton 
justly observes, that the king was free from 
blame in his negotiations with the Irish, 
“ as a politician, and king, and governor of 
his people; but the necessity of his affairs 
obliging him at the same time to play the 
Protestant saint and confessor, there was 
found much disagreement between his pro¬ 
fessions and declarations, and actions in this 
matter.” * As long as the disagreement 


* Clarendon, vol. vii. p. 591. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


254 


was confined to official declarations and to 
acts of state, it must be owned that it is 
extenuated by the practice of politicians, 
and by the consideration, that the conceal¬ 
ment of negotiations, which is a lawful end, 
can very often be obtained by no other 
means than a disavowal of them. The rigid 
moralist may regret this excuse, though it 
be founded on that high public convenience 
to which Warburton gives the name of 
“ necessity.” But all mankind will allow, 
that the express or implied denial of real 
negotiations in a private work, — a picture 
of the writer’s mind, professing to come 
from the Man and not from the King, 
mixed with solemn appeals and fervid 
prayers to the Deity, — is a far blacker and 
more aggravated instance of insincerity. It 
is not, therefore, an act of judicious regard 
to the memory of Charles to ascribe to him 
the composition of the twelfth section of the 
Icon. The impression manifestly aimed at 
in that section is, that the imputation of a 
private connexion with the Irish revolters 
was a mere calumny; and in. the only para¬ 
graph which approaches to particulars, it 
expressly confines his intercourse with them 
to the negotiation for a time through Or¬ 
monde, and declares that his only object 
was to save “ the poor Protestants of Ire¬ 
land from their desperate enemies.” In the 
section which relates to the publication of 
his letters, when the Parliament had ex¬ 
plicitly charged him with clandestine nego¬ 
tiations, nothing is added on the subject. 
The general protestations of innocence, not 
very specifically applied even to the first 
instigation of the revolt, are left in that 
indefinite state in which the careless reader 
may be led to apply them to all subsequent 
transactions, which are skilfully — not to 
say artfully — passed over in silence. Now 
it is certain that the Earl of Glamorgan, 
a Catholic himself, was authorised by Charles 
to negotiate with the Catholics in 1645, 
independently of Ormonde, and with powers 
into the nature of which the lord lieute¬ 
nant thought himself bound not curiously 
to pry. It is also certain that, in the 
spring of that year, Glamorgan concluded a 


secret treaty with the Catholic assembly at 
Kilkenny, by which, — besides the repeal of 
penalties or disabilities, — all the churches 
and Church property in Ireland occupied by 
the Catholics since the revolt were con¬ 
tinued and secured to them * ; while they, 
on their parts, engaged to send ten thousand 
troops to the king’s assistance in England. 
Some correspondence on this subject was 
captured at sea, and some was seized in 
Ireland: both portions were immediately 
published by the Parliament, which com¬ 
pelled the king to imprison and disavow 
Glamorgan.f It is clear that these were 
measures of policy, merely intended to con¬ 
ceal the truth J : and the king, if he was the 
writer of the Icon, must have deliberately 
left on the minds of the readers of that 
book an opinion, of his connexion with the 
Irish Catholics, which he knew to be false. 
On the other hand it is to be observed, that 
Gauden could not have known the secret of 
the Irish negotiations, and that he would 
naturally avoid a subject of which he was 
ignorant, and confine himself to a general 
disavowal of the instigation of the revolt. 
The silence of the Icon on this subject, if 
written by Gauden, would be neither more 
wonderful nor more blamable than that 
of Clarendon, who, though he was of ne¬ 
cessity acquainted with the negotiations of 
Glamorgan, does not suffer an allusion to 
the true state of them to escape him, either 
in the History, or in that apology for Or¬ 
monde’s administration which he calls “A 


* Birch, Inquiry, p. 68. The king’s warrant, 
on 12th March, 1645, gives Glamorgan power 
“ to treat with the Roman Catholics upon necessity, 
wherein our lieutenant cannot so well be seen.” P. 20. 
t Harleian Miscellany, vol. iv. p. 494. 

| See a curious letter published by Leland (His¬ 
tory of Ireland, book v. chap. 7.), which clearly 
proves that the blindness of Ormonde was volun¬ 
tary, and that he was either trusted with the 
secret, or discovered it; and that the imprisonment 
of Glamorgan was, what the Parliament called it, 
“ a colourable commitment .” Leland is one of those 
writers who deserve more reputation than they 
enjoy: he is not only an elegant writer, but, con¬ 
sidering his time and country, singularly candid, 
unprejudiced, and independent. 







MEMOIR OF THE AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND. 


Short View of the State of Ireland.” Let 
it not be said, either by Charles’s mis¬ 
taken friends, or by his undistinguishing 
enemies, that he incurs the same blame 
for suffering an omission calculated to de¬ 
ceive to remain in the Icon of Gauden, 
as if he had himself written the book. 
If the manuscript was sent to him by 
Gauden in September, 1648, he may have 
intended to direct an explanation of the 
Irish negotiations to be inserted in it; 

— he may not have finally determined on 
the immediate publication. At all events, 
it would be cruel to require that he should 
have critically examined, and deliberately 
weighed, every part of a manuscript which 
he could only occasionally snatch a moment 
to read in secret during the last four months 
of his life. In this troubled and dark period, 
divided between great negotiations, violent 
removals, and preparations for asserting his 
dignity, — if he could not preserve his life, 

— justice, as much as generosity, requires 
that we should not hold him responsible for 
a negative offence, however important, in a 
manuscript which he had then only read. 
But if he was the author, none of these ex¬ 
tenuations have any place: he must then 
have composed the work several years before 
his death; he was likely to have frequently 
examined it; he doubtless read it with fresh 


255 

attention after it was restored to him at 
Hampton Court; and he afterwards added 
several chapters to it. On that supposition, 
the fraudulent omission must have been a 
contrivance “ aforethought,” carried on for 
years, persisted in at the approach of death, 
and left, as the dying declaration of a pious 
monarch, in a state calculated to impose a 
falsehood upon posterity.* 


* After sketching the above, we have been con¬ 
vinced, by a reperusal of the note of Mr. Laing on 
this subject (History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 565.), 
that if he had employed his great abilities as much 
in unfolding facts as in ascertaining them, nothing 
could have been written for the Icon, or ought to 
have been written against it, since that decisive 
note. His merit, as a critical inquirer into history, 
an enlightened collector of materials, and a saga¬ 
cious judge of evidence, has never been surpassed. 
If any man believes the innocence of Queen Maiy, 
after an impartial and dispassionate perusal of Mr. 
Laing’s examination of her case, the state of such 
a man’s mind would be a subject worthy of much 
consideration by a philosophical observer of human 
nature. In spite of his ardent love of liberty, no 
man has yet presumed, to charge him with the 
slightest sacrifice of historical integrity to his zeal. 
That he never perfectly attained the art of full, 
clear, and easy narrative was owing to the peculiar 
style of those writers who were popular in his 
youth, and he may be mentioned as a remarkable 
instance of the disproportion of particular talents 
to general vigour of mind. 


MEMOIR 

OF THE 

AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND. 

A.D. 1667—1686. 


TnE Seven United Provinces which esta¬ 
blished their independence made little change 
in their internal institutions. The revolt 
against Philip’s personal commands was long 
carried on under colour of his own legal 


authority, conjointly exercised by his lieu¬ 
tenant, the Prince of Orange, and by the 
States, — composed of the nobility and. of 
the deputies of towns, — who had before 
shared a great portion of it. But, being 










256 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

bound to each other in an indissoluble con¬ 
federacy, established at Utrecht in 1579, the 
care of their foreign relations and of all their 
common affairs was entrusted to delegates, 
sent from each, who gradually assumed that 
name of “ States-General” which had been 
originally bestowed only on the occasional 
assemblies of the whole States of all the 
Belgic provinces. These arrangements, 
hastily adopted in times of confusion, drew 
no distinct lines of demarcation between the 
provincial and federal authorities. Hostili¬ 
ties had been for many years carried on 
before the authority of Philip was finally 
abrogated; and after that decisive measure 
the States showed considerable disposition 
to the revival of a monarchical power in the 
person of an Austrian or French prince, or 
of the Queen of England. William I. seems 
about to have been invested with the ancient 
legal character of Earl of Holland at the 
moment of his murder.* He and his suc¬ 
cessors were stadtholders of the greater pro¬ 
vinces, and sometimes of all: they exercised 
in that character a powerful influence on the 
election of the magistrates of towns; they 
commanded the forces of the confederacy 
by sea and land; they combined the prero¬ 
gatives of their ancient magistracy with the 
new powers, the assumption of which the 
necessities of war seemed to justify; and 
they became engaged in constant disputes 
with the great political bodies, whose pre¬ 
tensions to an undivided sovereignty were 
as recent and as little defined as their own 
rights. While Holland formed the main 
strength of the confederacy, the city of Am¬ 
sterdam predominated in the councils of that 
province. The provincial States of Holland, 
and the patricians in the towns from whom 
their magistrates were selected, were the aris- 
tocratical antagonists of the stadtholderian 
power, which chiefly rested on official pa¬ 
tronage, on military command, on the favour 
of the populace, and on the influence of the 
minor provinces in the States-General. 

The House of Nassau stood conspicuous, 

at the dawn of modern history, among the 
noblest of the ruling families of Germany. 
In the thirteenth century, Adolphus of Nas¬ 
sau succeeded Rodolph of Hapsburg in the 
imperial crown, — the highest dignity of the 
Christian world. A branch of this ancient 
house had acquired ample possessions in the 
Netherlands, together with the principality of 
Orange in Provence ; and under Charles V., 
William of Nassau was the most potent lord 
of the Burgundian provinces. Educated in 
the palace and almost in the chamber of the 
emperor, he was nominated in the earliest 
years of manhood to the government of 
Holland*, and to the command of the im¬ 
perial army, by that sagacious monarch, 
who, in the memorable solemnity of abdica¬ 
tion, leant upon his shoulder as the first of 
his Belgic subjects. The same eminent 
qualities which recommended him to the 
confidence of Charles awakened the jealousy 
of Philip, whose anger, breaking through all 
the restraints of his wonted simulation, burst 
into furious reproaches against the Prince 
of Orange as the fomenter of the resistance 
of the Flemings to the destruction of their 
privileges. Among the three rulers who, 
perhaps unconsciously, were stirred up at 
the same moment to preserve the civil and 
religious liberties of mankind, William I. 
must be owned to have wanted the brilliant 
and attractive qualities of Henry IV., and 
to have yielded to the commanding genius 
of Elizabeth ; but his principles were more 
inflexible than those of the amiable hero, 
and his mind was undisturbed by the infir¬ 
mities and passions which lowered the illus¬ 
trious queen. Though he performed great 
actions with weaker means than theirs, his 
course was more unspotted. Faithful to 
the King of Spain as long as the preservation 
of the commonwealth allowed, he counselled 
the Duchess of Parma against all the iniqui¬ 
ties by which the Netherlands were lost; 
but faithful also to his country, in his dying 
instructions he enjoined his son to beware 
of insidious offers of compromise from the 

* Commentarii de Republica Bataviensi (Lugd. 
Bat. 1795), vol. ii. pp. 42, 43. 

* By the ancient name of “ Stadthoudcr ” (lieu¬ 
tenant). Kluit, Vetus Jus Pub. Belg. p. 364. 








MEMOIR OF THE AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND. 257 


Spaniard, to adhere to his alliance with 
France and England, to observe the privi¬ 
leges of the provinces and towns, and to 
conduct himself in all things as became the 
chief magistrate of the republic.* Advancing 
a century beyond his contemporaries in civil 
wisdom, he braved the prejudices of the Cal- 
rinistic clergy, by contending for the tolera¬ 
tion of Catholics, the chiefs of whom had 
sworn his destruction.j* Thoughtful, of un¬ 
conquerable spirit, persuasive though taci¬ 
turn, of simple character, yet maintaining 
due dignity and becoming magnificence in 
his public character, an able commander and 
a wise statesman, he is perhaps the purest 
of those who have risen by arms from pri¬ 
vate station to supreme authority, and the 
greatest of the happy few who have enjoyed 
the glorious fortune of bestowing liberty 
upon a people.]; The whole struggle of this 
illustrious prince was against foreign op¬ 
pression. His posterity, less happy, were 
engaged in domestic broils, in part arising 
from their undefined authority, and from 
the very complicated constitution of the 
commonwealth. 

Maurice, the eldest Protestant son of Wil-t 
liam, surpassed his father in military genius, 
but fell far short of him in that moderation 
of temper and principle which is the most 
indispensable virtue of the leader of a free 
state. The blood of Barneveldt and the 
dungeon of Grotius have left an indelible 
stain on his memory; nor is it without ap¬ 
parent reason that the aristocratical party 
have charged him with projects of usurpa¬ 
tion,— natural to a family of republican 
magistrates allied by blood to all the kings 
of Europe, and distinguished by many ap¬ 


* D’Estrades, MSS. in the hands of his youngest 
son. 

f Burnet, History of His Own Time (Oxford, 
1823), vol. i. p. 547. 

| Even Strada himself bears one testimony to 
this great man, which outweighs all his vain re¬ 
proaches. “ Nec postea mutavere (Hollandi) qui 
videbant et gloriabantur ab unins hominis conatu, 
coeptisque illi utcunque infelicibus, assurgere in 
dies Hollandicum nomen imperiumque. Strada, 
De Bello Belgico, dec. ii. lib. v. 


proaches and pretensions to the kingly power.* 
Henry Frederick, his successor, was the son 
of William I. by Louise de Coligny, — a 
woman singular in her character as well as 
in her destiny, who, having seen her father 
and the husband of her youth murdered at the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew, was doomed 
to witness the fall of a more illustrious hus¬ 
band by the hand of an assassin of the same 
faction, and who in her last widowhood won 
the affection of William’s children by former 
wives, for her own virtuous son. Having 
maintained the fame of his family in war, he 
was happier than his more celebrated brother 
in a domestic administration, which was mo¬ 
derate, tolerant, and unsuspected.f He 
lived to see the final recognition of Dutch 
independence by the treaty of Munster, and 
was succeeded by his son, William II., who, 
after a short and turbulent rule, died in 
1650, leaving his widow, the Princess Royal 
of England, pregnant. 

William III., born on the 14th of No¬ 
vember, 1650, eight days after the death of 
his father, an orphan, of feeble frame, with 
early indications of disease, seemed to be 
involved in the cloud of misfortune which 
then covered the deposed and exiled family 
of his mother. The patricians of the com¬ 
mercial cities, who had gathered strength 
with their rapidly increasing wealth, were 
incensed at the late attack of William II. 
on Amsterdam; they were equally embold¬ 
ened by the establishment of a republic in 
England, and prejudiced, not without reason, 
against the Stuart family, whose absurd 
principle of the divine right of kings had 
always disposed James I. to regard the Dutch 
as no better than successful rebels j, and 
had led his son, in 1631, a period of pro¬ 
found peace and professed friendship, to 
conclude a secret treaty with Spain for the 


* Du Maurier, Memoires de la Hollande, p. 293. 
Vandervynkt, Troubles des Pays Bas, vol. iii. 
p. 27. 

•f D’Estrades, Lettres (Lond. 1743), vol. i. p. 55. 
j “ In his table discourse he pronounced the 
Dutch to be rebels, and condemned their cause, 
and said that Ostend belonged to the archduke.” 
Carte, History of England, vol. iii. p. 714. 


S 










258 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


partition of the republic, in which England 
was to be rewarded for her treachery and 
rapine by the sovereignty of Zealand.* They 
found no difficulty in persuading the States 
to assume all the authority hitherto exercised 
by the stadtholder, without fixing any period 
for conferring on the infant prince those 
dignities which had been enjoyed by three 
generations of his family. At the peace of 
1654, the States of Holland bound them¬ 
selves by a secret article, yielded with no 
great reluctance to the demands of Crom¬ 
well, never to choose the Prince of Orange 
to be their stadtholder, nor to consent to 
his being appointed captain-general of the 
forces of the confederacy;—a separate stipu¬ 
lation, at variance with the spirit of the 
union of Utrecht, and disrespectful to the 
judgment, if not injurious to the rights, of 
the weaker confederates.^ After the Re¬ 
storation this engagement lost its power. 

But when the Prince of Orange had nearly 
reached years of discretion, and the brilliant 
operations of a military campaign against 
England had given new vigour to the re¬ 
publican administration, John deWitt, who, 
under the modest title of “ Pensionary ” of 
Holland, had long directed the affairs of the 
confederacy with a success and reputation 
due to his matchless honesty and prudence, 
prevailed on the States of that province to 
pass a “Perpetual Edict for the Main¬ 
tenance of Liberty.” By this law they abo¬ 
lished the stadtholdership in their own pro¬ 
vince, and agreed to take effectual means 
to obtain from their confederates edicts 
excluding all those who might be captain- 
generals from the stadtholdership of any of 
the provinces,—binding themselves and their 
successors by oath to observe these provi¬ 
sions, and imposing the like oath on all who 
might be appointed to the chief command 


* Clarendon, State Papers, vol. i. p. 49., and vol. 
ii. app. xxvii. 

I Cromwell was prevailed upon to content him¬ 
self with this separate stipulation, very imperfect 
in form, but which the strength of the ruling pro¬ 
vince rendered in substance sufficient. Whitelock, 
Memorials, 12th May, 1684. 


by land or sea.* Guelderland, Utrecht, 
and Overyssell acceded. Friesland and Gro¬ 
ningen, then governed by a stadtholder of 
another branch of the family of Nassau, 
were considered as not immediately in¬ 
terested in the question. Zealand alone, 
devoted to the House of Orange, resisted 
the separation of the supreme military and 
civil offices. On this footing De Witt pro¬ 
fessed his readiness to confer the office of 
captain-general on the prince, as soon as he 
should be of fit age. He was allowed mean¬ 
while to take his seat in the Council of 
State, and took an oath to observe the Per¬ 
petual Edict. His opponents struggled to 
retard his military appointment, to shorten 
its duration, and to limit its powers. His 
partisans, on the other hand, supported by 
England, and led by Amelia of Solms, the 
widow of Prince Henry, — a woman of ex¬ 
traordinary ability, who had trained the 
young prince with parental tenderness,— 
seized every opportunity of pressing forward 
his nomination, and of preparing the way 
for the enlargement of his authority. 

This contest might have been longer pro¬ 
tracted, if the conspiracy of Louis and 
Charles, and the occupation of the greater 
part of the country by the former, had not 
brought undeserved reproach on the ad¬ 
ministration of De Witt. Fear and distrust 
became universal; every man suspected his 
neighbour; accusations were heard with 
greedy credulity; misfortunes were imputed 
to treachery; and the multitude cried aloud 
for victims. The corporate officers of the 
great towns, originally chosen by the burgh¬ 
ers, had, on the usual plea of avoiding 
tumult, obtained the right of filling up all 
vacancies in their own number. They thus 
strengthened their power, but destroyed their 
security. No longer connected with the 
people by election, the aristocratical fami¬ 
lies received no fresh infusion of strength, 


* 3d August, 1667. The immediate occasion of 
this edict seems to have been a conspiracy, for 
which one Buat, a spy employed by Lord Arling¬ 
ton, was executed. Histoire de J. 1). De Witt 
(Utrecht, 1709), liv. ii. chap. 2. 










MEMOIR OF THE AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND. 


and had no hold on the attachment of the 
community; though they still formed, in¬ 
deed, the better part of the people. They 
had raised the fishermen of a few marshy 
districts to be one of the greatest nations of 
Europe; but the misfortunes of a moment 
banished the remembrance of their services. 
Their grave and harsh virtues were more 
unpopular than so many vices; while the 
needs and disasters of war served to heighten 
the plebeian clamour, and to strengthen the 
military power, which together formed the 
combined force of the stadtholderian party. 
It was then in vain that the republicans 
endeavoured to satisfy that party, and to 
gain over the King of England, by the no¬ 
mination of the Prince of Orange to be cap¬ 
tain-general ; Charles was engaged in deeper 
designs. The progress of the French arms 
still farther exasperated the populace, and 
the republicans incurred the reproach of 
treachery by a disposition—perhaps carried 
to excess — to negotiate with Louis XIY. 
at a moment when all negotiation wore the 
appearance of submission. So it had for¬ 
merly happened: — Barneveldt was friendly 
to peace with Spain, when Maurice saw no 
safety but in arms. Men equally wise and 
honest may differ on the difficult and con¬ 
stantly varying question, whether uncom¬ 
promising resistance, or a reservation of 
active effort for a more favourable season, 
be the best mode of dealing with a for¬ 
midable conqueror. Though the war policy of 
Demosthenes terminated in the destruction 
of Athens, we dare not affirm that the pacific 
system of Phocion would have saved it. In 
the contest of Maurice with Barneveldt, and 
of De Witt with the adherents of the House 
of Orange, both parties had an interest dis¬ 
tinct from that of the commonwealth; for 
the influence of the States grew in peace, 
and the authority of the captain-general was 
strengthened by war. The populace now 
revolted against their magistrates in all the 
towns, and the States of Holland were com¬ 
pelled to repeal the Edict which they called 
“Perpetual,” to release themselves and all 
the officers from the oath which they had 
taken to observe it, and to confer, on the 


259 

4th of July, 1672, on the prince the office of 
stadtholder,—which, then only elective for 
life, was, after two years more, made here¬ 
ditary to his descendants. 

The commotions which accompanied this 
revolution were stained by the murder of 
John and Cornelius De Witt, — a crime 
perpetrated with such brutal ferocity, and 
encountered with such heroic serenity, that 
it may almost seem to be doubtful whether 
the glory of having produced such pure 
sufferers may not in some degree console a 
country for having given birth to assassins 
so atrocious. These excesses are singularly 
at variance with the calm and orderly cha¬ 
racter of the Dutch,—than whom perhaps 
no free state has, in proportion to its magni¬ 
tude, contributed more amply to the amend¬ 
ment of mankind by examples of public 
virtue. The Prince of Orange, thus hurried 
to the supreme authority at the age of 
twenty-two, was ignorant of these crimes, 
and avowed his abhorrence of them. They 
were perpetrated more than a month after 
his highest advancement, when they could 
produce no effect but that of bringing odium 
upon his party. But it must be for ever 
deplored that the extreme danger of his 
position should have prevented him from 
punishing the offences of his partisans, till it 
seemed too late to violate that species of 
tacit amnesty which time insensibly esta¬ 
blishes. It would be impossible ever to ex¬ 
cuse this unhappy impunity, if we did not 
call to mind that Louis XIY. was at Utrecht; 
that it was the populace of the Hague that 
had imbrued their hands in the blood of the 
De Witts; and that the magistrates of Am¬ 
sterdam might be disposed to avenge on 
their country the cause of their virtuous 
chiefs. Henceforward William directed the 
counsels and arms of Holland, gradually 
forming and leading a confederacy to set 
bounds to the ambition of Louis XIY., and 
became, by his abilities and dispositions, as 
much as by his position, the second person 
in Europe. 

We possess unsuspected descriptions of 
his character from observers of more than 
ordinary sagacity, who had an interest in 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


260 


watching its development before it was sur¬ 
rounded by the dazzling illusions of power 
and fame. Among the most valuable of 
these witnesses were some of the subjects 
and servants of Louis XIY. At the age of 
eighteen the Prince’s good sense, knowledge 
of affairs, and seasonable concealment of his 
thoughts, attracted the attention of Gour- 
ville, a man of experience and discernment. 
St. Evremond, though himself distinguished 
chiefly by vivacity and accomplishments, saw 
the superiority of William’s powers through 
his silence and coldness. After long in¬ 
timacy, Sir William Temple describes his 
great endowments and excellent qualities, 
his — then almost singular — combination of 
“ charity and religious zeal,” “ his desire — 
rare in every age — to grow great rather by 
the service than the servitude of his coun¬ 
try ; ” — language so manifestly considerate, 
discriminating, and unexaggerated, as to 
bear on it the inimitable stamp of truth, in 
addition to the weight which it derives from 
the probity of the writer. But there is no 
testimony so important as that of Charles II., 
who, in the early part of his reign, had been 
desirous of gaining an ascendant in Holland 
by the restoration of the House of Orange, 
and of subverting the government of De 
Witt, whom he never forgave for his share 
in the treaty with the English Republic. 
Some retrospect is necessary, to explain the 
experiment by which that monarch both 
ascertained and made known the ruling prin¬ 
ciples of his nephew’s mind. 

The mean negotiations about the sale of 
Dunkirk first betrayed to Louis XIY. the 
passion of Charles for French money. The 
latter had, at the same time, offered to aid 
Louis in the conquest of Flanders, on con¬ 
dition of receiving French succour against 
the revolt of his own subjects*, and had 
strongly expressed his desire of an offensive 
and defensive alliance to Ruvigni, one of the 
most estimable of that monarch’s agents.f 


* D’Estrades, vol. v. p. 450. 
f Memoire de Ruvigni au Roi. Dalrymple, 
Memoirs of Great Britain, &c. vol. ii. p. 11. D’Es¬ 
trades, vol. v., 20th Dec. 1663. 18th Dec. 1664. 


But the most pernicious of Charles’s vices, 
never bridled by any virtue, were often mi¬ 
tigated by the minor vices of indolence and 
irresolution. Even the love of pleasure, 
which made him needy and rapacious, un¬ 
fitted him for undertakings full of toil and 
peril. Projects for circumventing each other 
in Holland, which Charles aimed at influ¬ 
encing through the House of Orange, and 
Louis hoped to master through the Re¬ 
publican party, retarded their secret ad¬ 
vances to an entire union. De Witt was 
compelled to consent to some aggrandisement 
of France, rather than expose his country to 
a war without the co-operation of the King 
of England, who was ready to betray a 
hated ally. The first Dutch war appears to 
have arisen from the passions of both nations, 
and their pride of maritime supremacy,— 
employed as instruments by Charles where¬ 
with to obtain booty at sea, and supply from 
his parliament, — and by Louis wherewith 
to seize the Spanish Netherlands. At the 
peace of Breda (July, 1667), the Court of 
England seemed for a moment to have 
changed its policy, by the conclusion of the 
Triple Alliance, which prescribed some limits 
to the ambition of France, — a system which 
De Witt, as soon as he met so honest a 
negotiator as Sir William Temple, joyfully 
hastened to embrace. 

Temple was, however, duped by his master. 
It is probable that the Triple Alliance was 
the result of a fraudulent project, suggested 
originally by Gourville to ruin De Witt, by 
embroiling him irreconcilably with France.* 
Charles made haste to disavow the intentions 
professed in itf; and a negotiation with 
France was immediately opened, partly by 
the personal intercourse of Charles with the 
French ministers at his court, but chiefly 
through his sister, the Duchess of Orleans, 
— an amiable princess, probably the only 
person whom he ever loved. This corre- 


* Memoires de Gourville (Paris, 1724), vol. ii. 
pp. 14—18. 160. 

t Charles II. to the Duchess of Orleans, 13th 
Jan. 1668. Dalrymple, vol. ii. p. 5. [The old 
style is used throughout these references.— Ed.] 

















MEMOIR OF THE AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND. 261 


spondence, which was concealed from those 
of his ministers who were not either Catholics 
or well affected to the Catholic religion, 
lingered on till May, 1670, when (on the 
22d) a secret treaty was concluded under 
cover of a visit made by the duchess to her 
brother.* * 


* It was signed by Lords Arlington and Arun¬ 
del, Sir Thomas Clifford, and Sir Richard Bealing, 
on the part of England, and by Colbert de Croissy 
the brother of the celebrated financier, on the part 
of France. Rose, Observations on Fox’s History, 
p. 51. Summary collated with the original, in the 
hands of the present Lord Clifford. The draft of 
the same treaty, sent to Paris by Arundel, does not 
materially differ. Dalrymple, vol. i. p. 44. “ The 
Life of James II. (vol. i. pp. 440—450.) agrees, in 
most circumstances, with these copies of the trea¬ 
ties, and with the correspondence. There is one 
important variation. In the treaty it is stipulated 
that Charles’s measures in favour of the Catholic 
religion should precede the war against Holland, 
according to the plan which he had always sup¬ 
ported. ‘ The Life ’ says, that the resolution was 
taken at Dover to begin with the war against 
Holland, and the despatch of Colbert from Dover, 
20th May (Dalrymple, vol. ii. p. 57.), almost jus¬ 
tifies the statement, which may refer to a verbal 
acquiescence of Charles, probably deemed suffi¬ 
cient in these clandestine transactions, where that 
prince desired nothing but such assurances as 
satisfy gentlemen in private life. It is true that 
the narrative of the Life is not here supported by 
those quotations from the king’s original Memoirs 
on which the credit of the compilation essentially 
depends. But as in the eighteen years, 1G60— 
1678, which exhibit no such quotations, there are 
internal proofs that some passages, at least, of the 
Life are taken from the Memoirs, the absence of 
quotation does not derogate so much from the 
credit of this part of the work as it would from that 
of any other.” See Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. 
pp. 402—480. This treaty has been laid to the 
charge of the Cabinet called the “ Cabal,” unjustly; 
for, of the five members of that administration, two 
only, Clifford and Arlington, were privy to the 
designs of the king and the Duke of York. Ash¬ 
ley and Lauderdale were too zealous Protestants 
to be trusted with it. Buckingham (whatever 
might be his indifference in religion) had too much 
levity to be trusted with such secrets; but he was 
so penetrating that it was thought prudent to 
divert his attention from the real negotiation, by 
engaging him in negotiating a simulated treaty, 
in which the articles favourable to the Catholic 
religion were left out. On the other hand, Lord 


The essential stipulations of this unparal¬ 
leled compact were three : that Louis should 
advance money to Charles, to enable him the 
more safely to execute what is called “ a 
declaration of his adherence to the Catholic 
religion,” and should support him with men 
and money, if that measure should be re¬ 
sisted by his subjects; that both powers 
should join their arms against Holland, the 
islands of Walcheren and Cadsand being 
allotted to England as her share of the prey 
(which clearly left the other territories of 
the Republic at the disposal of Louis) ; and 
that England should aid Louis in any new 
pretensions to the crown of Spain, or, in other 
and plainer language, enable him, on the 
very probable event of Charles II. of Spain 
dying without issue *, to incorporate with 
a monarchy, already the greatest in Europe, 
the long-coveted inheritance of the House 
of Burgundy, and the two vast peninsulas 
of Italy and Spain. The strength of Louis 
would thus have been doubled at one blow, 
and all limitations to his farther progress on 
the Continent must have been left to his own 
moderation. It is hard to imagine what 
should have hindered him from rendering his 
monarchy universal over the civilised world. 
The port of Ostend, the island of Minorca, 
and the permission to conquer Spanish Ame¬ 
rica, with a very vague promise of assistance 
of France, were assigned to England as the 
wages of her share of this conspiracy against 
mankind. The fearful stipulations for ren¬ 
dering the King of England independent of 
Parliament, by a secret supply of foreign 
money, and for putting into his hands a 
foreign military force, to be employed against 
his subjects, were, indeed, to take effect only 
in case of the avowal of his reconciliation 
with the Church of Rome. But as he him¬ 
self considered a re-establishment of that 
Church as essential to the consolidation of 
his authority,—which the mere avowal of 
his religion would rather have weakened, 


Arundel and Sir Richard Bealing, Catholics not of 
the “ Cabal,” were negotiators. 

* Charles II., king of Spain, was then a feeble 
and diseased child of nine years old. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


262 


and the bare toleration of it could little, if 
at all, have promoted; as he confessedly 
meditated measures for quieting the alarms 
of the possessors of Church lands, whom the 
simple letter of the treaty could not have 
much disturbed; as he proposed a treaty 
with the pope, to obtain the cup for the 
laity, and the mass in English, — concessions 
which are scarcely intelligible without the 
supposition that the Church of Rome was to 
be established; as he concealed this article 
from Shaftesbury, who must have known 
his religion, and was then friendly to a tole¬ 
ration of it; and as other articles were 
framed for the destruction of the only power¬ 
ful Protestant state on the Continent, there 
cannot be the slightest doubt that the real 
object of this atrocious compact, however 
disguised under the smooth and crafty lan¬ 
guage of diplomacy, was the forcible im¬ 
position of a hated religion upon the British 
nation, and that the conspirators foresaw a 
national resistance, which must be stifled or 
quelled by a foreign army.* * * § It was evident 
that the most tyrannical measures would 
have been necessary for the accomplishment 
of such purposes, and that the transfer of 
all civil, military, and ecclesiastical power to 
the members of a communion who had no 
barrier against public hatred but the throne, 
must have tended to render the power of 
. Charles absolute, and must have afforded 
him the most probable means of effectually 
promoting the plans of his ally for the sub¬ 
jugation of Europe.f If the foreign and 
domestic objects of this treaty be considered, 
together with the means by which they were 
to have been accomplished, and the dire con¬ 
sequences which must have flowed from their 
attainment, it seems probable that so much 
falsehood, treachery, and mercenary mean¬ 
ness were never before combined, in the 


* Dalrymple, vol. ii. p. 84. 
f It is but just to mention, that Burnet calls it 
only the “ toleration of popery,” vol. i. p. 522. He 
had seen only Primi’s history, and he seems to 
speak of the negotiation carried on through Buck¬ 
ingham, from whom we know that the full extent 
of the plan was concealed. 


decent formalities of a solemn compact be¬ 
tween sovereigns, with such premeditated 
bloodshed and unbridled cruelty. The only 
semblance of virtue in the dark plot was 
the anxiety shown to conceal it; which, how¬ 
ever, arose more from the fears than the 
shame of the conspirators. In spite of all 
their precautions it transpired: the secret 
was extorted from Turenne, in a moment of 
weakness, by a young mistress.* He also 
disclosed some of the correspondence to 
Puffendorf, the Swedish minister at Paris, 
to detach the Swedes from the Triple Alli¬ 
ance t; and it was made known by that mi¬ 
nister, as well as by De Groot, the Dutch 
ambassador at Paris, to De Witt, who had 
never ceased to distrust the sincerity of the 
Stuarts towards Holland. | The suspicions 
of Temple himself had been early awakened; 
and he seems to have in some measure played 
the part of a willing dupe, in the hope of 
entangling his master in honest alliances. 
The substance of the secret treaty was the 
subject of general conversation at the Court 
of England at the time of Puffendorf’s dis¬ 
covery^ A pamphlet published, or at least 
printed, in 1673, intelligibly hints at its 
existence “ about four years before.” || Not 
long after, Louis XIV., in a moment of dis¬ 
satisfaction with Charles II., permitted or 
commanded the Abbate Primi to print a 
History of the Dutch War at Paris, which 
derived credit from being soon suppressed 
at the instance of the English minister, and 
which gave an almost verbally exact sum¬ 
mary of the secret treaty, with respect to 
three of its objects,—the partition of Hdl- 


* Ramsay, Histoire de Turenne (Paris, 1735), 
vol. i. p. 429. 

f Sir W. Temple to Sir Orlando Bridgman, 24th 
April, 1669. 

X De Witt observed to Temple, even in the days 
of the Triple Alliance, — “A change of councils in 
England would be our ruin. Since the reign of 
Elizabeth there has been such a fluctuation in the 
English councils, that it has been impossible to 
concert measures with them for two years.” 

§ Pepvs’ Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 336. 

|| England’s Appeal from the Private Cabal at 
Whitehall. 









MEMOIR OF THE AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND. 263 

land, the re-establishment of the Catholic 
religion in the British Islands, and the abso¬ 
lute authority of the king.* The project 
for the dismemberment of Holland, adopted 
by Charles I. in 1631, appears to have been 
entertained by his eldest son till the last 
years of his reign.f 

As one of the articles of the secret treaty 
had provided a petty sovereignty for the 
Prince of Orange out of the ruins of his 
country, Charles took the opportunity of his 
nephew’s visit to England, in October 1670, 
to sound him on a project which was thus 
baited for his concurrence. “ All the Pro¬ 
testants,” said the king, “ are a factious 
body, broken among themselves since they 
have been broken from the main stock. 
Look into these things better; do not be 
misled by your Dutch blockheads.” | The 
king immediately imparted the failure of 
this attempt to the French ambassador : “ I 
am satisfied with the prince’s abilities, but 

I find him too zealous a Dutchman and a 
Protestant to be trusted with the secret.” § 
But enough had escaped to disclose to the 
sagacious youth the purposes of his uncle, 
and to throw a strong light on the motives 
of all his subsequent measures. The in¬ 
clination of Charles towards the Church of 
Rome could never have rendered a man so 
regardless of religion solicitous for a con¬ 
version, if he had not considered it as sub¬ 
servient to projects for the civil establish¬ 
ment of that Church, — which, as it could 
subsist only by his favour, must have been 
the instrument of his absolute power. As¬ 
tonished as William was by the discovery, he 
had the fortitude, during the life of Charles, 
to conceal it from all but one, or, at most, 
two friends. It was reserved for later times 
to discover that Charles had the inconceiv¬ 
able baseness to propose the detention of his 
nephew in England, where the temptation 

of a sovereignty, being aided by the prospect 
of the recovery of his freedom, might act 
more powerfully on his mind; and that this 
proposal was refused by Louis, either from 
magnanimity, or from regard to decency, 
or, perhaps, from reluctance to trust his 
ally with the sole disposal of so important a 
prisoner. 

Though—to return,—in 1672 the French 
army had advanced into the heart of Hol¬ 
land, the fortitude of the prince was un¬ 
shaken. Louis offered to make him sove¬ 
reign of the remains of the country, under 
the protection of France and England *; but, 
at that moment of extreme peril, he answered 
with his usual calmness, “ I never will be¬ 
tray a trust, nor sell the liberties of my 
country, which my ancestors have so long 
defended.” All around him despaired. One 
of his very few confidential friends, after 
having long expostulated with him on his 
fruitless obstinacy, at length asked him if 
he had considered how and where he should 
live after Holland was lost ? “I have 
thought of that,” he replied ; “ I am resolved 
to live on the lands I have left in Germany. 

I had rather pass my life in hunting there, 
than sell my country or my liberty to France 
at any price.” f Buckingham and Arlington 
were sent from England to try whether, 
beset by peril, the lure of sovereignty might 
not seduce him. The former often said, “ Do 
you not see that the country is lost ? ” The 
answer of the prince to the profligate buf¬ 
foon spoke the same unmoved resolution 
with that which he had made to Zulestein or 
Fagel; but it naturally rose a few degrees 
towards animation : — “I see it is in great 
danger, but there is a sure way of never 
seeing it lost; and that is, to die in the last 
ditch.” j The perfect simplicity of these 
declarations may authorise us to rank them 
among the most genuine specimens of true 

* State Trials in the reign of Win. III. (Lond. 
1705), Iutrod. p. 10. 

f Preston Papers, in the possession of Sir James 
Graham of Netherbv. 

J Burnet, vol. i. p. 475. 

§ Dalrymple, vol. ii. p. 70. 

* Dalrymple, vol. ii. p. 79. 
j- Temple, Works (Lond. 1721), vol. i. p. 381. 
This friend was probably his uncle Zulestein, for 
the conversation passed before his intimacy with 
Bentinck. 

J Burnet, vol. i. p. 569. 








MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


264 

magnanimity. Perhaps the history of the 
world does not hold out a better example, 
how high above the reach of fortune the 
pure principle of obedience to the dictates of 
conscience, unalloyed by interest, passion, 
or ostentation, can raise the mind of a vir¬ 
tuous man. To set such an example is an 
unspeakably more signal service to mankind, 
than all the outward benefits which flow to 
them from the most successful virtue. It is 
a principle independent of events, and one 
that burns most brightly in adversity, — the 
only agent, perhaps, of sufficient power to 
call forth the native greatness of soul which 
lay hid under the cold and unattractive de¬ 
portment of the Prince of Orange. 

His present situation was calculated to 
ascertain whether his actions would corre¬ 
spond with his declarations. Beyond the 
important country extending from Amster¬ 
dam to Rotterdam, — a district of about 
forty miles in length, the narrow seat of the 
government, wealth, and force of the com¬ 
monwealth, which had been preserved from 
invasion by the bold expedient of inunda¬ 
tion, and out of which the cities and for¬ 
tresses arose like islands, — little remained 
of the republican territory except the for¬ 
tress of Maestricht, the marshy islands of 
Zealand, and the secluded province of Fries¬ 
land. A French army of a hundred and 
ten thousand men, encouraged by the pre¬ 
sence of Louis, and commanded by Conde 
and Turenne, had their head-quarters at 
Utrecht, within twenty miles of Amster¬ 
dam, and impatiently looked forward to the 
moment when the ice should form a road to 
the spoils of that capital of the commercial 
world. On the other side, the hostile flag of 
England was seen from the coast. The 
Prince of Orange, a sickly youth of twenty- 
two, without fame or experience, had to 
contend against such enemies at the head of 
a new government, of a divided people, 
and of a little army of twenty thousand 
men, — either raw recruits or foreign mer¬ 
cenaries, — whom the exclusively maritime 
policy of the late administration had left 
without officers of skill or name. His im¬ 
mortal ancestor, when he founded the 


republic about a century before, saw at the 
lowest ebb of his fortune the hope of aid 
from England and France : far darker were 
the prospects of William III. The de¬ 
generate successor of Elizabeth, abusing 
the ascendant of a parental relation, sought 
to tempt him to become a traitor to his 
country for a share in her spoils. The suc¬ 
cessor of Henry IY. offered him only the 
choice of being bribed or crushed. Such 
was their fear of France, that the Court of 
Spain did not dare to aid him, though their 
only hope was from his success. The Ger¬ 
man branch of the House of Austria was 
then entangled in a secret treaty with Louis, 
by which the Low Countries were ceded to 
him, on condition of his guaranteeing to the 
emperor the reversion of the Spanish mo¬ 
narchy on the death of Charles II. without 
issue. No great statesman, no illustrious 
commander but Montecucculi, no able prince 
but the great Elector of Brandenburgh, was 
to be found among the avowed friends or 
even secret well-wishers of William. The 
territories of Cologne and Liege, which pre¬ 
sented all the means of military intercourse 
between the French and Dutch frontiers, 
were ruled by the creatures of Louis. The 
final destruction of a rebellious and heretical 
confederacy was foretold with great, but not 
apparently unreasonable, confidence by the 
zealots of absolute authority in Church and 
State; and the inhabitants of Holland be¬ 
gan seriously to entertain the heroic project 
of abandoning an enslaved country, and 
transporting the commonwealth to their 
dominions in the Indian islands. 

At this awful moment fortune seemed to 
pause. The unwieldy magnificence of a 
royal retinue encumbered the advance of 
the French army. Though masters of 
Naerden, which was esteemed the bulwark 
of Amsterdam, they were too late to hinder 
the opening of the sluices at Murden, which 
drowned the country to the gates of that 
city. Louis, more intoxicated with triumph 
than intent on conquest, lost in surveying 
the honours of victory the time which should 
have been spent in seizing its fruits. Impa¬ 
tient of so long an interruption of his plea- 







MEMOIR OF THE AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND. 


sures, he hastened to display at Versailles 
the trophies of a campaign of two months, 
in which the conquest of three provinces, 
the capture of fifty fortified places and of 
24,000 prisoners, were ascribed to him by 
his flatterers. The cumbrous and tedious 
formalities of the Dutch constitution enabled 
the stadtholder to gain some time without 
suspicion. Even the perfidious embassy of 
Buckingham and Arlington contributed 
somewhat to prolong negotiations. He 
amused them for a moment by appearing to 
j examine the treaties they had brought from 
London, by which France was to gain all 
the fortresses which commanded the country, 
leaving Zealand to England, and the rest of 
the country as a principality to himself.* 
Submission seemed inevitable and speedy : 
still the inundation rendered military move¬ 
ments inconvenient and perhaps hazardous ; 
and the prince thus obtained a little leisure 
for the execution of his measures. The 
people, unable to believe the baseness of 
the Court of London, were animated by the 
appearance of the ministers who came to 
seal their ruin : the government, surrounded 
by the waters, had time to negotiate at Ma¬ 
drid, Vienna, and Berlin. The Marquis de 
Monterey, governor of the Catholic Nether¬ 
lands, without instructions from the Escurial, 
had the boldness to throw troops into the 
important fortresses of Dutch Brabant, — 
Breda, Bergen-op-Zoom, and Bois-le-Duc, 
— under pretence of a virtual guarantee of 
that territory by Spain. 

In England, the continuance of proroga¬ 
tions, — relieving the king from parliament¬ 
ary opposition, but depriving him of sufficient 
supply, — had driven him to resources alike 
inadequate and infamous f, and had fore¬ 
boded that general indignation which, after 


* The official despatches of these ambassadors 
are contained in a MS. volume, probably the pro¬ 
perty of Sir W. Trumbull, now in the hands of his 
descendant, the Marquis of Downshire. These 
despatches show that the worst surmises circulated 
at the time, of the purposes of this embassy, were 
scarcely so bad as the truth, 
f Shutting up of the Exchequer, Jan. 2. 1672. 


265 

the combined fleets of England and France 
had been worsted by the marine of Holland * 
alone, at the very moment when the remnant of 
the Republic seemed about to be swallowed 
up, compelled him to desist from the open 
prosecution of the odious conspiracy against 
lier.f The Emperor Leopold, roused to a 
just sense of the imminent danger of Eu¬ 
rope, also concluded a defensive alliance 
with the States-General \; as did the Ger¬ 
manic body generally, including Frederic 
William of Brandenburgh, called the “ Great 
Elector.” 

Turenne had been meanwhile compelled 
to march from the Dutch territory to ob¬ 
serve, and, in case of need, to oppose, the 
Austrian and Brandenburgh troops; and the 
young prince ceased to incur the risk and to 
enjoy the glory of being opposed to that 
great commander, who was the grandson of 
William I. §, and had been trained to arms 
under Maurice. The winter of 1672 was 
unusually late and short. As soon as the 
ice seemed sufficiently solid, Luxemburgh, 
who was left in command at Utrecht, ad¬ 
vanced, in the hope of surprising the Hague, 
when a providential thaw obliged him to 
retire. His operations were limited to the 
destruction of two petty towns; and it 
seems doubtful whether he did not owe his 
own escape to the irresolution or treachery 
of a Dutch officer entrusted with a post 
which commanded the line of retreat. At 
the perilous moment of Luxemburgh’s ad¬ 
vance, took place William’s long march 
through Brabant to the attack of Charleroi 
—undertaken probably more with a view of 
raising the drooping spirits of his troops 
than in the hope of ultimate success. The 
deliverance of Holland in 1672 was the most 


* Battle of Southwold Bay, 28th and 29th May, 
1672. In these memorable actions even the bio¬ 
grapher of James II. in effect acknowledges that 
De Ruyter had the advantage. Life, vol. i. pp. 457 
—476. 

f Peace concluded at Westminster, Feb. 19th, 
1674. 

x 25th July, 1672. 

§ By Elizabeth of Nassau, duchess of Bouillon. 















266 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


signal triumph of a free people over mighty 
invaders, since the defeat of Xerxes. 

In the ensuing year, William’s offensive 
operations had more outward and lasting 
consequences. Having deceived Luxem- 
burgh, he recovered Naerden, and shortly 
hazarding another considerable march be¬ 
yond the frontier, he captured the city of 
Bonn, and thus compelled Turenne to pro¬ 
vide for the safety of his army by recrossing 
the Rhine. The Spanish governor of the 
Low Countries then declared war against 
France, and Louis was compelled to recall 
his troops from Holland. Europe now rose 
on all sides against the monarch who not 
many months before appeared to be her un¬ 
disputed lord. So mighty were the effects 
of a gallant stand by a small people, under 
an inexperienced chief, without a council or 
minister but the pensionary Fagel — the 
pupil and adherent of De Witt, who, ac¬ 
tuated by the true spirit of his great master, 
continued faithfully to serve his country, in 
spite of the saddest examples of the ingra¬ 
titude of his countrymen. In the six years 
of war which followed, the prince com¬ 
manded in three battles against the greatest 
generals of France. At Senef*, it was a 
sufficient honour that he was not defeated 
by Conde; and that the veteran declared, 
on reviewing the events of the day, — “ The 
young prince has shown all the qualities 
of the most experienced commander, except 
that he exposed his own person too much.” 
He was defeated without dishonour at Cassel f, 
by Luxemburgh, under the nominal com¬ 
mand of the Duke of Orleans. He gained 
an advantage over the same great general, 
after an obstinate and bloody action, at St. 
Denis, near Mons. This last proceeding 
was of more, doubtful morality than any 
other of his military life, the battle being 
fought four days after the signature of a 
separate treaty of peace by the Dutch ple¬ 
nipotentiaries at Nimeguen. j It was not, 
indeed, a breach of faith, for there was no 
armistice, and the ratifications were not 


* 11th August, 1674. f Hth April, 1677. 

X 10th August, 1678. 


executed. It is uncertain, even, whether 
he had information of what had passed at 
Nimeguen; the official despatches from the 
States-General reaching him only the next 
morning. The treaty had been suddenly 
and unexpectedly brought to a favourable 
conclusion by the French ministers; and the 
prince, who condemned it as alike offensive 
to good faith and sound policy, had reason¬ 
able hopes of obtaining a victory, which, if 
gained before the final signature, might have 
determined the fluctuating counsels of the 
States to the side of vigour and honour. The 
morality of soldiers, even in our own age, is 
not severe in requiring proof of the necessity 
of bloodshed, if the combat be fair, the event 
brilliant, and, more particularly, if the com¬ 
mander freely exposes his own life. His 
gallant enemies warmly applauded this at¬ 
tack, distinguished, as it seems eminently to 
have been, for the daring valour, which was 
brightened by the gravity and modesty of 
his character; and they declared it to be 
“ the only heroic action of a six years’ war 
between all the great nations of Europe.” 
If the official despatches had not hindered 
him from prosecuting the attack on the next 
day with the English auxiliaries, who must 
then have joined him, he was likely to have 
changed the fortune of the war. 

The object of the prince and the hope of 
his confederates had been to restore Europe 
to the condition in which it had been placed 
by the treaty of the Pyrenees.* The result 
of the negotiations at Nimeguen was to add 
the province of Franche Comte, and the 
most important fortresses of the Flemish 
frontier, to the cessions which Louis at 
Aix-la-Chapellef had extorted from Spain. 
The Spanish Netherlands were thus farther 
stripped of their defence, the barrier of Hol¬ 
land weakened, and the way opened for the 
reduction of all the posts which face the most 
defenceless parts of the English coast. The 
acquisition of Franche Comte broke the 
military connection between Lombardy and 
Flanders, secured the ascendant of France 
in Switzerland, and, together with the 


* 7th Nov. 1659. j- 2d May, 1668. 








MEMOIR OF THE AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND. 267 


usurpation of Lorraine, exposed the German 
empire to new aggression. The ambition of 
the French monarch was inflamed, and the 
spirit of neighbouring nations broken, by 
the ineffectual resistance as much as by the 
long submission of Europe. 

The ten years which followed the peace 
of Nimeguen were the period of his highest 
elevation. The first exercise of his power 
was the erection of three courts, composed 
of his own subjects, and sitting by his au¬ 
thority, at Brissac, Mentz, and Besan^on, to 
determine whether certain territories ought 
not to be annexed to France, which he 
claimed as fiefs of the provinces ceded to 
him by the Empire by the treaty of West¬ 
phalia. These courts, called “ Chambers of 
Union,” summoned the possessors of these 
supposed fiefs to answer the king’s com¬ 
plaints. The justice of the claim and the 
competence of the tribunals were disputed 
with equal reason. The Chamber at Metz 
decreed the confiscation of eighty fiefs, for 
default of appearance by the feudatories, 
among whom were the kings of Spain and 
Sweden, and the Elector Palatine. Some 
petty spiritless princes actually did homage 
to Louis for territories said to have been 
anciently fiefs of the see of Verdun* ; and, 
under colour of a pretended judgment of the 
Chamber at Brissac the city of Strasburgh, 
a flourishing Protestant republic, which 
commanded an important pass on the Rhine, 
was surrounded at midnight, in a time of 
profound peace, by a body of French sol¬ 
diers, who compelled those magistrates who 
had not been previously corrupted to sur¬ 
render the city to the crown of France }, 
amidst the consternation and affliction of the 


* Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, vol. vii. part ii. 
p. 13. 

-j- Flassan, Histoire de la Diplomatic Fran<;aise, 
vol. iv. pp. 59. 63. 

X (Euvres de Louis XIV., vol. iv. p. 194., where 
the original correspondence is published. The 
pretended capitulation is dated on the 30th Sep¬ 
tember, 1681. The design against Strasburgh had 
been known in July. MS. letters of Sir Henry 
Saville (minister at Paris) to Sir Leoline Jenkins. 
Downshire Papers. 


people. Almost at the same hour, a body of 
troops entered Casal, in consequence of a 
secret treaty with the Duke of Mantua, a 
dissolute and needy youth, who, for a bribe 
of a hundred thousand pounds, betrayed into 
the hands of Louis that fortress, then es¬ 
teemed the bulwark of Lombardy.* Both 
these usurpations were in contempt of a 
notice from the imperial minister at Paris, 
against the occupation of Strasburgh, an 
Imperial city, or Casal, the capital of Mont- 
ferrat, a fief of the Empire.j* 

On the Belgic frontier, means were em¬ 
ployed more summary and open than pre¬ 
tended judgments or clandestine treaties. 
Taking it upon himself to determine the 
extent of territory ceded to him at Nime¬ 
guen, Louis required from the Court of 
Madrid the possession of such districts as he 
thought fit. Much was immediately yielded. 
Some hesitation was shown in surrendering 
the town and district of Alost. Louis sent 
his troops into the Netherlands, there to 
stay till his demands were absolutely com¬ 
plied with; and he notified to the governor, 
that the slightest resistance would be the 
signal of war. Hostilities soon broke out, 
which, after having made him master of 
Luxemburgh, one of the strongest fortresses 
of Europe, were terminated in the summer 
of 1684, by a truce for twenty years, leaving 
him in possession of, and giving the sanction 
of Europe to, his usurpations. 


* (Euvres de Louis XIV., vol. iv. pp. 216, 217. 
The mutinous conscience of Catinat astonished 
and displeased the haughty Louvois. Casal had 
been ceded in 1678 by Matthioli, the duke’s mi¬ 
nister, who, either moved by remorse or by higher 
bribes from the house of Austria, advised his master 
not to ratify the treaty; for which he was carried 
prisoner into France, and detained there in close 
and harsh custody. He was the famous man with 
the Iron Mask, who died in the Bastille. The 
bargain for Casal was disguised in the diplomatic 
forms of a convention between the king and the 
duke. Dumont, vol. vii. part ii. p. 14. An army 
of 15,000 men was collected in Dauphiny, at the 
desire of the duke, to give his sale the appearance 
of necessity. Letter of Sir Henry Saville. 

f Sir Henry Saville to Sir Leoline Jenkins, 
Fontainbleau, 12th Sept. 1681. 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


268 


To a reader of the nineteenth century, 
familiar with the present divisions of terri¬ 
tory in Christendom, and accustomed to re¬ 
gard the greatness of France as well adapted 
to the whole state of the European system, 
the conquests of Louis XIV. may seem to 
have inspired an alarm disproportioned to 
their magnitude. Their real danger, how¬ 
ever, will be speedily perceived by those who 
more accurately consider the state of sur¬ 
rounding countries, and the subdivision of 
dominion in that age. Two monarchies only 
of the first class existed on the Continent, 
as the appellation of “ the Two Crowns,” 
then commonly used in speaking of France 
and Spain, sufficiently indicate. But Spain, 
which, under the last Austrian king, had 
perhaps reached the lowest point of her ex¬ 
traordinary fall, was in truth no longer able 
to defend herself. The revenue of somewhat 
more than two millions sterling was inade¬ 
quate to the annual expense.* Ronquillo, 
the minister of this vast empire in London, 
was reduced to the necessity of dismissing 
his servants without payment.f An invader 
who had the boldness to encounter the shadow 
of a great name had little to dread, except 
from the poverty of the country, which 
rendered it incapable of "feeding an army. 
Naples, Lombardy, and the Catholic Nether¬ 
lands, though the finest provinces of Europe, 
were a drain and a burden in the hands of 
a government sunk into imbecile dotage, and 
alike incapable of ruling and of maintaining 
these envied possessions. While Spain, a 
lifeless and gigantic body, covered the south 
of Europe, the manly spirit and military 
skill of Germany were rendered of almost 
as little avail by the minute subdivisions of 
its territory. From the Rhine to the Vistula, 
a hundred princes, jealous of each other, 
fearful of offending the conqueror, and often 
competitors for his disgraceful bounty, broke 


* Memoires de Gourville, vol. ii. p. 82. An ac¬ 
count apparently prepared with care. 1 adopt the 
proportion of thirteen livres to the pound sterling, 
which is the rate of exchange given by Barillon, 
in 1679. 

j- Ronquillo, MS. letter. 

l_ 


into fragments the strength of the Germanic 
race. The houses of Saxony and Bavaria, 
Brandenburgh and Brunswick, Wurtemburg, 
Baden, and Hesse, though among the most 
ancient and noble of the ruling families of 
Europe, were but secondary states. Even 
the genius of the late Elector of Branden¬ 
burgh did not exempt him from the necessity 
or the temptation of occasional compliance 
with Louis. From the French frontier to 
the Baltic, no one firm mass stood in the way 
of his arms. Prussia was not yet a mo¬ 
narchy, nor Russia an European state. In 
the south-eastern provinces of Germany, 
where Rodolph of Hapsburgh had laid the 
foundations of his family, the younger branch 
had, from the death of Charles V., formed a 
monarchy which, aided by the Spanish al¬ 
liance, the imperial dignity, and a military 
position on the central frontier of Christen¬ 
dom, rendering it the bulwark of the Empire 
against the irruptions of the Turkish bar¬ 
barians, rose during the thirty years’ war to 
such a power, that it was prevented only by 
Gustavus Adolphus from enslaving the whole 
of Germany. France, which under Richelieu 
had excited and aided that great prince and 
his followers, was for that reason regarded 
for a time as the protector of the German 
States against the Emperor. Bavaria, the 
Palatinate, and the three ecclesiastical Elec¬ 
torates, partly from remaining jealousy of 
Austria, and partly from growing fear of 
Louis, were disposed to seek his protection, 
and acquiesce in many of his encroachments.* 
This numerous, weak, timid, and mercenary 
body of German princes supplied the chief 
materials out of which it was possible that 
an alliance against the conqueror might one 


* The Palatine, together with Bavaria, Mentz 
and Cologne, promised to vote for Louis XIV. as 
emperor in 1658. Pfeffel, Abregd Chronologique, 
&c. (Paris, 1776), vol. ii. p. 360. A more authentic 
and very curious account of this extraordinary ne¬ 
gotiation, extracted from the French archives, is 
published by Lemontey (Monarchie de Louis XIV. 
Pieces Justificatives, No. 2.), by which it appears 
that the Elector of Metz betrayed Mazarin, who 
had distributed immense bribes to him and his 
fellows. 












MEMOIR OF THE AF 

day be formed. On the other hand, the 
military power of the Austrian monarchy 
was crippled by the bigotry and tyranny of 
its princes. The persecution of the Pro¬ 
testants, and the attempt to establish an 
absolute government, had spread disaffection 
through Hungary and its vast dependencies. 
In a contest between one tyrant and many, 
where the people in a state of personal 
slavery are equally disregarded by both, 
reason and humanity might be neutral, if 
reflection did not remind us, that even the 
contests and factions of a turbulent aristo¬ 
cracy call forth an energy, and magnanimity, 
and ability, which are extinguished under 
the quieter and more fatally lasting domina¬ 
tion of a single master. The Emperor Leo¬ 
pold I., instigated by the Jesuits, of which 
order he was a lay member, rivalled and 
anticipated Louis XIV.* in his cruel perse¬ 
cution of the Hungarian Protestants, and 
thereby drove the nation to such despair 
that they sought refuge in the aid of the 
common enemy of the Christian name. En¬ 
couraged by their revolt, and stimulated by 
the continued intrigues of the Court of Ver¬ 
sailles f, the Turks at length invaded Austria 
with a mighty army, and would have mas¬ 
tered the capital of the most noble of Chris¬ 
tian sovereigns, had not the siege of Vienna 
been raised, after a duration of two months, 
by John Sobieski, king of Poland, — the 
heroic chief of a people whom in less than 
a century the House of Austria contributed 
to blot out of the map of nations. While 
these dangers impended over the Austrian 
monarchy, Louis had been preparing to de- 


* He banished the Protestant clergy, of whom 
250, originally condemned to be stoned or burnt to 
death, but having, under pretence probably of 
humanity, been sold to the Spaniards, were re¬ 
deemed from the condition of galley slaves by the 
illustrious De Ruyter, after his victory over the 
French, on the coast of Sicily. Coxe, House of 
Austria, chap. 66. 

f Sir William Trumbull, ambassador at Con¬ 
stantinople from August, 1687, to July, 1691, 
names French agents employed in fomenting the 
Hungarian rebellion, and negotiating with the 
vizier. Downshire MSS. 


FAIRS OF HOLLAND. 269 

prive it of the Imperial sceptre, which in his 
own hands would have proved no bauble. 
By secret treaties, to which the Elector of 
Bavaria had been tempted to agree, in 1670, 
by the prospect of matrimonial alliance with 
the House of France, and which were im¬ 
posed on the Electors of Brandenburgh and 
Saxony in 1679, after the humiliation of 
Europe at Nimeguen, these princes had 
agreed to vote for Louis in case of the death 
of the Emperor Leopold, — an event which 
his infirm health had given frequent occasion 
to expect. The four Rhenish electors, espe¬ 
cially after the usurpation of Strasburgh and 
Luxemburgh, were already in his net. 

At home the vanquished party, whose 
antipathy to the House of Orange had been 
exasperated by the cruel fate of De Witt, 
sacrificed the care of the national inde¬ 
pendence to jealousy of the Stadtholderian 
princes, and carried their devotedness to 
France to an excess which there was no¬ 
thing in the example of their justly revered 
leader to warrant.* They had obliged the 
Prince of Orange to accede to the unequal 
conditions of Nimeguen; they had prevented 
him from making military preparations ab¬ 
solutely required by safety; and they had 
compelled him to submit to that truce for 
twenty years which left the entrances of 
Flanders, Germany, and Italy in the hands 
of France. They had concerted all mea¬ 
sures of domestic opposition with the French 
minister at the Hague ; and, though there is 
no reason to believe that the opulent and 
creditable chiefs of the party, if they had 
received French money at all, would have 
deigned to employ it for any other than what 
they had unhappily been misled to regard as 
a public purpose, there is the fullest evi¬ 
dence of the employment of bribes to make 
known at Versailles the most secret counsels 


* The speed and joy with which he and Temple 
concluded the Triple Alliance seem, indeed, to 
prove the contrary. That treaty, so quickly con¬ 
cluded by two wise, accomplished, and, above all, 
honest men, is perhaps unparalleled in diplomatic 
transactions. “ Nulla dies unquarn memori vos 
eximet cevo.” 










270 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


of the commonwealth.* Amsterdam had 
raised troops for her own defence, de¬ 
claring her determination not to contribute 
towards the hostilities which the measures 
of the general government might occasion, 
and had entered into a secret correspondence 
with France. Friesland and Groningen had 
recalled their troops from the common de¬ 
fence, and bound themselves by a secret 
convention with Amsterdam, to act in con¬ 
cert with that potent and mutinous city. 
The provinces of Guelderland, Overyssell, 
Utrecht, and Zealand, adhered, indeed, to 
the prince, and he still preserved a majority 
in the States of Holland; but this majority 
consisted only of the order of nobles and of 
the deputies of inconsiderable towns. Fagel, 
his wise and faithful minister, appeared to 
be in danger of destruction at the hands 
of the Republicans, who abhorred him as 
a deserter. But Heinsius, pensionary of 
Delft, probably the ablest man of that 
party, having, on a mission to Versailles, 
seen the effects of the civil and religious 
policy of Louis XIV., and considering con¬ 
sistency as dependent, not on names, but 
on principles, thought it the duty of a 
friend of liberty also to join the party most 
opposed to that monarch’s designs. So 
trembling was the ascendant of the prince 
in Holland, that the accession of individuals 
was, from their situation or ability, of great 
importance to him. His cousin, the Stadt- 
holder of Friesland, was gradually gained 
over; and Conrad Van Benningen, one of 
the chiefs of Amsterdam, an able, accom¬ 
plished, and disinterested republican, fickle 
from over-refinement, and betrayed into 
French counsels by jealousy of the House of 
Orange, as soon as he caught a glimpse of 
the abyss into which his country was about 
to fall, recoiled from the brink. Thus did 
the very country where the Prince of Orange 


* D’Araux, Negotiations en Hollande (Paris, 
1754), vol. i. pp. 13. 23. 25. &c., — examples of 
treachery, in some of which the secret was known 
only to three persons. Sometimes copies of orders 
were obtained from the prince’s private reposi- 
otries: vol. ii. p. 53. 


held sway, fluctuate between him and 
Louis; insomuch, indeed, that if that mo¬ 
narch had observed any measure in his 
cruelty towards French Protestants, it might 
have been impossible, till it was too late, to 
turn the force of Holland against him. 

But the weakest point in the defences of 
European independence was England. It 
was not, indeed, like the continental states, 
either attacked by other enemies, or weak¬ 
ened by foreign influence, or dwindling 
from inward decay. The throne was filled 
by a traitor; a creature of the common 
enemy commanded this important post: for 
a quarter of a century Charles had connived 
at the conquests of Louis. During the last 
ten years of his reign he received a secret 
pension; but when Louis became desirous 
of possessing Luxemburgh, Charles extorted 
an additional bribe for connivance at that 
new act of rapine.* After he had sold the 
fortress, he proposed himself to Spain as 
arbitrator in the dispute regarding it f; and 
so notorious was his perfidy, that the Spanish 
ministers at Paris did not scruple to justify 
their refusal to his ambassador, by telling 
him, “ that they refused because they had 
no mind to part with Luxemburgh, which 
they knew was to be sacrificed if they ac¬ 
cepted the offer.” j 


* “ My lord Hyde (Rochester) ne m’a pas 
cache que si son avis est suivi le roi s’en entrera 
dans un concert secret pour avoir a V. M. la ville 
de Luxemburgh.” Barillon to Louis, 7th Nov. 
1681. 

f The same to the same, 15th Dec. 

X Lord Preston to Secretary Jenkins, Paris, 16th 
Dec. 1682. Admitted within the domestic differ¬ 
ences of England, Louis had not scrupled to make 
advances to the enemies of the Court; and they, 
desirous of detaching their own sovereign from 
France, and of thus depriving him of the most 
effectual ally in his project for rendering himself 
absolute, had reprehensibly accepted the aid of 
Louis in counteracting a policy which they had 
good reason to dread. They considered this dan¬ 
gerous understanding as allowable for the purpose 
of satisfying their party, that in opposing Charles 
they w’ould not have to apprehend the power of 
Louis, and disposing the King of France to spare 
the English constitution, as some curb on the 
irresolution and inconstancy of his royal dependent 








MEMOIR OF THE AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND. 271 

William’s connection with the House of 
Stuart was sometimes employed by France 
to strengthen the jealous antipathy of the 
Republicans against him; while on other 
occasions he was himself obliged to profess 
a reliance on that connection which he did 
not feel, in order to gain an appearance of 
strength. As the Dutch Republicans were 
prompted to thwart his measures by a mis¬ 
applied zeal for liberty, so the English Whigs 
were for a moment compelled to enter into 
a correspondence with the common enemy 
by the like motives. But in his peculiar 
relations with England the imprudent vio- 

lence of the latter party was as much an 
obstacle in his way as their alienation or 
opposition. The interest of Europe required 
that he should never relinquish the attempt 
to detach the English Government from the 
conqueror. The same principle, together 
with legitimate ambition, prescribed that he 
should do nothing, either by exciting enemies 
or estranging friends, which could endanger 
his own and the princess’s right of succes¬ 
sion to the crown. It was his obvious 
policy, therefore, to keep up a good under¬ 
standing with the popular party, on whom 
alone he could permanently rely; to give a 
cautious countenance to their measures of 
constitutional opposition, and especially to 
the Bill of Exclusion *, — a more effectual 
mode of cutting asunder the chains which 
bound England to the car of Louis, than the 
proposed limitations on a Catholic successor, 
which might permanently weaken the de¬ 
fensive force of the monarchy f ; and to dis¬ 
courage and stand aloof from all violent 
counsels, — likely either to embroil the 
country in such lasting confusion as would 
altogether disable it for aiding the sinking 
fortunes of Europe, or, by their immediate 
suppression, to subject all national interests 
and feelings to Charles and his brother. As 
his open declaration against the king or the 
popular party would have been perhaps 
equally dangerous to English liberty and 
European independence, he was averse from 
those projects which reduced him to so in¬ 
jurious an alternative. Hence his conduct 
in the case of what is called the “ Rye House 
Plot,” in which his confidential corre¬ 
spondence l manifests indifference and even 

To destroy confidence between the Courts seemed 
to be an object so important, as to warrant the use 
of ambiguous means: and the usual sophistry, by 
which men who are not depraved excuse to them¬ 
selves great breaches of morality, could not be 
wanting. They could easily persuade themselves 
that they could stop when they pleased, and that 
the example could not be dangerous in a case 
where the danger was too great not to be of very 
rare occurrence. Some of them are said by Baril- 
lon to have so far copied their prince as to have 
received French money, though they are not 
charged with being, like him, induced by it to 
adopt any measures at variance with their avowed 
principles. If we must believe, that in an age of 
little pecuniary delicacy, when large presents from 
sovereigns were scarcely deemed dishonourable, 
and when many princes, and almost all ministers, 
were in the pay of Louis XIV., the statement may 
be true, it is due to the haughty temper, not to 
say to the high principles of Sidney, — it is due, 
though in a very inferior degree, to the ample 
fortunes of others of the persons named, also to 
believe, that the polluted gifts were applied by 
them to elections and other public interests of the 
popular party, which there might be a fantastic 
gratification in promoting by treasures diverted 
from the use of the Court. These unhappy trans¬ 
actions, which in their full extent require a more 
critical scrutiny of the original documents than 
that to which they have been subjected, are not 
pretended to originate till ten years after the con¬ 
cert of the two Courts, and were relinquished as 
soon as that concert was resumed. Yet the re¬ 
proach brought upon the cause of liberty by the 
infirmity of some men of great soul, and of others 
of the purest virtue, is, perhaps, the most whole¬ 
some admonition pronounced by the warning voice 
of history against the employment of sinister 
and equivocal means for the attainment of the best 
ends. 

* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 245. Temple, vol. i. p. 355. 

“ My friendship with the prince (says Temple) I 
could think no crime, considering how little he had 
ever meddled, to my knowledge, in our domestic 
concerns since the first heats in parliament, though 
sensible of their influence on all his nearest con¬ 
cerns at home; the preservation of Flanders from 
French conquests, and thereby of Holland from 
absolute dependence on that crown.” 

t Letters of the Prince to Sir Leoline Jenkins, 
July, 1G80 — February, 1681. Dalrymple, Ap¬ 
pendix to Review. 

X MS. letters from the Prince to Mr. Bentinck, 








272 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


dislike to those who were charged with pro¬ 
jects of revolt; all which might seem un¬ 
natural if we did not bear in mind that at 
the moment of the siege of Vienna he must 
have looked at England almost solely, as the 
only counterpoise of France. His absti¬ 
nence from English intrigues was at this 
juncture strengthened by lingering hopes 
that it was still possible to lure Charles into 
those unions which he had begun to form 
against farther encroachment, under the 
modest and inoffensive name of “Asso¬ 
ciations to maintain the Treaty of Nime- 
guen,” which were in three years afterwards 
completed by the League of Augsburgh, 
and which, in 1689, brought all Europe into 
the field to check the career of Louis XIV. 

The death of Charles II. gave William 
some hope of an advantageous change in 
English policy. Many worse men and more 
tyrannical kings than that prince, few per¬ 
sons of more agreeable qualities and brilliant 
talents, have been seated on a throne. But 
his transactions with France probably afford 
the most remarkable instance of a king with 
no sense of national honour or of regal in¬ 
dependence,—the last vestiges which de¬ 
parting virtue might be expected to leave 
behind in a royal bosom. More jealousy of 
dependence on a foreign prince was hoped 
from the sterner temper of his successor. 
William accordingly made great efforts and 
sacrifices to obtain the accession of England 
to the European cause. He declared his 
readiness to sacrifice his resentments, and 
even his personal interests, and to conform 
his conduct to the pleasure of the king in all 
things compatible with his religion and with 
his duty to the republic * *;—limitations which 


in England, July and August, 1683. By the favour 
of the Duke of Portland, I possess copies of the 
whole of the prince’s correspondence with his 
friend, from 1677 to 1700; written with the unre¬ 
served frankness of warm and pure friendship, in 
which it is quite manifest that there is nothing 
concealed. 

* D’Avaux, 13th—26th Feb. 1685. The last 
contains an account of a conversation of William 
with Fagel, overheard by a person who reported it 
to D’Avaux. A passage in which D’Avaux shows 


must have been considered as pledges of 
sincerity by him to whom they were other¬ 
wise unacceptable. He declared his regret 
at the appearance of opposition to both his 
uncles, which had arisen only from the ne¬ 
cessity of resisting Louis, and he sent M. 
D’Auverquerque to England to lay his sub¬ 
mission before the king. James desired that 
he should relinquish communication with the 
Duke of Monmouth *, dismiss the malcontent 


his belief that the policy of the prince now aimed 
at gaining James, is suppressed in the printed 
collection. 

* During these unexpected advances to a re¬ 
newal of friendship, an incident occurred, which 
has ever since, in the eyes of many, thrown some 
shade over the sincerity of William. This was the 
landing in England of the Duke of Monmouth, 
with a small number of adherents who had em¬ 
barked with him at Amsterdam. He had taken 
refuge in the Spanish Netherlands, and afterwards 
in Holland, during the preceding year, in conse¬ 
quence of a misunderstanding between him and the 
ministers of Charles respecting the nature and 
extent of the confession concerning the reality of 
the Bye House Plot, published by them in lan¬ 
guage which he resented as conveying unauthorised 
imputations on his friends. The Prince and Prin¬ 
cess of Orange received him with kindness, from 
personal friendship, from compassion for his suffer¬ 
ings, and from his connection with the popular and 
Protestant party in England. The transient shadow 
of a pretension to the crown did not awaken their 
jealousy. They were well aware that, whatever 
complaints might be made by his ministers, Charles 
himself would not be displeased by kindness shown 
towards his favourite son. There is, indeed, little 
doubt that in the last year of his life Charles had 
been prevailed on by Halifax to consult his ease, 
as well as his inclination, by the recall of his son, 
as a counterpoise to the Duke of York, and thus to 
produce the balance of parties at court, which was 
one of the darling refinements of that too ingeni¬ 
ous statesman. Reports were prevalent that Mon¬ 
mouth had privately visited England, and that 
he was well pleased with his journey. He was 
assured by confidential letters, evidently sanctioned 
by his father, that he should be recalled in Febru¬ 
ary. It appears also that Charles had written with 
his own hand a letter to the Prince of Orange, be¬ 
seeching him to treat Monmouth kindly, which 
D’Auverquerque was directed to lay before James 
as a satisfactory explanation of whatever might 
seem suspicious in the unusual honours paid to 
him. Before he left the Hague the prince and 









MEMOIR OF THE AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND. 273 


English officers in the Dutch array, and 
adapt his policy to such engagements as the 

princess approved the draft of a submissive letter 
to James, which he had laid before them; and they 
exacted from him a promise that he would engage 
in no violent enterprises inconsistent -with this sub¬ 
mission. Despairing of clemency from his uncle, 
he then appears to have entertained designs of re¬ 
tiring into Sweden, or of serving in the Imperial 
army against the Turks; and he listened for a 
moment to the projects of some French Protestants, 
who proposed that he should put himself at the 
head of their unfortunate brethren. He himself 
thought the difficulties of an enterprise against 
England insuperable; but the importunity of the 
English and Scotch refugees in Holland induced 
him to return privately there to be present at their 
consultations. He found the Scotch exiles, who 
were proportionately more numerous and of greater 
distinction, and who felt more bitterly from the 
bloody tyranny under which their countrymen 
suffered, impatiently desirous to make an imme¬ 
diate attempt for the delivery of their country. 
Ferguson, the Nonconformist preacher, either from 
treachery or from rashness, seconded the impe¬ 
tuosity of his countrymen. Andrew Fletcher of 
Saltoun, a man of heroic spirit, and a lover of 
liberty even to enthusiasm, who had just returned 
from serving in Hungary, dissuaded his friends 
from an enterprise which his political sagacity and 
military experience taught him to consider as 
hopeless. In assemblies of suffering and angry 
exiles it was to be expected that rash counsels 
should prevail; yet Monmouth appears to have 
resisted them longer than could have been hoped 
from his judgment or temper. It was not till two 
months after the death of Charles II. (9th April, 
1685) that the vigilant D’Avaux intimated his 
suspicion of a design to land in England. Nor was 
it till three weeks after that he was able to trans¬ 
mit to his court the particulars of the equipment. 
It was only then that Skelton, the minister of James, 
complained of these petty armaments to the Presi¬ 
dent of the States-General and the magistrates of 
Amsterdam, neither of whom had any authority 
in the case. They referred him to the Admiralty 
of Amsterdam, the competent authority in such 
cases, who, as soon as they were authorised by an 
order from the States-General, proceeded to arrest 
the vessels freighted by Argyle. But in conse¬ 
quence of a mistake in Skelton’s description of 
their station, their exertions were too late to pre¬ 
vent the sailing of the unfortunate expedition on 
the 5th of May. The natural delays of a slow and 
formal government, the jealousy of rival authori¬ 
ties, exasperated by the spirit of party, and the 
licence shown in such a country to navigation and 


king should see fit to contract with his 
neighbours. To the former conditions the 
prince submitted without reserve: the last, 
couched in strong language by James to 
Barillon, hid under more general expressions 
by the English minister to D’Avaux, but 
implying in its mildest form an acquiescence 
in the projects of the conqueror, was pro¬ 
bably conveyed to the prince himself in terms 
capable of being understood as amounting 
only to an engagement to avoid an interrup¬ 
tion of the general peace. In that inoffensive 
sense it seems to have been accepted by the 
prince; since the king declared to him that 
his concessions, which could have reached 
no farther, were perfectly satisfactory.* 
Sidney was sent to Holland, — a choice 
which seemed to indicate an extraordinary 
deference for the wishes of the prince, and 
which was considered in Holland as a de¬ 
cisive mark of good understanding between 
the two governments. The proud and hostile 
city of Amsterdam presented an address of 
congratulation to William on the defeat of 
Monmouth; and the republican party began 


traffic, are sufficient to account for this short delay. 
If there was in this case a more than usual indispo¬ 
sition to overstep the formalities of the constitution, 
or to quicken the slow pace of the administration, 
it may be well imputed to natural compassion 
towards the exiles, and to the strong fellow-feeling 
which arose from agreement in religious opinion, 
especially with the Scotch. If there were proof 
even of absolute connivance, it must be ascribed 
solely to the magistrates and inhabitants of Am¬ 
sterdam,— the ancient enemies of the House of 
Orange, — who might look with favour on an ex¬ 
pedition which might prevent the stadtholder from 
being strengthened by his connection with the 
King of England, and who, as we are told by 
D’Avaux himself, were afterwards filled with con¬ 
sternation when they learned the defeat of Mon¬ 
mouth. We know little with certainty of the 
particulars of his intercourse with his inexorable 
uncle, from his capture till his execution, except 
the compassionate interference of the queen dow¬ 
ager in his behalf ; but whatever it was, from the 
king’s conduct immediately after, it tended rather 
to strengthen than to shake his confidence in the 
prince. 

* James to the Prince of Orange, 6th, 16th, and 
17th March. Dalrymple, app. to part i. 


T 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


274 

to despair of effectual resistance to the power 
of the stadtholder, now about to be strength¬ 
ened by the alliance with England. The 
Dutch ambassadors in London, in spite of 
the remonstrances of Barillon, succeeded in 
concluding a treaty for the renewal of the 
defensive alliance between England and Hol¬ 
land, which, though represented to Louis as 
a mere formality, was certainly a step which 
required little more than that liberal con¬ 
struction to which a defensive treaty is 
always entitled, to convert it into an acces¬ 
sion by England to the concert of the other 
states of Europe, for the preservation of 
their rights and dominions. The connection 
between the Dutch and English govern¬ 
ments answered alike the immediate pur¬ 
poses of both parties. It overawed the 
malcontents of Holland, as well as those of 
England; and James commanded his mi¬ 
nisters to signify to the magistrates of Am¬ 
sterdam, that their support of the stadtholder 
would be acceptable to his majesty. 

William, who, from the peace of Nime- 
guen, had been the acknowledged chief of 
the confederacy gradually forming to pro¬ 
tect the remains of Europe, had now slowly 
and -silently removed all the obstacles to its 
formation, except those which arose from 
the unhappy jealousies of the friends of 
liberty at home, and the fatal progress to¬ 
wards absolute monarchy in England. Good 
sense, which, in so high a degree' as his, is 
one of the rarest of human endowments, had 
full scope for its exercise in a mind seldom 
invaded by the disturbing passions of fear 
and anger. With all his determined firm¬ 
ness, no man was ever more solicitous not 
to provoke or keep up needless enmity.- It 
is no wonder that he should have been in¬ 
fluenced by this principle in his dealings 
with Charles and James, for there are traces 
of it even in his rare and transient inter¬ 
course with Louis XIY. He caused it to 
be intimated to him “ that he was ambitious 


of being restored to his majesty’s favour; ” * 
to which it was haughtily answered, “ that 
when such a disposition was shown in his 
conduct , the king would see what was to be 
done.” Yet D’Avaux believed that the prince 
really desired to avoid the enmity of Louis, 
as far as was compatible with his duties to 
Holland and his interests in England. In a 
conversation with Gourvillef, which affords 
one of the most characteristic specimens of 
intercourse between a practised courtier and 
a man of plain inoffensive temper, when the 
minister had spoken to him in more soothing 
language, he professed his warm wish to 
please the king, and proved his sincerity by 
adding that he never could neglect the safety 
of Holland, and that the decrees of re-union, 
together with other marks of projects of uni¬ 
versal monarchy, were formidable obstacles 
to good understanding. It was probably 
after one of these attempts that he made the 
remarkable declaration, — “Since I cannot 
earn his majesty’s favour, I must endeavour 
to earn his esteem.” Nothing but an ex¬ 
traordinary union of wariness with perse¬ 
verance — two qualities which he possessed in 
a higher degree, and united in juster pro¬ 
portions, perhaps, than any other man — 
could have fitted him for that incessant, 
unwearied, noiseless exertion which alone 
suited his difficult situation. His mind, na¬ 
turally dispassionate, became, by degrees, 
steadfastly and intensely fixed upon the 
single object of his high calling. Brilliant 
only on the field of battle; loved by none 
but a few intimate connections; considerate 
and circumspect in council; in the execution 
of his designs bold even to rashness, and in¬ 
flexible to the verge of obstinacy; he held 
his onward way with a quiet and even course, 
which wore down opposition, outlasted the 
sallies of enthusiasm, and disappointed the 
subtle contrivances of a refined policy. 


* D’Avaux, vol. i. p. 5. f Gourville, vol ii. p. 204. 







REVIEW OF TIIE CAUSES 

OP 

THE REVOLUTION OF 1088. 


CHAPTER I. 

General State of Affairs at Home — Abroad.— 
Characters of the Ministry. — Sunderland.—Ro¬ 
chester. — Halifax. — Godolphin. — Jeffreys. — 
Feversham — His Conduct after the Victory of 
Sedgemoor. — Kirke.— Judicial Proceedings in 
the West. — Trial of Mrs. Lisle. — Behaviour 
of the King. — Trial of Mrs. Gaunt and others. 
— Case of Hampden. —Prideaux. — Lord Bran¬ 
don. — Delamere. 

Though a struggle with calamity strengthens 
and elevates the mind, the necessity of pas¬ 
sive submission to long adversity is rather 
likely to weaken and subdue it: great mis¬ 
fortunes disturb the understanding perhaps 
as much as great success; and extraordinary 
vicissitudes often produce the opposite vices 
of rashness and fearfulness, by inspiring a 
disposition to trust too much to fortune, and 
to yield to it too soon. Few men expe¬ 
rienced more sudden changes of fortune than 
James II.; but it was unfortunate for his 
character that he never owed his prosperity, 
and not always his adversity, to himself. 
The affairs of his family seemed to be at the 
lowest ebb a few months before their tri¬ 
umphant restoration. Four years before the 
death of his brother, it appeared probable 
that he would be excluded from the suc¬ 
cession to the crown ; and his friends seemed 
to have no other means of averting that 
doom, than by proposing such limitations 
of the royal prerogative as would have re¬ 
duced the government to a merely nominal 
monarchy. But the dissolution by which 
Charles had safely and successfully punished 
the independence of his last Parliament, the 
destruction of some of his most formidable 


opponents, and the general discouragement 
of their adherents, paved the way for his 
peaceable, and even popular, succession; 
the defeat of the revolts of Monmouth and 
Argyle appeared to have fixed his throne on 
immovable foundations; and he was then 
placed in circumstances more favourable 
than those of any of his predecessors to the 
extension of his power, or, if such had been 
his purpose, to the undisturbed exercise of 
his constitutional authority. The friends of 
liberty, dispirited by events which all, in a 
greater or less degree, brought discredit 
upon their cause, were confounded with un¬ 
successful conspirators and defeated rebels : 
they seemed to be at the mercy of a prince 
who, with reason, considered them as the 
irreconcilable enemies of his designs. The 
zealous partisans of monarchy believed them¬ 
selves on the eve of reaping the fruits of a 
contest of fifty years’ duration, under a mo¬ 
narch of mature experience, of tried per¬ 
sonal courage, who possessed a knowledge 
of men, and a capacity as well as an in¬ 
clination for business; whose constancy, 
intrepidity, and sternness were likely to 
establish their political principles, and from 
whose prudence, as well as gratitude and 
good faith, they were willing to hope that 
he would not disturb the security of their 
religion. The turbulence of the preceding 
times had more than usually disposed men 
of pacific temper to support an established 
government. The multitude, pleased with 
a new reign, generally disposed to admire 
vigour and to look with complacency on 
success, showed many symptoms of that pro¬ 
pensity which is natural to them, or rather 
to mankind—to carry their applauses to the 

T 2 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


276 


side of fortune, and to imbibe the warmest 
passions of a victorious party. The strength 
of the Tories, in a parliament assembled in 
such a temper of the nation, was aided by a 
numerous reinforcement of members of low 
condition and subservient character, whom 
the forfeiture of the charters of towns enabled 
the Court to pour into the House of Com¬ 
mons.* In Scotland the prevalent party had 
ruled with such barbarity that the absolute 
power of the king seemed to be their only 
shield against the resentment of their coun¬ 
trymen. The Irish nation, devotedly at¬ 
tached to a sovereign of their own oppressed 
religion, offered inexhaustible means of form¬ 
ing a brave and enthusiastic army, ready to 
quell revolts in every part of his dominions. 
His revenue was ampler than that of any 
former king of England : a disciplined army 
of about twenty thousand men was, for the 
first time, established during peace in this 
island; and a formidable fleet was a more 
than ordinarily powerful weapon in the 
hands of a prince whose skill and valour in 
maritime war had endeared him to the sea¬ 
men, and recommended him to the people. 

The condition of foreign affairs was equally 
favourable to the king. Louis XIY. had, at 
that moment, reached the zenith of his great¬ 
ness; his army was larger and better than 
any which had been known in Europe since 
the vigorous age of the Roman empire; his 
marine enabled him soon after to cope with 
the combined forces of the only two mari¬ 
time powers; he had enlarged his dominions, 
strengthened his frontiers, and daily medi¬ 
tated new conquests; men of genius ap¬ 
plauded his munificence, and even some men 
of virtue contributed to the glory of his 
reign. This potent monarch was bound to 
James by closer ties than those of treaty— 
by kindred, by religion, by similar principles 
of government, by the importance of each to 

* “ Clerks and gentlemen’s servants.” Evelyn, 
Memoirs, vol. i. p. 558. The Earl of Bath carried 
fifteen of the new charters with him into Cornwall, 
from which he was called the “ Prince Elector.” 
“ There are not 135 in this House who sat in the 
last,” p. 562. By the fists in the Parliamentary 
History they appear to be only 128. 


the success of the designs of the other; and 
he was ready to supply the pecuniary aid 
required by the English monarch, on con¬ 
dition that James should not subject himself 
to the control of his Parliament, but should 
acquiesce in the schemes of France against 
her neighbours. On the other hand, the 
feeble government of Spain was no longer 
able to defend her unwieldy empire; while 
the German branch of the Austrian family 
had, by their intolerance, driven Hungary 
into revolt, and thus opened the way for the 
Ottoman armies twice to besiege Vienna. 
Venice, the last of the Italian states which 
retained a national character, took no longer 
any part in the contests of Europe, content 
with the feeble lustre which conquests from 
Turkey shed over the evening of her great¬ 
ness. The kingdoms of the North were con¬ 
fined within their own subordinate system; 
Russia was not numbered among civilised 
nations; and the Germanic states were still 
divided between their fears from the ambi¬ 
tion of France, and their attachment to her 
for having preserved them from the yoke of 
Austria. Though a powerful party in Hol¬ 
land was still attached to France, there re¬ 
mained on the Continent no security against 
the ambition of Louis — no hope for the 
liberties of mankind — but the power of that 
great republic, animated by the unconquer¬ 
able soul of the Prince of Orange. All 
those nations, of both religions, who trem¬ 
bled at the progress of France, turned their 
eyes towards James, and courted his alliance, 
in hopes that he might still be detached from 
his connection with Louis, and that England 
might resume her ancient and noble station, 
as the guardian of the independence of na¬ 
tions. Could he have varied his policy, that 
bright career was still open to him; he, or 
rather a man of genius and magnanimity in 
his situation, might have rivalled the renown 
of Elizabeth, and anticipated the glories of 
Marlborough. He was courted or dreaded 
by all Europe. Who could, then, have pre¬ 
sumed to foretel that this great monarch, 
in the short space of four years, would be 
compelled to relinquish his throne, and to 
fly from his country, without struggle and 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 277 


almost without disturbance, by the mere 
result of his own system of measures, which, 
unwise and unrighteous as it was, seemed in 
every instance to be crowned with success 
till the very moment of its overthrow. 

The ability of his ministers might have 
been considered as among the happy parts 
of his fortune. It was a little before this 
time that the meetings of such ministers 
began to be generally known by the modern 
name of the “ Cabinet Council.” * The Privy 
Council had been originally a selection of a 
similar nature ; but when seats in that body 
began to be given or left to those who did 
not enjoy the king’s confidence, and it be¬ 
came too numerous for secrecy or despatch, 
a committee of its number, which is now 
called the “ Cabinet Council,” was intrusted 
with the direction of confidential affairs; 
leaving to the body at large business of -a 
judicial or formal nature, — to the greater 
part of its members an honourable dis¬ 
tinction instead of an office of trust. The 
members of the Cabinet Council were then, 
as they still are, chosen from the Privy 
Council by the king, without any legal 
nomination, and generally consisted of the 
ministers at the head of the principal de¬ 
partments of public affairs. A short ac¬ 
count of the character of the members of 
the Cabinet will illustrate the events of the 
reign of James II. 

Robert Spencer, earl of Sunderland, who 
soon acquired the chief ascendancy in this 
administration, entered on public life with 
all the external advantages of birth and for¬ 
tune. His father had fallen in the royal 
army at the battle of Newbury, with those 
melancholy forebodings of danger from the 
victory of his own party which filled the 
breasts of the more generous royalists, and 
which, on the same occasion, saddened the 
dying moments of Lord Falkland. His 
mother was Lady Dorothy Sidney, cele¬ 
brated by Waller under the name of Sacha- 
rissa. He was early employed in diplomatic 
missions, where he acquired the political 
knowledge, insinuating address, and polished 

* North, Life of Lord Keeper Guildford, p. 218. 


manners which are learnt in that school, 
together with the subtlety, dissimulation, 
flexibility of principle, indifference on ques¬ 
tions of constitutional policy, and impatience 
of the restraints of popular government, 
which have been sometimes contracted by 
English ambassadors in the course of a long 
intercourse with the ministers of absolute 
princes. A faint and superficial preference 
of the general principles of civil liberty was 
blended in a manner not altogether unusual 
with his diplomatic vices. He seems to have 
secured the support of the Duchess of Ports¬ 
mouth to the administration formed by the 
advice of Sir William Temple, and to have 
then also gained for himself the confidence 
of that incomparable person, who possessed 
all the honest arts of a negotiator. * He 
gave an early earnest of the inconstancy of 
an over-refined character by fluctuating 
between the exclusion of the Duke of York 
and the limitations of the royal prerogative. 
He was removed from the administration 
for his vote on the Exclusion Bill: but the 
love of office soon prevailed over his feeble 
spirit of independence, and he made his 
peace with the Court through the Duke of 
York, who had long been well disposed to 
him f, and of the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
who found no difficulty in reconciling the 
king to a polished as well as pliant courtier, 
an accomplished negotiator, and a minister 
more versed in foreign affairs than any of 
his colleagues. J Negligence and profusion 
bound him to office by stronger though 
coarser ties than those of ambition: he 
lived in an age when a delicate purity in 
pecuniary matters had not begun to have a 
general influence on statesmen, and when a 
sense of personal honour, growing out of 
long habits of co-operation and friendship, 


* Temple, Memoirs, &c. part iii. 
f “ Lord Sunderland knows I have always been 
very kind to him.” Duke of York to Mr. Legge, 
23rd July, 1679. Legge MSS. 

X Some of Lord Sunderland’s competitors in this 
province were not formidable. His successor. Lord 
Conway, when a foreign minister spoke to him of 
the Circles of the Empire, said, “ he wondered what 
circles should have to do with politics.” 








278 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


had not yet contributed to secure them 
against political inconstancy. He was one 
of the most distinguished of a species of 
men who perform a part more important 
than noble in great events; who, by power¬ 
ful talents, captivating manners, and accom¬ 
modating opinions, — by a quick discernment 
of critical moments in the rise and fall of 
parties, — by not deserting a cause till the 
instant before it is universally discovered to 
be desperate,—and by a command of expe¬ 
dients and connections which render them 
valuable to every new possessor of power, 
find means to cling to office or to recover it, 
and who, though they are the natural off¬ 
spring of quiet and refinement, often creep 
through stormy revolutions without being 
crushed. Like the best and most prudent 
of his class, he appears not to have betrayed 
the secrets of the friends whom he aban¬ 
doned, and never to have complied with 
more evil than was necessary to keep his 
power. His temper was without rancour; 
and he must be acquitted of prompting, or 
even preferring, the cruel acts which were 
perpetrated under his administration. Deep 
designs and premeditated treachery were 
irreconcilable both with his indolence and 
his impetuosity; and there is some reason to 
believe, that in the midst of total indiffer¬ 
ence about religious opinions, he retained to 
the end some degree of that preference for 
civil liberty which he might have derived 
from the example of his ancestors, and the 
sentiments of some of his early connections. 

Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, the 
younger son of the Earl of Clarendon, was 
Lord Sunderland’s most formidable compe¬ 
titor for the chief direction of public affairs. 
He owed this importance rather to his posi¬ 
tion and connections than to his abilities, 
which, however, were by no means con¬ 
temptible. He was the undisputed leader of 
the Tory party, to whose highest principles 
in Church and State he showed a constant, 
and probably a conscientious, attachment. He 
had adhered to James in every variety of 
fortune, and was the uncle of the Princesses 
Mary and Ann, who seemed likely in succes¬ 
sion to inherit the crown. He was a fluent 


speaker, and appears to have possessed some 
part of his father’s talents as a writer. He 
was deemed sincere and upright; and his 
private life was not stained by any vice, 
except violent paroxysms of anger, and an 
excessive indulgence in wine, then scarcely 
deemed a fault. “ His infirmities,” says one 
of the most zealous adherents of his party, 
“were passion, in which he would swear 
like a cutter, and the indulging himself in 
wine. But his party was that of the Church 
of England, of whom he had the honour, 
for many years, to be accounted the head.” * 
The impetuosity of his temper concurred 
with his opinions on government in prompt¬ 
ing him to rigorous measures. lie disdained 
the forms and details of business; and it 
was his maxim to prefer only Tories, without 
regard to their qualifications for office. “ Do 
you not think,” said he to Lord Keeper 
Guildford, “that I could understand any 
business in England in a month ? ” “ Yes, 

my lord,” answered the lord keeper, “but 
I believe you would understand it better in 
two months.” Even his personal defects 
and unreasonable maxims were calculated to 
attach adherents to him as a chief; and he 
was well qualified to be the leader of a party 
ready to support all the pretensions of any 
king who spared the Protestant establishment. 

Sir George Saville, created Marquis of 
Halifax by Charles II., claims the attention 
of the historian rather by his brilliant genius, 
by the singularity of his character, and by 
the great part which he acted in the events 
which preceded and followed, than by his 
political importance during the short period 
in which he held office under James. In his 
youth he appears to have combined the 
opinions of a republican f with the most 
refined talents of a polished courtier. The 
fragments of his writing which remain show 
such poignant and easy wit, such lively 
sense, so much insight into character, and so 


* North, p. 230. 

f “ I have long looked upon Lord Halifax and 
Lord Essex as men who did not love monarchy, 
such as it is in England.” Duke of York to Mr. 
Legge, supra. 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 279 


delicate an observation of manners, as could 
hardly have been surpassed by any of his 
contemporaries at Versailles. His political 
speculations, being soon found incapable of 
being reduced to practice, melted away in 
the sunshine of royal favour: the disap¬ 
pointment of visionary hopes led him to 
despair of great improvements, to despise 
the moderate services which an individual 
may render to the community, and to turn 
with disgust from public principles to the 
indulgence of his own vanity and ambition. 
The dread of his powers of ridicule con¬ 
tributed to force him into office *, and the 
attractions of his lively and somewhat liber¬ 
tine conversation were among the means by 
which he maintained his ground with Charles 
II.; of whom it was said by Dryden, that 
“ whatever his favourites of state might be, 
yet those of his affection were men of wit.” f 
Though we have no remains of his speeches, 
we cannot doubt the eloquence of him who, 
on the Exclusion Bill, fought the battle of 
the Court against so great an orator as 
Shaftesbury, j Of these various means of 
advancement he availed himself for a time 
with little scruple and with some success. 
But he never obtained an importance which 
bore any proportion to his great abilities; — 
a failure which, in the time of Charles II., 
may be in part ascribed to the remains of 
his opinions, but which, from its subsequent 
recurrence, must be still more imputed to 
the defects of his character. He had a 
stronger passion for praise than for power, 
and loved the display of talent more than 
the possession of authority. The unbridled 


* Temple, Memoirs, part iii. 
f Dedication to King Arthur. 

X “ Jotham, of piercing wit and pregnant 
thought, 

Endued by nature and by learning taught 
To move assemblies; who hut only tried 
The worse awhile, then chose the better 
side; 

Nor chose alone, but turn’d the balance too.” 

Absalom and Achitophel. 

Lord Halifax says, “ Mr. Dryden told me that 
he was offered money to write against me.” Fox 
MSS. 


exercise of wit exposed him to lasting 
animosities, and threw a shade of levity 
over his character. He was too acute in 
discovering difficulties, — too ingenious in 
devising objections. He had too keen a 
perception of human weakness and folly not 
to find many pretexts and temptations for 
changing his measures and deserting his 
connections. The subtlety of his genius 
tempted him to projects too refined to be 
understood or supported by numerous bodies 
of men. His appetite for praise, when sated 
by the admiration of his friends, was too apt 
to seek a new and more stimulating gratifi¬ 
cation in the applauses of his opponents. 
His weaknesses and even his talents contri¬ 
buted to betray him into inconstancy ; which, 
if not the worst quality of a statesman, is 
the most fatal to his permanent importance. 
For one short period, indeed, the circum¬ 
stances of his situation suited the peculiarities 
of his genius. In the last years of Charles his 
refined policy had found full scope in the arts 
of balancing factions, of occasionally leaning 
to the vanquished, and always tempering 
the triumph of the victorious party, by 
which that monarch then consulted the 
repose of his declining years. Perhaps he 
satisfied himself with the reflection, that his 
compliance with all the evil which was then 
done was necessary to enable him to save 
his country from the arbitrary and bigoted 
faction which was eager to rule it. We 
know from the evidence of the excellent 
Tillotson*, that Lord Halifax “showed a 
compassionate concern for Lord Russell, 
and all the readiness to save him that could 
be wished; ” and that Lord Russell desired 
Tillotson “to give thanks to Lord Halifax 
for his humanity and kindness: ” and there 
is some reason to think that his intercession 
might have been successful, if the delicate 

* Lords’ Journals, 20th Dec. 1689. The Duchess 
of Portsmouth said to Lord Montague, “ that if 
others had been as earnest as my Lord Halifax 
with the king, Lord Russell might have been 
saved.” Fox MSS. Other allusions in these MSS., 
which I ascribe to Lord Halifax, show that his 
whole fault was a continuance in office after the 
failure of his efforts to save Lord Russell. 








230 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


honour of Lord Russell had not refused to 
second their exertions, by softening his lan¬ 
guage, on the lawfulness of resistance, a 
shade more than scrupulous sincerity would 
warrant.* * He seems unintentionally to have 
contributed to the death of Sidney f, by 
having procured a sort of confession from 
Monmouth, in order to reconcile him to his 
father, and to balance the influence of the 
Duke of York, by Charles’s partiality for his 
son. The compliances and refinements of 
that period pursued him with, perhaps, too 
just a retribution during the remainder of 
his life. James was impatient to be rid of 
him who had checked his influence during 
the last years of his brother ; and the friends 
of liberty could never place any lasting 
trust in the man who remained a member of 
the government which put to death Russell 
and Sidney. 

The part performed by Lord Godolphin 
at this time was not so considerable as to 
require a full account of his character. He 
was a gentleman of ancient family in Corn¬ 
wall, distinguished by the accomplishments 
of some of its members, and by their suffer¬ 
ings in the royal cause during the civil war. 
lie held offices at court before he was em¬ 
ployed in the service of the state, and he 
always retained the wary and conciliating 
manners, as well as the profuse dissipation, 
of his original school. Though a royalist 
and a courtier, he voted for the Exclusion 
Bill. At the accession of James, he was not 
considered as favourable to absolute de¬ 
pendence on France, nor to the system of 
governing without parliaments. But though 
a member of the Cabinet, he was, during the 
whole of this reign, rather a public officer 
who confined himself to his own department, 
than a minister who took a part in the 
direction of the state. J The habit of con- 


* Life of Lord Russell, by Lord John Russell, 
p. 215. 

f Evidence of Mr. Hampden and Sir James 
Forbes. Lords’ Journals, 20th Dec. 1680. 

X “ Milord Godolphin, quoiqu’il est du secret, 
n’a pas grand credit, et songe seulement h se con- 
server par une conduite sage et moderee. Je ne 
pense pas que s’il en dtoit era, on prit des liaisons 


tinuing some officers in place under succes¬ 
sive administrations, for the convenience of 
business, then extended to higher persons 
than it has usually comprehended in more 
recent times. 

James had, soon after his accession, intro¬ 
duced into the Cabinet Sir George Jeffreys, 
lord chief justice of England*, a person 
whose office did not usually lead to that 
station, and whose elevation to unusual 
honour and trust is characteristic of the go¬ 
vernment which he served. His origin was 
obscure, his education scanty, his acquire¬ 
ments no more than what his vigorous under*- 
standing gathered in the course of business, 
his professional practice low, and chiefly ob¬ 
tained from the companions of his vulgar 
excesses, whom he captivated by that gross 
buffoonery which accompanied him to the 
most exalted stations. But his powers of 
mind were extraordinary; his elocution was 
flowing and spirited; and, after his highest 
preferment, in the few instances where he 
preserved temper and decency, the native 
vigour of his intellect shone forth in his 
judgments, and threw a transient dignity 
over the coarseness of his deportment. lie 
first attracted notice by turbulence in the 
petty contests of the corporation of London; 
and having found a way to Court through 
some of those who ministered to the plea¬ 
sures of the king, as well as to the more 
ignominious of his political intrigues, he 
made his value known by contributing to 
destroy the charter of the capital of which 
he had been the chief law officer. His ser¬ 
vices as a counsel in the trial of Russell, and 
as a judge in that of Sidney, proved still more 
acceptable to his masters. On the former oc¬ 
casion, he caused a person who had collected 
evidence for the defence to be turned out 
of court, for making private suggestions — 
probably important to the ends of justice — 
to Lady Russell, while she was engaged in 

avec Y. M. qui pussent aller a se passer entice¬ 
ment de parlement, et a rompre nettement avec le 
Prince d’Orange.” Barillon to the King, 16th 
April, 1685. Fox, History of James IT., app. lx. 

* North, p.234. (After the Northern Circuit, 
1684,—in our computation, 1685.) 













REVIEW OP THE CAUSES OP THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 281 


her affecting duty.* The same brutal in¬ 
solence shown in the trial of Sidney, was, 
perhaps, thought the more worthy of re¬ 
ward, because it was foiled by the calm 
heroism of that great man. The union of 
a powerful understanding with boisterous 
violence and the basest subserviency singu¬ 
larly fitted him to be the tool of a tyrant. 
He wanted, indeed, the aid of hypocrisy, but 
he was free from its restraints. He had 
that reputation for boldness which many men 
preserve, as long as they are personally safe, 
by violence in their counsels and in their 
language. If he at last feared danger, he 
never feared shame, which much more fre¬ 
quently restrains the powerful. Perhaps the 
unbridled fury of his temper enabled him to 
threaten and intimidate with more effect 
than a man of equal wickedness with a 
cooler character. His religion, which seems 
to have consisted in hatred to Noncon¬ 
formists, did not hinder him from profane¬ 
ness. His native fierceness was daily in¬ 
flamed by debauchery; his excesses were 
too gross and outrageous for the decency of 
historical relation f; and his court was a 
continual scene of scurrilous invective, from 
which none were exempted but his superiors. 
A contemporary, of amiable disposition and 
Tory principles, who knew him well, sums 
up his character in few words, — “he was 
by nature cruel, and a slave of the Court.” J 

It was after the defeat of Monmouth that 
James gave free scope to his policy, and 
began that system of measures which cha¬ 
racterises his reign. Though Feversham was, 
in the common intercourse of life, a good- 
natured man, his victory at Sedgemoor was 

* Examination of John Tisard. Lords’ Jour¬ 
nals, 20th Dec. 1690. 

f See the account of his behaviour at a ball in 
the city, soon after Sidney’s condemnation; Eve¬ 
lyn, vol. i. p. 531.: and at the dinner at Dun- 
combe’s, a rich citizen, where the lord chancellor 
(Jeffreys) and the lord treasurer (Rochester) were 
with difficulty prevented from appearing naked in 
a balcony, to drink loyal toasts; Reresby, Memoirs, 
p. 231.: and of his “ flaming ” drunkenness at the 
Privy Council, when the Icing was present. North, 
p. 250. 

| Evelyn, vol. i. p. 579. 


immediately followed by some of those acts 
of military licence which usually disgrace 
the suppression of a revolt, when there is no 
longer any dread of retaliation, — when the 
conqueror sees a rebel in every inhabitant, 
and considers destruction by the sword as 
only anticipating legal execution, and when 
he is generally well assured, if not positively 
instructed, that he can do nothing more 
acceptable to his superiors than to spread a 
deep impression of terror through a dis¬ 
affected province. A thousand were slain 
in a pursuit of a small body of insurgents 
for a few miles. Feversham marched into 
Bridgewater on the morning after the battle 
(July 7th), with a considerable number tied 
together like slaves ; of whom twenty-two 
were hanged by his orders on a sign-post by 
the road-side, and on gibbets which he caused 
to be erected for the occasion. One of them 
was a wounded officer, named Adlam, who 
was already in the agonies of death. Four 
were hanged in chains, with a deliberate 
imitation of the barbarities of regular law. 
One miserable wretch, to whom life had 
been promised on condition of his keeping 
pace for half a mile with a horse at full 
speed (to which he was fastened by a rope 
which went round his neck), was executed 
in spite of his performance of the feat. Fe¬ 
versham was proceeding thus towards dis¬ 
armed enemies, to whom he had granted 
quarter, when Ken, the bishop of the diocese, 
a zealous royalist, had the courage to rush 
into the midst of this military execution, 
calling out, “ My lord, this is murder in law. 
These poor wretches, now the battle is over, 
must be tried before they can be put to 
death.”* The interposition of this excel¬ 
lent prelate, however, only suspended the 
cruelties of the conquerors. Feversham was 
called to court to receive the thanks and 
honours due to his services. 

Kirke, whom he was directed to leave with 

* For the principal part of the enormities of 
Feversham, we have the singular advantage of 
the testimony of two eye-witnesses, — an officer in 
the Royal army, Kennet, History of England, 
vol. iii. p. 432., and Oldmixon, History of England, 
vol. i. p. 704. See also Locke’s Western Rebellion. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


I- 

282 

detachments at Bridgewater and Taunton*, 
imitated, if he did not surpass, the lawless 
violence of his commander. When he en¬ 
tered the latter town, on the third day after 
the battle, he put to death at least nine of 
his prisoners, with so little sense of impro¬ 
priety or dread of disapprobation, that they 
were entered by name, as executed for high 
treason, in the parish register of their in¬ 
terment.']' Of the other excesses of Kirke 
we have no satisfactory account. The ex¬ 
perience of like cases, however, renders the 
tradition not improbable, that these acts of 
lawless violence were accompanied by the 
insults and mockeries of military debauchery. 
The nature of the service in which the de¬ 
tachment was principally engaged, required 
more than common virtue in a commander 
to contain the passions of the soldiery. It 
was his principal duty to search for rebels. 
He was urged to the performance of this 
odious task by malicious or mercenary in¬ 
formers. The friendship, or compassion, or 
political zeal of the inhabitants, was active 
in favouring escapes, so that, a constant and 
cruel struggle subsisted between the sol¬ 
diers and the people abetting the fugitives. j 
Kirke’s regiment, when in garrison at Tan¬ 
gier, had had the figure of a lamb painted 
on their colours as a badge of their warfare 
against the enemies of the Christian name. 
The people of Somersetshire, when they saw 
those who thus bore the symbols of meek¬ 
ness and benevolence engaged in the per¬ 
formance of such a task, vented the bitterness 
of their hearts against the soldiers by giving 


* Lord Sunderland’s letter to Lord Feversham, 
8th July. State Paper Office. 

f Toulmin’s Taunton, by .Savage, p. 522., where, 
after a period of near 140 years, the authentic 
evidence of this fact is for the first time published, 
together with other important particulars of Mon¬ 
mouth’s revolt, and of the military and judicial 
cruelties which followed it. These nine are by 
some writers swelled to nineteen, probably from 
confounding them with that number executed at 
Taunton by virtue of Jeffreys’s judgments. The 
number of ninety mentioned on this occasion by 
others seems to be altogether an exaggeration. 

X Kirke to Lord Sunderland. Taunton, 12th 
Aug. State Paper Office. 


them the ironical name of Kirke’s “ lambs.” 
The unspeakable atrocity imputed to him, of 
putting to death a person whose life he had 
promised to a young woman, as the price of 
compliance with his desires, it is due to the 
honour of human nature to disbelieve, until 
more satisfactory evidence be produced than 
that on which it has hitherto rested.* He 
followed the example of ministers and ma¬ 
gistrates in selling pardons to the prisoners 
in his district, which, though as illegal as his 
executions, enabled many to escape from the 
barbarities which were to come. Base as 
this traffic was, it would naturally lead him 
to threaten more evil than he inflicted. It 
deserves to be remarked, that, five years 
after his command at Taunton, the inhabit¬ 
ants of that place gave an entertainment, at 
the public expense, to celebrate his success. 
This fact seems to countenance a suspicion 
that we ought to attribute more to the nature 
of the service in which he was engaged than 
to any pre-eminence in criminality, the pe¬ 
culiar odium which has fallen on his name, 
to the exclusion of other officers, whose 
excesses appear to have been greater, and 
are certainly more satisfactorily attested. 
But whatever opinion may be formed of 
the degree of Kirke’s guilt, it is certain 
that he was rather countenanced than dis¬ 
couraged by the government. His illegal 


* This story is told neither by Oldmixon nor 
Burnet, nor by the humble writers of the Bloody 
Assizes or the Quadriennium Jacobi. Echard and 
Kennet, who wrote long after, mentioned it only 
as a report. It first appeared in print in 1699, in 
Pomfret’s poem of Cruelty and Lust. The next 
mention is in the anonymous Life of William III., 
published in 1702. A story very similar is told by 
St. Augustine of a Roman officer, and in the Spec¬ 
tator, No. 491., of a governor of Zealand, probably 
from a Dutch chronicle or legend. The scene is 
laid by some at Taunton, by others at Exeter. 
The person executed is said by some to be the 
father, by others to be the husband, and by others 
again to be the brother of the unhappy young 
woman, whose name it has been found impossible 
to ascertain, or even plausibly to conjecture. The 
tradition, which is still said to prevail at Taunton, 
may well have originated in a publication of 120 
years old. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 283 


executions were early notorious in London.* 
The good Bishop Ken, who then corre¬ 
sponded with the king himself, on the suf¬ 
ferings of his diocese f, could not fail to 
remonstrate against those excesses which 
he had so generously interposed to prevent; 
and if the accounts of the remonstrances of 
Lord Keeper Guildford, against the excesses 
of the West, have any foundation |, they 
must have related exclusively to the enor¬ 
mities of the soldiery, for the lord keeper 
died at the very opening of Jeffrey s’s circuit. 
Yet, with this knowledge, Lord Sunderland 
instructed Kirke “ to secure such of his 
prisoners as had not been executed, in order 
to trial,” § at a time when there had been 
no legal proceedings, and when all the 
executions to which he adverts, without 
disapprobation, must have been contrary to 
law. Seven days after, Sunderland informed 
Kirke that his letter had been communicated 
to the king, “ who was very well satisfied 
with the proceedings.” || In subsequent 
despatches ^[, he censures Kirke for setting 
some rebels at liberty (alluding, doubtless, 
to those who had purchased their lives) ; but 
he does not censure that officer for having 
put others to death. Were it not for these 
proofs that the king knew the acts of Kirke, 
and that his government officially sanctioned 
them, no credit would be due to the decla¬ 
rations afterwards made by such a man, that 
his severities fell short of the orders which 
he had received. ** Nor is this the only cir- 


* Narcissus Luttrell, MS. Diary, 15th July; six 
days after their occurrence. 

f Keu’s examination before the Privy Council, 
in 1096. Biograplxia Britannica, article “ Ken.” 

X North, p. 260. This inaccurate writer refers 
the complaint to Jeffreys’s proceedings, which is 
impossible, since Lord Guildford died in Oxford¬ 
shire, on the 5th September, after a long illness. 
Lady Lisle was executed on the 3d; and her exe¬ 
cution, the only one which preceded the death of 
the lord keeper, could scarcely have reached him 
in his dying moments. 

§ 14th July. State Paper Office. 

|j 21st July. Ibid. 

25th and 28th July, and 3d August. State 
Paper Office. 

** Oldmixon, vol. i. p. 705. 


cumstance which connects the government 
with these enormities. On the 10th of Au¬ 
gust, Kirke was ordered to come to court 
to give information on the state of the West. 
His regiment was soon afterwards removed ; 
and he does not appear to have been em¬ 
ployed there during the remainder of that 
season.* 

Colonel Trelawney succeeded; but so 
little was Kirke’s conduct thought to be 
blamable, that on the 1st of September 
three persons were executed illegally at 
Taunton for rebellion, the nature and reason 
of their death being openly avowed in the 
register of their interment, f In military 
executions, however atrocious, some allow¬ 
ance must be made for the passions of an 
exasperated soldiery, and for the habits of 
officers accustomed to summary and irregu¬ 
lar acts, who have not been taught by 
experience that the ends of justice cannot 
be attained otherwise than by the observance 
of the rules of law. j The lawless violence 
of an army forms no precedent for the 
ordinary administration of public affairs; 
and the historian is bound to relate with 
diffidence events which are generally at¬ 
tended with confusion and obscurity, which 
are exaggerated by the just resentment of 
an oppressed party, and where we can sel¬ 
dom be guided by the authentic evidence of 
records. Neither the conduct of a govern¬ 
ment which approves these excesses, how¬ 
ever, nor that of judges who imitate or 
surpass them, allows of such extenuations 
or requires such caution in relating and 


* Papers in the War Office. MS. 
t Savage, p. 525. 

f Two years after the suppression of the Western 
revolt, we find Kirke treated with favour by the 
king. “ Colonel Kirke is made housekeeper of 
Whitehall, in the room of his kinsman, deceased.” 
Narcissus Luttrell, Sept. 1687. He was nearly re¬ 
lated to, or perhaps the son of, George Kirke, groom 
of the bedchamber to Charles I., one of whose 
beautiful daughters, Mary, a maid of honour, was 
the Warmestre of Count Hamilton (Notes to 
Memoires de Grammont), and the other, Diana, 
was the wife of the last Earl of Oxford, of the 
house of De Yere. Dugdale’s Baronage, tit. 
“ Oxford.” 









284 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


characterising facts. The judicial proceed¬ 
ings which immediately followed these 
military atrocities may be related with more 
confidence, and must be treated with the 
utmost rigour of historical justice. 

The commencement of proceedings on the 
Western Circuit, which comprehends the 
whole scene of Monmouth’s operations, was 
postponed till the other assizes were con¬ 
cluded, in order that four judges, who were 
joined with Jeffreys in the commission, 
might be at liberty to attend him.* An 
order was also issued to all officers in the 
West, “ to furnish such parties of horse and 
foot as might be required by the lord chief 
justice on his circuit, for securing prisoners, 
and to perform that service in such manner 
as he should direct.” f After these unusual 
and alarming preparations, Jeffreys began 
his circuit at Winchester, on the 27th of 
August, by the trial of Mrs. Alicia Lisle, 
who was charged with having sheltered in 
her house, for one night, two fugitives from 
Monmouth’s routed army, — an office of 
humanity which then was and still is treated 
as high treason by the law of England. This 
lady, though unaided by counsel, so deaf 
that she could very imperfectly hear the 
evidence, and occasionally overpowered by 
those lethargic slumbers which are incident 
to advanced age, defended herself with a 
coolness which formed a striking contrast to 
the deportment of her judge. J The princi¬ 
pal witness, a man who had been sent to her 
to implore shelter for one Ilickes, and who 
guided him and Nelthorpe to her house, 
betrayed a natural repugnance to disclose 
facts likely to affect a life which he had 
innocently contributed to endanger. Jef¬ 
freys, at the suggestion of the counsel for 
the Crown, took upon himself the examina¬ 
tion of this unwilling witness, and conducted 


* Lord Chief Baron Montague, Levison, Watkins, 
and Wright, of whom the three former sat on the 
subsequent trials of Mr. Cornish and Mrs. Gaunt. 

t This order was dated on the 24 th August, 
1685. Papers in the War Office. From this cir¬ 
cumstance originated the story, that Jeffreys had a 
commission as commander-in-chief. 

J State Trials, vol. xi. p. 298. 


it with an union of artifice, menace, and 
invective, which no well-regulated tribunal 
would suffer in the advocate of a prisoner, 
when examining the witness produced by 
the accuser. With solemn appeals to heaven 
for his own pure intentions, he began in the 
language of candour and gentleness to 
adjure the witness to discover all that he 
knew. Ilis nature, however, often threw off 
this disguise, and broke out into the ribaldry 
and scurrility of his accustomed style. The 
judge and three counsel poured in questions 
upon the poor rustic in rapid succession. 
Jeffreys said that he treasured up vengeance 
for such men, and added, “It is infinite 
mercy, that for those falsehoods of thine, 
God does not immediately strike thee into 
hell.” Wearied, overawed, and overwhelmed 
by such an examination, the witness at length 
admitted some facts which afforded reason 
to suspect, rather than to believe, that the 
unfortunate lady knew the men whom she 
succoured to be fugitives from Monmouth’s 
army. She said in her defence, that she 
knew Mr. Hickes to be a Presbyterian 
minister, and thought he absconded because 
there were warrants out against him on that 
account. All the precautions for conceal¬ 
ment which were urged as proofs of her 
intentional breach of law were reconcilable 
with this defence. Orders had been issued 
at the beginning of the revolt to seize all 
“ disaffected and suspicious persons, espe¬ 
cially all Nonconformist ministers ; ” * and 
Jeffreys himself unwittingly strengthened 
her case by declaring his conviction, that all 
Presbyterians had a hand in the rebellion. 
He did not go through the formality of re¬ 
peating so probable a defence to the jury. 
They, however, hesitated: they asked the 
chief justice, whether it were as much 
treason to receive Hickes before as after 
conviction? He told them that it was,— 
which was literally true; but he wilfully 
concealed from them that by the law, such 
as it was, the receiver of a traitor could not 
be brought to trial till the principal traitor 


* Despatch from Lord Sunderland to Lord Lieu¬ 
tenants of Counties. 20th June, 1685. 













REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 285 


had been convicted or outlawed ; — a pro¬ 
vision, indeed, so manifestly necessary to 
justice, that without the observance of it 
Hickes might be acquitted of treason after 
Mrs. Lisle had been executed for harbouring 
him as a traitor. * Four judges looked 
silently on this suppression of truth, which 
produced the same effect with positive false¬ 
hood, and allowed the limits of a barbarous 
law to be overpassed, in order to destroy an 
aged woman for an act of charity. The 
jury retired, and remained so long in deli¬ 
beration as to provoke the wrath of the 
chief justice. When they returned into 
court, they expressed their doubt whether 
the prisoner knew that Hickes had been in 
Monmouth’s army: the chief justice assured 
them that the proof was complete. Three 
times they repeated their doubt: the chief 
justice as often reiterated his declaration 
with growing impatience and rage. At this 
critical moment of the last appeal of the 
jury to the court, the defenceless female at 
the bar made an effort to speak. Jeffreys, 
taking advantage of formalities, instantly 
silenced her, and the jury were at length 
overawed into a verdict of “guilty.” He 
then broke out into a needless insult to the 
strongest affections of nature, saying to the 
jury, “Gentlemen, had I been among you, 
and if she had been my own mother, I 
should have found her guilty.” On the next 
morning, when he had to pronounce sentence 
of death, he could not even then abstain from 
invectives against Presbyterians, of whom 
he supposed Mrs. Lisle to be one ; yet, mix¬ 
ing artifice with his fury, he tried to lure 
her into discoveries, by ambiguous phrases, 
which might excite her hopes of life without 
pledging him to obtain pardon. He directed 
that she should be burnt alive in the after¬ 
noon of the same day; but the clergy of the 
cathedral of Winchester successfully inter¬ 
ceded for an interval of three days. This 
interval gave time for an application to the 
king; and that application was made by 
persons, and with circumstances, which must 


* Hale, Picas of the Crown, part i. c. 22. FoS' 
ter, Discourse on Accomplices, chap. 1. 


have strongly called his attention to the case. 
Mrs. Lisle was the widow of Mr. Lisle, who 
was one of the judges of Charles the First; 
and this circumstance, which excited a pre¬ 
judice against her, served in its consequences 
to show that she had powerful claims on the 
lenity of the king. Lady St. John and Lady 
Abergavenny wrote a letter to Lord Claren¬ 
don, then privy seal, which he read to the 
king, bearing testimony “ that she had been 
a favourer of the king’s friends in their 
greatest extremities during the late civil 
war,” and, among others, of these ladies 
themselves; and on these grounds, as well 
as for her general loyalty, earnestly recom¬ 
mending her to pardon. Her son had served 
in the king’s army against Monmouth; she 
often had declared that she shed more tears 
than any woman in England on the day of 
the death of Charles the First; and after 
the attainder of Mr. Lisle, his estate was 
granted to her at the intercession of Lord 
Chancellor Clarendon, for her excellent con¬ 
duct during the prevalence of her husband’s 
party. Lord Feversham, also, who had been 
promised a thousand pounds for her pardon, 
used his influence to obtain it. But the 
king declared that he would not reprieve 
her for one day. It is said, that he en¬ 
deavoured to justify himself by alleging a 
promise to Jeffreys that Mrs. Lisle should 
not be spared ; — a fact which, if true, shows 
the conduct of James to have been as de¬ 
liberate as it seems to be, and that the 
severities of the circuit arose from a pre¬ 
vious concert between him and Jeffreys. On 
the following day the case was again brought 
before him by a petition from Mrs. Lisle, 
praying that her punishment might be 
changed into beheading, in consideration of 
her ancient and honourable descent. After 
a careful search for precedents, the mind of 
James was once more called to the fate of 
the prisoner by the signature of a warrant 
to authorise the infliction of the mitigated 
punishment. This venerable matron ac¬ 
cordingly suffered death on the 2d of Sep¬ 
tember, supported by that piety which had 
been the guide of her life. Her understand¬ 
ing was so undisturbed that she clearly 








286 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


instanced the points in which she had been 
wronged. No resentment troubled the com¬ 
posure of her dying moments; and she 
carried her religious principles of allegiance 
and forgiveness so far, as to pray on the 
scaffold for the prosperity of a prince from 
whom she had experienced neither mercy, 
gratitude, nor justice. The trial of Mrs. 
Lisle is a sufficient specimen of the proceed¬ 
ings of this circuit. When such was the 
conduct of the judges in a single trial of a 
lady of distinction for such an offence, with 
a jury not regardless of justice, where there 
was full leisure for the consideration of every 
question of fact and law, and where every 
circumstance was made known to the go¬ 
vernment and the public, it is easy to imagine 
what the demeanour of the same tribunal 
must have been in the trials of several 
hundred insurgents of humble condition, 
crowded into so short a time that the wisest 
and most upright judges could hardly have 
distinguished the innocent from the guilty.* * 
As the movements of Monmouth’s army 
had been confined to Dorset and Somerset, 
the acts of high treason were almost en¬ 
tirely committed there, and the prisoners 
apprehended elsewhere were therefore re¬ 
moved for trial to these counties, f That 


* By the favour of the clerk of assize, I have 
before me many of the original records of this cir¬ 
cuit. The account of it by Lord Lonsdale was 
written in 1688. The Bloody Assizes, and the Life 
of Jeffreys, were published in 1689. They were 
written by one Shirley, a compiler, and by Pitts, 
a surgeon in Monmouth’s army. Six thousand 
copies of the latter were sold. Life of John Dun- 
ton, vol. i. p. 184. Roger Coke, a contemporary, 
and Oldmixon, almost an eye-witness, vouch for 
their general fairness; and I have found an unex¬ 
pected degree of coincidence between them and 
the circuit records. Burnet came to reside at 
Salisbury in 1689, and he and Kennet began to 
relate the facts about seventeen years after they 
occurred. Father Orleans, and the writer of James’s 
Life, admit the cruelties, while they vainly strive 
to exculpate the king from any share in them. 
From a comparison of those original authorities, 
and from the correspondence, hitherto unknown, in 
the State Paper Office, the narrative of the text 
has been formed. 

t There were removed to Dorchester 94 from 


unfortunate district was already filled with 
dismay and horror by the barbarities of the 
troops; the roads leading to its principal 
towns were covered with prisoners under 
military guards ; and the display and menace 
of warlike power were most conspicuous in 
the retinue of insolent soldiers and trem¬ 
bling culprits who followed the march of the 
judges, forming a melancholy contrast to 
the parental confidence which was wont to 
pervade the administration of the unarmed 
laws of a free people. Three hundred and 
twenty prisoners were arraigned at Dor¬ 
chester, of whom thirty-five pleaded “ not 
guilty; ” and on their trial five were ac¬ 
quitted and thirty were convicted. The 
chief justice caused some intimation to be 
conveyed to the prisoners that confession 
was the only road to mercy; and, to 
strengthen the effect of this hint, he sent 
twenty-nine of the persons convicted to im¬ 
mediate execution, —though one of them 
at least was so innocent, that had there been 
time to examine his case he might even then 
have been pardoned.* The intimation illus¬ 
trated by such a commentary produced the 
intended effect: two hundred and eight at 
once confessed. - ]* Eighty persons were, ac¬ 
cording to contemporary accounts, executed 
at Dorchester; and though the records state 
only the execution of fifty, yet, as they con¬ 
tain no entry of judgment in two hundred 
and fifty cases, their silence affords no pre¬ 
sumption against the common accounts. 

The correspondence of Jeffreys with the 
king and the minister appears to have be¬ 
gun at Dorchester. From that place he 
wrote on the 8th of September, in terms of 
enthusiastic gratitude to Sunderland, to 
return thanks for the Great Seal.J Two 
days afterwards he informed Sunderland, 
that though “ tortured by the stone,” he 


Somerset, 89 from Devon, 55 from Wilts, and 23 
from London. Circuit Records. 

* Bragg, an attorney. Bloody Assizes. Western 
Rebellion. 

t Calendar for Dorsetshire summer assizes, 1685. 

t The Great Seal had only been vacant three 
days, as Lord Keeper Guildford died at his seat at 
Wroxton on the 5th. 









REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 287 


had that day “ despatched ninety-eight 
rebels.” * Sunderland assured him in 
answer, that the king approved all his pro¬ 
ceedings, of which very minute accounts 
appear to have been constantly transmitted 
by Jeffreys directly to the king himselff 
In the county of Somerset more than a 
thousand prisoners were arraigned for trea¬ 
son at Taunton and Wells, of whom only 
six ventured to put themselves on their 
trial by pleading “ not guilty.” A thousand 
and forty confessed themselves to be guilty; 
— a proportion of confessions so little cor¬ 
responding to the common chances of pre¬ 
cipitate arrests, of malicious or mistaken 
charges, and of escapes on trial, — all which 
were multiplied in such violent and hurried 
proceedings, — as clearly to show that the 
measures of the circuit had already extin¬ 
guished all expectation that the judges 
would observe the rules of justice. Sub¬ 
mission afforded some chance of escape: 
from trial the most innocent could no longer 
have any hope. Only six days were allowed 
in this county to find indictments against a 
thousand prisoners, to arraign them, to try 
the few who still ventured to appeal to law, 
to record the confessions of the rest, and to 
examine the circumstances which ought, in 
each case, to aggravate or extenuate the 
punishment. The names of two hundred 
and thirty-nine persons executed there are 
preservedj: but as no judgments are en¬ 
tered §, we do not know how many more 
may have suffered. In order to diffuse 
terror more widely, these executions were 
directed to take place in thirty-six towns 
and villages. Three were executed in the 
village of Wrington, the birth-place of 
Mr. Locke, whose writings were one day to 
lessen the misery suffered by mankind from 
cruel laws and unjust judges. The general 
consternation spread by these proceedings 
has prevented a particular account of many 


* 8th and 10th Sept. State Paper Office, 
f Windsor, 14th Sept. Ibid, 
j Life and Death of George Lord Jeffreys. 
(London, 1689.) 

§ Circuit Records. 


of the cases from reaching us. In some of 
those more conspicuous instances which 
have been preserved, we see what so great 
a body of obnoxious culprits must have suf¬ 
fered in narrow and noisome prisons where 
they were often destitute of the common ne¬ 
cessaries of life, before a judge whose native 
rage and insolence were stimulated by daily 
intoxication, and inflamed by the agonies of 
an excruciating distemper, from the bru¬ 
tality of soldiers, and the cruelty of slavish 
or bigoted magistrates; while one part of 
their neighbours were hardened against 
them by faction, and the other deterred 
from relieving them by fear. The ordinary 
executioners, unequal to so extensive a 
slaughter, were aided by novices, whose un¬ 
skilfulness aggravated the horrors of that 
death of torture which was then the legal 
punishment of high treason. Their lifeless 
remains were treated with those indignities 
and outrages which still * continue to dis¬ 
grace the laws of a civilised age. They 
were beheaded and quartered, and the 
heads and limbs of the dead were directed 
to be placed on court-houses, and in all con¬ 
spicuous elevations in streets, high roads, 
and churches. The country was filled with 
the dreadful preparations necessary to fit 
these inanimate members for such an ex¬ 
hibition; and the roads were covered by 
vehicles conveying them to great distances 
in every direction.’! There was not a 
hamlet in which the poor inhabitants were 
not doomed hourly to look on the mangled 
remains of a neighbour or a relation. “ All 
the high roads of the country were no 
longer to be travelled, while the horrors of 
so many quarters of men and the offensive 
stench of them lasted.” ! 


* 1822 . —Ed. 

•}• “ Nothing could be liker hell than these parts: 
cauldrons hissing, carcasses boiling, pitch and tar 
sparkling and glowing, bloody limbs boiling, and 
tearing, and mangling.” Bloody Assizes. “ Eng¬ 
land is now an Aceldama. The country for sixty 
miles, from Bristol to Exeter, had a new terrible 
sort of sign-posts, gibbets, heads and quarters of 
its slaughtered inhabitants.” Oldmixon, i. 707. 

+ Lord Lonsdale (Memoirs of the Reign of 









288 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


While one of the most fertile and cheerful 
provinces of England was thus turned into 
a scene of horror by the mangled remains 
of the dead, the towns resounded with the 
cries, and the streets streamed with the blood, 
of men, and even women and children, who 
were cruelly whipped for real or pretended 
sedition. The case of John Tutchin, after¬ 
wards a noted political writer, is a specimen 
of these minor cruelties. He was tried at 
Dorchester, under the assumed name of 
Thomas Pitts, for having said that Hamp¬ 
shire was up in arms for the Duke of Mon¬ 
mouth, and, on his conviction, was sentenced 
to be whipped through every market town 
in the county for seven years. The females 
in court burst into tears; and even one of 
the officers of the court ventured to observe 
to the chief justice, that the culprit was 
very young, and that the sentence would 
reach to once a fortnight for seven years. 
These symptoms of pity exposed the pri¬ 
soner to new brutality from his judge. 
Tutchin is said to have petitioned the king 
for the more lenient punishment of the 
gallows. He was seized with the small-pox 
in prison; and, whether from unwonted 
compassion, or from the misnomer in the 
indictment, he appears to have escaped the 
greater part of the barbarous punishment 
to which he was doomed.* * 

These dreadful scenes are relieved by 
some examples of generous virtue in indi¬ 
viduals of the victorious party. Harte, a 
clergyman of Taunton, following the ex¬ 
cellent example of the bishop, interceded 
for some of the prisoners with Jeffreys in 
the full career of his cruelty. The interces¬ 
sion was not successful; but it compelled 
him to honour the humanity to which he did 
not yield, for he soon after preferred Harte 
to be a prebendary of Bristol. Both Ken 
and Harte, who were probably at the mo¬ 
ment charged with disaffection, sacrificed at 


James II., p. 13.) confirms the testimony of the 
two former more ardent partisans, both of whom, 
however, were eye-witnesses. 

* Savage, p. 509. Western Rebellion. Dorches¬ 
ter Calendar, summer assizes, 1685. 


a subsequent period their preferments rather 
than violate the allegiance which they thought 
still to be due to the king; while Mew, bishop 
of Winchester, who was on the field of battle 
at Sedgemoor, and who ordered that his 
coach-liorses should drag forward the artil¬ 
lery of the Royal army, preserved his rich 
bishopric by compliance with the govern¬ 
ment of King William. The army of Mon¬ 
mouth also afforded instructive proofs, that 
the most furious zealots are not always the 
most consistent adherents. Ferguson and 
Hooke, two Presbyterian clergymen in that 
army, passed most of their subsequent lives 
in Jacobite intrigues, either from incor¬ 
rigible habits of conspiracy, or from resent¬ 
ment at the supposed ingratitude of their 
own party, or from the inconstancy natural 
to men of unbridled passions and distem¬ 
pered minds. Daniel De Foe, one of the 
most original writers of the English nation, 
served in the army of Monmouth; but we 
do not know the particulars of his escape. 
A great satirist had afterwards the baseness 
to reproach both Tutchin and De Foe with 
sufferings which were dishonourable only 
to those who inflicted them.* 

In the mean time, peculiar circumstances 
rendered the correspondence of Jeffreys in 
Somersetshire with the king and his minis¬ 
ter more specific and confidential than it had 
been in the preceding parts of the circuit. 
Lord Sunderland had apprised Jeffreys of 
the king’s pleasure to bestow a thousand 
convicts on several courtiers, and one hun¬ 
dred on a favourite of the queen j*, on these 
persons finding security that the prisoners 
should be enslaved for ten years in some 
West India island; — a limitation intended, 
perhaps, only to deprive the convicts of the 


* “ Earless on high stood unabash’d De Foe, 

And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge below.” 

Dunciad, book ii. 

t 14th and 15th Sept. State Paper Office. 200 
to Sir Robert White, 200 to Sir William Booth, 
100 to Sir C. Musgrave, 100 to Sir W. Stapleton, 

100 to J. Kendall, 100 to -Triphol, 100 to a 

merchant. “ The queen has asked 100 more of 
the rebels.” 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 289 


sympathy of the Puritan colonists of New 
England, but which, in effect, doomed them 
to a miserable and lingering death in a 
climate where field-labour is fatal to Euro¬ 
peans. Jeffreys, in his answer to the king, 
remonstrates against this disposal of the pri¬ 
soners, who, he says, would be worth ten or 
fifteen pounds a-piece * * * § *; and, at the same 
time, returns thanks for his majesty’s gra¬ 
cious acceptance of his services. In a sub¬ 
sequent letter from Bristol f, he yields to 
the distribution of the convicts; boasts of 
his victory over that most factious city, 
where he had committed the mayor and an 
alderman, under pretence of their having 
sold to the plantations men whom they had 
unjustly convicted with a view to such a 
sale; and pledges himself “ that Taunton, 
and Bristol, and the county of Somerset, 
should know their duty both to God and 
their king before he leaves them.” He en¬ 
treats the king not to be surprised into 
pardons. 

James, being thus regularly apprised of 
the most minute particulars of Jeffreys’s pro¬ 
ceedings, was accustomed to speak of them 
to the foreign ministers under the name of 
“ Jeffreys’s campaign.” j He amused him¬ 
self with horse-races at Winchester, the 
scene of the recent execution of Mrs. Lisle, 
during the hottest part of Jeffreys’s opera- 
tions.§ He was so fond of the phrase of 
“ Jeffreys’s campaign,” as to use it twice 
in his correspondence with the Prince of 
Orange; and, on the latter occasion, in a 
tone of exultation approaching to defiance. || 
The excellent Ken had written to him a 
letter of expostulation on the subject. On 
the 30th of September, on Jeffreys’s return 
to Court, his promotion to the office of lord 
chancellor was announced in the Gazette, 
with a panegyric on his services very un¬ 
usual in the cold formalities of official ap¬ 


* Taunton, 19th Sept. State Paper Office, 

f 22d Sept. Ibid. 

j Burnet, History of his Own Time, (fol.) vol. i. 
p. 648. 

§ 14th to 18th Sept. London Gazettes. 

|| 10th and 24th Sept. Dalrymple, Memoirs of 
Great Britain, appendix to part i. book ii. 


pointment. Had James been dissatisfied 
with the conduct of Jeffreys, he had the 
means of repairing some part of its conse¬ 
quences, for the executions in Somersetshire 
were not concluded before the latter part of 
November; and among the persons who 
suffered in October was Mr. Hickes, a N on- 
conformist clergyman, for whom his brother 
the learned Dr. Hickes, afterwards a sufferer 
in the cause of James, sued in vain for par¬ 
don.* Some months after, when Jeffreys 
had brought on a fit of dangerous illness by 
one of his furious debauches, the king ex¬ 
pressed great concern, and declared that his 
loss could not be easily repaired.j' 

The public acts and personal demeanour 
of the king himself agreed too well with the 
general character of these judicial severities. 
An old officer, named Holmes, who was 
taken in Monmouth’s army, being brought 
up to London, was admitted to an interview 
with the king, who offered to spare his life 
if he would promise to live quietly. He 
answered, that his principles had been and 
still were “ republican,” believing that form 
of government to be the best; and that he 
was an old man, whose life was as little 
worth asking as it was worth giving; — an 
answer which so displeased the king, that 
Hohnes was removed to Dorchester, where 


* The Pere d’Orleans, who wrote under the eye 
of James, in 1695, mentions the displeasure of the 
king at the sale of pardons, and seems to refer 
to Lord Sunderland’s letter to Kirke, who, we 
know from Oldmixon, was guilty of that practice; 
and, in other respects, rather attempts to account 
for, than to deny, the acquiescence of the king in 
the cruelties. Revolutions d’Angleterre, liv. xi. 
The testimony of Roger North, if it has any 
foundation, cannot be applied to this part of the 
subject. That part of the Life of James II. which 
relates to it is the work only of the anonymous 
biographer, Mr. Dicconson of Lancashire, and 
abounds with the grossest mistakes. The assertion 
of Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, in the Account 
of the Revolution, that Jeffreys disobeyed James’s 
orders, is disproved by the correspondence already 
quoted. There is, on the whole, no colour for the 
assertion of Macplierson (History of Great Bx-itain, 
vol. i. p. 453.), or for the doubts of Dalrymple. 
f Barillon, 4th Feb. 1686. Fox MSS. 


U 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


290 


he suffered death with fortitude and piety.* * * § * 
The proceedings on the circuit seem, in¬ 
deed, to have been so exclusively directed 
by the king and the chief justice, that even 
Lord Sunderland, powerful as he was, could 
not obtain the pardon of one delinquent. 
Yet the case was favourable, and it deserves 
to be shortly related, as characteristic of 
the times. Lord Sunderland interceded re¬ 
peatedly j* with Jeffreys for a youth named 
William Jenkins, who was executed j in 
spite of such powerful solicitations. lie was 
the son of an eminent Nonconformist clergy¬ 
man, who had recently died in Newgate 
after a long imprisonment, inflicted on him 
for the performance of his clerical duties. 
Young Jenkins had distributed mourning 
rings, on which was inscribed, “ William 
Jenkins, murdered in Newgate.” He was, 
in consequence, imprisoned in the gaol of 
Ilchester; and, being released by Mon¬ 
mouth’s army, he joined his deliverers against 
his oppressors. 

Vain attempts have been made to excul¬ 
pate James, by throwing part of the blame 
of these atrocities upon Pollexfen, an emi¬ 
nent Whig lawyer, who was leading counsel 
in the prosecutions §; — a wretched employ¬ 
ment, which he probably owed, as a matter 
of course, to his rank as senior king’s coun¬ 
sel on the circuit. His silent acquiescence 
in the illegal proceedings against Mrs. Lisle 
must, indeed, brand his memory with in¬ 
delible infamy; but, from the king’s perfect 
knowledge of the circumstances of that case, 
it seems to be evident that Pollexfen’s inter¬ 
position would have been unavailing: and 
the subsequent proceedings were carried on 
with such utter disregard of the forms, as 
well as the substance, of justice, that counsel 


* Lord Lonsdale, p. 12. Calendar for Dorset¬ 
shire. Bloody Assizes. The account of Colonel 
Holmes by the anonymous biographer (Life of 
James II. vol. ii. p. 43.) is contradicted by all these 
authorities. It is utterly improbable, and is not 
more honourable to James than that here adopted. 

f Lord Sunderland to Lord Jeffreys, 12th Sept. 
State Paper Office. 

X At Taunton, 30th Sept. Western Rebellion. 

§ Life of James II., vol. ii. p. 44. 


had probably no duty to perform, and no 
opportunity to interfere. To these facts may 
be added, what, without such preliminary 
evidence, would have been of little weight, 
the dying declaration of Jeffreys himself, 
who, a few moments before he expired, said 
to Dr. Scott, an eminent divine who attended 
him in the Tower, “ Whatever I did then I 
did by express orders; and I have this 
farther to say for myself, that I was not 
half bloody enough for him who sent me 
thither.” * 

Other trials occurred under the eye of 
James in London, where, according to an 
ancient and humane usage, no sentence of 
death is executed till the case is laid before 
the king in person, that he may determine 
whether there be any room for mercy. Mr. 
Cornish, an eminent merchant, charged with 
a share in the Rye House Plot, was appre¬ 
hended, tried, and executed within the space 
of ten days, the court having refused him 
the time which he alleged to be necessary 
to bring up a material witness, j* Colonel 
Rumsey, the principal witness for the crown, 
owned that on the trial of Lord Russell he 
had given evidence which directly contra¬ 
dicted his testimony against Cornish. This 
avowal of perjury did not hinder his con¬ 
viction and execution; but the scandal was 
so great, that James was obliged, in a few 
days, to make a tardy reparation for the 
precipitate injustice of his judges. The 
mutilated limbs of Cornish were restored 
to his relations, and Rumsey was confined 
for life to St. Nicholas’s Island, at Plymouth j, 
a place of illegal imprisonment, still kept up 
in defiance of the Habeas Corpus Act. This 
virtual acknowledgment by the king of the 
falsehood of Rumsey’s testimony assumes an 
importance in history, when it is considered 


* Burnet (Oxford, 1823), vol. iii. p. 61. Speaker 
Onslow’s note. Onslow received this information 
from Sir J. Jekyll, who heard it from Lord Somers, 
to whom it was communicated by Dr. Scott. The 
account of Tutchin, who stated that Jeffreys had 
made the same declaration to him in the Tower, is 
thus confirmed by indisputable evidence, 
f State Trials, vol. xi. p. 382. 

X Narcissus Luttrell, 19th April, 1686. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 291 


as a proof of the perjury of one of the two 
witnesses against Lord Russell,—the man 
of most unspotted virtue who ever suffered 
on an English scaffold. Ring, Fernley, and 
Elizabeth Gaunt, persons of humble con¬ 
dition in life, were tried on the same day 
with Cornish, for harbouring some fugitives 
from Monmouth’s army. One of the per¬ 
sons to whom Ring afforded shelter was his 
near kinsman. Fernley was convicted on 
the sole evidence of Burton, whom he had 
concealed from the search of the public 
officers. When a witness was about to be 
examined for Fernley, the court allowed one 
of their own officers to cry out that the 
witness was a Whig; while one of the judges, 
still more conversant with the shades of 
party, sneered at another of his witnesses as 
a Trimmer. When Burton was charged 
with being an accomplice in the Rye House 
Plot, Mrs. Gaunt received him, supplied him 
with money, and procured him a passage to 
Holland. After the defeat of Monmouth, 
with whom he returned, he took refuge in 
the house of Fernley, where Mrs. Gaunt 
visited him, again supplied him with money, 
and undertook a second time to save his 
life, by procuring the means of his again 
escaping into Holland. When Burton was 
apprehended, the prosecutors had their 
choice, if a victim was necessary, either of 
proceeding against him, whom they charged 
with open rebellion and intended assassina¬ 
tion, or against Mrs. Gaunt, whom they 
could accuse only of acts of humanity and 
charity forbidden by their laws. They chose 
to spare the wretched Burton, in order that 
he might swear away the lives of others for 
having preserved his own. Eight judges, 
of whom Jeffreys was no longer one, sat 
on these deplorable trials. Roger North, 
known as a contributor to our history, was 
an active counsel against the benevolent and 
courageous Mrs. Gaunt. William Penn was 
present when she was burnt alive *, and, 
having familiar access to James, is likely to 
have related to him the particulars of that 
and of the other executions at the same 


* Clarkson, Life of Penn, vol. i. p. 448. 


time. At the stake, she disposed the straw 
around her, so as to shorten her agony by a 
strong and quick fire, with a composure which 
melted the spectators into tears. She thanked 
God that he had enabled her to succour the 
desolate; that “ the blessing of those who 
were ready to perish ” came upon her; and 
that, in the act for which she was doomed 
by men to destruction, she had obeyed the 
sacred precepts which commanded her to 
“ hide the outcast, and not to betray him 
that wandereth.” Thus was this poor and 
uninstructed woman supported under a death 
of cruel torture, by the lofty consciousness 
of suffering for righteousness, and by that 
steadfast faith in the final triumph of justice 
which can never visit the last moments of 
the oppressor. The dying speeches of the 
prisoners executed in London were sup¬ 
pressed, and the outrages offered to the 
remains of the dead were carried to an 
unusual degree.* The body of Richard 
Rumbold, who had been convicted and exe¬ 
cuted at Edinburgh, under a Scotch law, 
was brought up to London. The sheriffs of 
London were commanded, by a royal war¬ 
rant, to set up one of the quarters on one of 
the gates of the city, and to deliver the re¬ 
maining three to the sheriff of Hertford, 
who was directed by another warrant to 
place them at or near Rumbold’s late resi¬ 
dence at the Rye House f; — impotent but 
studied outrages, which often manifest more 
barbarity of nature than do acts of violence 
to the living. 

The chief restraint on the severity of 
Jeffreys seems to have arisen from his rapa¬ 
city. Contemporaries of all parties agree 
that there were few gratuitous pardons, and 
that wealthy convicts seldom sued to him in 
vain. Kiffin, a Nonconformist merchant, had 
agreed to give 3000Z. to a courtier for the 
pardon of two youths of the name of Luson, 
his grandsons, who had been in Monmouth’s 
army. But Jeffreys guarded his privilege 

* Narcissus Luttrell, 16th Nov. 1685. 

j- Warrants, 27th and 28th Oct. 1685. State 
Paper Office. One quarter was to be put up at 
Aldgate; the remaining three at Hoddesdon, the 
Eye, and Bishop’s Stortford. 









292 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


of selling pardons, by unrelenting rigour 
towards those prisoners from whom mercy 
had thus been sought through another chan¬ 
nel.* He was attended on his circuit by a 
buffoon, to whom, as a reward for his merri¬ 
ment in one of his hours of revelry, he tossed 
the pardon of a rich culprit, expressing his 
hope that it might turn to good account. 
But this traffic in mercy was not confined to 
the chief justice: the king pardoned Lord 
Grey to increase the value of the grant of 
his life estate, which had been made to Lord 
Rochester. The young women of Taunton, 
who had presented colours and a Bible to 
Monmouth, were excepted by name from 
the general pardon, in order that they might 
purchase separate ones. To aggravate this 
indecency, the money to be thus extorted 
from them was granted to persons of their 
own sex—the queen’s maids of honour; and 
it must be added with regret, that William 
Penn, sacrificing other objects to the hope 
of obtaining the toleration of his religion 
from the king’s favour, was appointed an 
agent for the maids of honour, and sub¬ 
mitted to receive instructions “ to make the 
most-advantageous composition he could in 
their behalf.” f The Duke of Somerset in 
vain attempted to persuade Sir Francis 
Warre, a neighbouring gentleman, to obtain 
7000L from the young women, without which, 
he said, the maids of honour were determined 
to prosecute them to outlawry. Roger Hoare, 
an eminent trader of Bridgewater, saved his 
life by the payment to them of 1000/.; but 
he was kept in suspense respecting his pardon 
till he came to the foot of the gallows, for no 
other conceivable purpose than that of ex¬ 
torting the largest possible sum. This delay 
caused the insertion of his execution in the 
first narratives of these events; but he lived 
to take the most just revenge on tyrants, by 
contributing, as representative in several 
parliaments for his native town, to support 
that free government which prevented the 
restoration of tyranny. 

* Kiffin’s Memoirs, p. 54. See answer of Kiffin 
to James, ibid. p. 159. 

t Lord Sunderland to William Penn, 13th Feb. 
1686. State Paper Office. 


The same disposition was shown by the 
king and his ministers in the case of Mr. 
Hampden, the grandson of him who, forty 
years before, had fallen in battle for the 
liberties of his country. Though this gen¬ 
tleman had been engaged in the consultations 
of Lord Russell and Mr. Sidney, yet, there 
being only one witness against him, he was 
not tried for treason, but was convicted of a 
misdemeanor, and on the evidence of Lord 
Howard condemned to pay a fine of 40,000/. 
His father being in possession of the family 
estate, he remained in prison till after Mon¬ 
mouth’s defeat, when he was again brought 
to trial for the same act as high treason, 
under pretence that a second witness had 
been discovered.* It had been secretly ar¬ 
ranged, that if he pleaded guilty he should 
be pardoned on paying a large sum of money 
to two of the king’s favourites. At the ar¬ 
raignment, both the judges and Mr. Hampden 
performed the respective parts which the 
secret agreement required, he humbly en¬ 
treating their intercession to obtain the 
pardon which he had already secured by 
more effectual means, and they extolling the 
royal mercy, and declaring that the prisoner, 
by his humble confession, had taken the best 
means of qualifying himself to receive it. 
The result of this profanation of the forms 
of justice and mercy was, that Mr. Hampden 
was in a few months allowed to reverse his 
attainder, on payment of a bribe of 6000/. 
to be divided between Jeffreys and Father 
Petre, the two guides of the king in the 
performance of his duty to God and his 
people.+ 

Another proceeding, of a nature still more 
culpable, showed the same union of mer¬ 
cenary with sanguinary purposes in the king 
and his ministers. Prideaux, a gentleman 
of fortune in the West of England, was ap¬ 
prehended on the landing of Monmouth, for 
no other reason than that his father had 
been attorney-general under the Common- 

* State Trials, vol. xi. p. 479. 

f Lords’ Journals, 20th Dec. 1689. This docu¬ 
ment has been overlooked by all historians, who, 
in consequence, have misrepresented the conduct of 
Mr. Hampden. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 293 


wealth and the Protectorate. Jeffreys, ac¬ 
tuated here by personal motives, employed 
agents through the prisons to discover evi¬ 
dence against Prideaux. The lowest pri¬ 
soners were offered their lives, and a sum 
of 500/., if they would give evidence against 
him. Such, however, was the inflexible mo¬ 
rality of the Nonconformists, who formed 
the bulk of Monmouth’s adherents, that they 
remained unshaken by these offers, amidst 
the military violence which surrounded 
them, and in spite of the judicial rigours 
which were to follow. Prideaux was en¬ 
larged. Jeffreys himself, however, was able 
to obtain some information, though not upon 
oath, from two convicts under the influence 
of the terrible proceedings at Dorchester * * * * § ; 
and Prideaux was again apprehended. The 
convicts were brought to London, and one 
of them was conducted to a private inter¬ 
view with the lord chancellor, by Sir Roger 
L’Estrange, the most noted writer in the 
pay of the Court. Prideaux, alarmed at 
these attempts to tamper with witnesses, 
employed the influence of his friends to ob¬ 
tain his pardon. The motive for Jeffreys’s 
unusual activity was then discovered. Pri- 
deaux’s friends were told that nothing could 
be done for him, as “ the king had given 
him” (the familiar phrase for a grant of an 
estate either forfeited or about to be for¬ 
feited) to the chancellor, as a reward for his 
services. On application to one Jennings, 
the avowed agent of the chancellor for the 
sale of pardons, it was found that Jeffreys, 
unable to procure evidence on which he 
could obtain the whole of Prideaux’s large 
estates by a conviction, had now resolved to 
content himself with a bribe of 10,000£. for 
the deliverance of a man so innocent, that 
by the formalities of law, perverted as they 
then were, the lord chancellor could not 
effect his destruction. Payment of so large 
a sum was at first resisted; but, to subdue 
this contumacy, Prideaux’s friends were for¬ 
bidden to have access to him in prison, and 
his ransom was raised to 15,000£. The 

* Sunderland to Jeffreys, 14th Sept. 1685. State 
Paper Office. 


money was then publicly paid by a banker 
to the Lord Chancellor of England by name. 
Even in the administration of the iniquitous 
laws of confiscation, there are probably few 
instances where, with so much premeditation 
and effrontery, the spoils of an accused man 
were promised first to the judge who might 
have tried him, and afterwards to the chan¬ 
cellor who was to advise the king in the 
exercise of mercy.* 

Notwithstanding the perjury of Rumsey 
in the case of Cornish, a second experiment 
was made on the effect of his testimony by 
producing him, together with Lord Grey 
and one Saxton, as a witness against Lord 
Brandon on a charge of treason, j* The ac¬ 
cused was convicted, and Rumsey was still 
allowed to correspond confidentially with the 
prime minister];, to whom he even applied 
for money. But when the infamy of Rumsey 
became notorious, and when Saxton had 
perjured himself on the subsequent trial of 
Lord Delamere, it was thought proper to 
pardon Lord Brandon, against whom no tes¬ 
timony remained but that of Lord Grey, 
who, when he made his confession, is said to 
have stipulated that no man should be put 
to death on his evidence. But Brandon was 
not enlarged on bail till fourteen months, 
nor was his pardon completed till two years 
after his trial. § 

The only considerable trial which re¬ 
mained was that of Lord Delamere, before 
the lord steward (Jeffreys) and thirty peers. 
Though this nobleman was obnoxious and 
formidable to the Court, the proof of the 
falsehood and infamy of Saxton, the prin¬ 
cipal witness against him, was so complete, 
that he was unanimously acquitted ; — a 
remarkable and almost solitary exception to 
the prevalent proceedings of courts of law 
at that time, arising partly from a proof of 
the falsehood of the charge more clear than 

* Commons’ Journals, 1st May, 1689. 

f Narcissus Luttrell, 25th Nov. 1685; which, 
though very short, is more full than any published 
account of Lord Brandon’s trial. 

J Rumsey to Lord Sunderland, Oct. 1685, and 
Jan. 1686. State Paper Office. 

§ Narcissus Luttrell, Jan. and Oct. 1687. 


















294 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


can often be expected, and partly perhaps 
from the fellow-feeling of the judges with 
the prisoner, and from the greater reproach 
to which an unjust judgment exposes its 
authors, when in a conspicuous station. 

The administration of justice in state pro¬ 
secutions is one of the surest tests of good 
government. The judicial proceedings which 
have been thus carefully and circumstantially 
related afford a specimen of those evils from 
which England was delivered by the Re¬ 
volution. As these acts were done with the 
aid of juries, and without the censure of 
Parliament, they also afford a fatal proof 
that judicial forms and constitutional esta¬ 
blishments may be rendered unavailing by 
the subserviency or the prejudices of those 
who are appointed to carry them into effect. 
The wisest institutions may become a dead 
letter, and may even, for a time, be con¬ 
verted into a shelter and an instrument of 
tyranny, when the sense of justice and the 
love of liberty are weakened in the minds of 
a people. 


CHAPTER H. 

Dismissal of Halifax. —Meeting of Parliament. — 
Debates on the Address —Prorogation of Par¬ 
liament.— Habeas Corpus Act. — State of the 
Catholic Party. — Character of tlio Queen — of 
Catherine Sedley. — Attempt to support the Dis¬ 
pensing Power by a Judgment of a Court of Law. 
— Godden v. Hales. — Consideration of the Ar¬ 
guments. — Attack on the Church. — Establish¬ 
ment of the Court of Commissioners for Eccle¬ 
siastical Causes.—Advancement of Catholics to 
Offices. — Intercourse with Rome. 

The general appearance of submission which 
followed the suppression of the revolt and 
the punishment of the revolters encouraged 
the king to remove from office the Marquis 
of Halifax, with whose liberal opinions he 
had recently as well as early been dissatisfied, 
and whom he suffered to remain in place at 
his accession, only as an example that old 
opponents might atone for their offences by 
compliance. * A different policy was adopted 


* Barillon, 5th March,, 1685. Fox, app. p. xlvii. 
[In these dates the new style only is observed. Ed.] 


in a situation of more strength. As the 
king found that Halifax would not comply 
with his projects, he determined to dismiss 
him before the meeting of Parliament; — an 
act of vigour which it was thought would 
put an end to division in his councils, and 
prevent discontented ministers from coun¬ 
tenancing a resistance to his measures. When 
he announced this resolution to Barillon, he 
added, that “ his design was to obtain a 
repeal of the Test and Habeas Corpus Acts, 
of which the former was destructive of the 
Catholic religion, and the other of the royal 
authority; that Halifax had not the firm¬ 
ness to support the good cause, and that he 
would have less power of doing harm if he 
were disgraced.” * James had been advised 
to delay the dismissal till after the session, 
that the opposition of Halifax might be mo¬ 
derated, if not silenced, by the restraints of 
high office ; but he thought that his authority 
would be more strengthened by an example 
of a determination to keep no terms with 
any one who did not show an unlimited 
compliance with his wishes. “ I do not sup¬ 
pose,” said the king to Barillon, with a 
smile, “that the king your master will be 
sorry for the removal of Halifax. I know 
that it will mortify the ministers of the 
allies.” Nor was he deceived in either of 
these respects. The news was received with 
satisfaction by Louis, and with dismay by 
the ministers of the Empire, of Spain, and 
of Holland, who lost their only advocate in 
the councils of England, f It excited wonder 
and alarm among those Englishmen who 
were zealously attached to their religion and 
liberty. j Though Lord Halifax had had no 
share in the direction of public affairs since 
the king’s accession, his removal was an im¬ 
portant event in the eye of the public, and 
gave him a popularity which he preserved 
by independent and steady conduct during 
the sequel of James’s reign. 

It is remarkable that, on the meeting of 
Parliament (9th November), little notice was 


* Barillon, 20th October. Fox, app. p. cxxvii. 
t Barillon, 5th November. Ibid. p. exxx. 
t Barillon, 1st March. Ibid. p. xxxviii. 










REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 295 


taken of tlie military and judicial excesses 
in the West. Sir Edward Seymour applauded 
the punishment of the rebels; and Waller 
alone, a celebrated wit, an ingenious poet, 
the father of parliamentary oratory, and one 
of the refiners of the English language, 
though now in his eightieth year, arraigned 
the violences of the soldiery with a spirit 
still unextinguished. He probably intended 
to excite a discussion which might gradually 
have reached the more deliberate and in¬ 
excusable faults of the judges. But the 
opinions and policy of his audience defeated 
his generous purpose. The prevalent party 
looked with little disapprobation on se¬ 
verities which fell on nonconformists and 
supposed republicans. Many might be base 
enough to feel little compassion for sufferers 
in the humbler classes of society ; some were 
probably silenced by a pusillanimous dread 
of being said to be the abettors of rebels; 
and all must have been, in some measure, 
influenced by an undue and excessive de- | 
gree of that wholesome respect for judicial 
proceedings, which is one of the characteristic 
virtues of a free country. This disgraceful 
silence is, perhaps, somewhat extenuated by 
the slow circulation of intelligence at that 
period; by the censorship which imposed 
silence on the press, or enabled the ruling 
party to circulate falsehood through its 
means; and by the eagerness of all parties 
for a discussion of the alarming tone and 
principles of the speech from the throne. 

The king began his speech by observing 
that the late events must convince every 
one that the militia was not sufficient, and 
that nothing but a good force of well-dis¬ 
ciplined troops, in constant pay, could secure 
the government against enemies abroad and 
at home; and that for this purpose he had 
increased their number, and now asked a 
supply for the great charge of maintaining 
them. “ Let no man take exception,” he 
continued, “ that there are some officers in 
the army not qualified, according to the late 
tests, for their employments; the gentlemen 
are, I must tell you, most of them well known 
to me; they have approved the loyalty of 
their principles by their practice: and I 


will deal plainly with you, that after having 
had the benefit of their services in such a 
time of need and danger, I will neither ex¬ 
pose them to disgrace, nor myself to the 
want of them if there should be another 
rebellion to make them necessary to me.” 
Nothing but the firmest reliance on the sub¬ 
missive disposition of the Parliament could 
have induced James to announce to them his 
determination to bid defiance to the laws. 
He probably imagined that the boldness with 
which he asserted the power of the crown 
would be applauded by many, and endured 
by most, of the members of such a parlia¬ 
ment. But never was there a more re¬ 
markable example of the use of a popular 
assembly, however ill composed, in extracting 
from the disunion, jealousy, and ambition of 
the victorious enemies of liberty, a new 
opposition to the dangerous projects of the 
crown. The vices of politicians were con¬ 
verted into an imperfect substitute for virtue; 
and though the friends of the constitution 
were few and feeble, the inevitable divisions 
of their opponents in some degree supplied 
their place. 

The disgrace of Lord Halifax disheartened 
and even offended some supporters of go¬ 
vernment. Sir Thomas Clarges, a deter¬ 
mined Tory, was displeased at the merited 
removal of his nephew, the Duke of Albe¬ 
marle, from the command of the army 
against Monmouth. Nottingham, a man of 
talent and ambition, more a Tory than a 
courtier, was dissatisfied with his own ex¬ 
clusion from office, and jealous of Roches¬ 
ter’s ascendancy over the Church party. 
His relation Finch, though solicitor-general, 
took a part against the Court. The projects 
of the crown were thwarted by the friends 
of Lord Danby, who had forfeited all hopes 
of the king’s favour by communicating the 
Popish Plot to the House of Commons, and 
by his share in the marriage of the Princess 
Mary with the Prince of Orange. Had the 
king’s first attack been made on civil liberty, 
the Opposition might have been too weak 
to embolden all these secret and dispersed 
discontents to display themselves, and to 
combine together. But the attack on the ex- 










296 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


elusive privileges of the Church of England, 
while it alienated the main force of the 
crown, touched a point on which all the 
subdivisions of discontented Tories professed 
to agree, and afforded them a specious pre¬ 
text for opposing the king, without seeming 
to deviate from their ancient principles. 
They were gradually disposed to seek or 
accept the assistance of the defeated Whigs; 
and the names of Sir Richard Temple, Sir 
John Lowther, Serjeant Maynard, and Mr. 
Hampden, appear at last more and more 
often in the proceedings. Thus admirably 
does a free constitution not only command 
the constant support of the wise and vir¬ 
tuous, but often compel the low jealousies 
and mean intrigues of disappointed ambition 
to contend for its preservation. The con¬ 
sideration of the king’s speech was post¬ 
poned for three days, in spite of a motion 
for its immediate consideration by Lord 
Preston, a secretary of state. 

In the committee of the whole House on 
the speech, which occurred on the 12th, two 
resolutions were adopted, of which the first 
was friendly, and the second was adverse, to 
the government. It was resolved “ that a 
supply be granted to his Majesty,” and “that 
a bill be brought in to render the militia 
more useful.” The first of these propositions 
has seldom been opposed since the govern¬ 
ment has become altogether dependent on 
the annual grants of parliament; it was 
more open to debate on a proposal for ex¬ 
traordinary aid, and it gave rise to some 
important observations. Clarges declared 
he had voted against the Exclusion, because 
he did not believe its supporters when they 
foretold that a Popish king would have a 
Popish army. “ I am afflicted greatly at this 
breach of our liberties: what is struck at 
here is our all.” Sir Edward Seymour ob¬ 
served, with truth, that to dispense with the 
Test was to release the king from all law. 
Encouraged by the bold language of these 
Tories, old Serjeant Maynard said, that the 
supply was asked for the maintenance of an 
army which was to be officered against a 
law made, not for the punishment of Papists, 
but for the defence of Protestants. The 


accounts of these important debates are so 
scanty, that we may, without much pre¬ 
sumption, suppose the venerable lawyer to 
have at least alluded to the recent origin of 
the Test (to which the king had disparagingly 
adverted in his speech) as the strongest rea¬ 
son for its strict observance. Had it been 
an ancient law, founded on general con¬ 
siderations of policy, it might have been 
excusable to relax its rigour from a regard 
to the circumstances and feelings of the king. 
But having been recently provided as a 
security against the specific dangers appre¬ 
hended from his accession to the throne, it 
was to the last degree unreasonable to re¬ 
move or suspend it at the moment when 
those very dangers had reached their highest 
pitch. Sir Richard Temple spoke warmly 
against standing armies, and of the necessity 
of keeping the crown dependent on par¬ 
liamentary grants. He proposed the reso¬ 
lution for the improvement of the militia, 
with which the courtiers concurred. Clarges 
moved, as an amendment on the vote of sup¬ 
ply, the words “for the additional forces”— 
to throw odium on the ministerial vote; but 
this adverse amendment was negatived by 
a majority of seventy in a house of three 
hundred and eighty-one. On the 13th, the 
ministers proposed to instruct the committee 
of the whole House on the king’s speech, to 
consider, first, the paragraph of the speech 
which contained the demand of supply. They 
were defeated by a majority of a hundred 
and eighty-three to a hundred and eighty- 
two ; and the committee resolved to take into 
consideration, first, the succeeding para¬ 
graph, which related to the officers illegally 
employed.* * On the 16th, an address was 


* “ The Earl of Middleton, then a secretary of 
state, seeing many go out upon the division against 
the Court who .were in the service of Government, 
went down to the bar and reproached them to their 
faces for voting as they did. He said to a Captain 
Kendal, ‘ Sir, have you not a troop of horse in his 
Majesty’s service?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said the other, 

* but my brother died last night, and has left me 
seven hundred pounds a year.’ This I had from 
my uncle, the first Lord Onslow, who was then a 
| member of the House, and present. This incident 















REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


brought up from the committee, setting forth 
the legal incapacity of the Catholic officers, 
which could only be removed by an act of 
parliament, offering to indemnify them from 
the penalties they had incurred; but, as 
their continuance would be taken to be a 
dispensing with the law, praying that the 
king would be pleased not to continue them 
in their employments. The House, having 
substituted the milder words, “ that he would 
give such directions therein as that no ap¬ 
prehensions or jealousies might remain in 
the hearts of his subjects,” unanimously 
adopted the address. A supply of seven 
hundred thousand pounds was voted — a 
medium between twelve hundred thousand 
required by ministers, and two hundred 
thousand proposed by the most rigid of their 
opponents. The danger of standing armies 
to liberty, and the wisdom of such limited 
grants as should compel the crown to recur 
soon and often to the House of Commons, 
were the general arguments used for the 
smaller sum. The courtiers urged the ex¬ 
ample of the late revolt, the superiority of 
disciplined troops over an inexperienced 
militia, the necessity arising from the like 
practice of all other states, and the revo¬ 
lution in the art of war, which had rendered 
proficiency in it unattainable except by 
those who studied and practised it as the 
profession of their lives. The most prac¬ 
tical observation was that of Sir William 
Trumbull, who suggested that the grant 
should be annual, to make the existence of 
the army annually dependent on the plea¬ 
sure of parliament. The ministers, taking 
advantage of the secrecy of foreign nego¬ 
tiations, ventured to assert that a formidable 
army in the hands of the king was the only 
check on the ambition of France, though 
they knew that their master was devoted to 
Louis XIV., to whom he had been recently 
suing for a secret subsidy in the most abject 
language of supplication.* * When the ad- 


upon one vote very likely saved the nation.” 
Burnet, (Oxford, 1823,) vol. iii. p. 8G. Note by 
Speaker Onslow. 

* Barillon, 16th July, 1685. Fox, app. p. cix. 


297 

dress was presented, the king answered, with 
a warmth and anger very unusual on such 
occasions*, that “he did not expect such 
an address ; that he hoped his reputation 
would have inspired such a confidence in 
him; but that, whatever they might do, he 
should adhere to all his promises.” The 
reading of this answer in the House the next 
day produced a profound silence for some 
minutes. A motion was made by Mr. Whar¬ 
ton to take it into consideration, on which 
Mr. John Cooke said, “We are Englishmen, 
and ought not to be frightened from our 
duty by a few hard words.” f Both these 
gentlemen were Whigs, who were encouraged 
to speak freely by the symptoms of vigour 
which the House had shown; but they soon 
discovered that they had mistaken the tem¬ 
per of their colleagues, for the majority, 
still faithful to the highest pretensions of the 
crown whenever the Established Church was 
not adverse to them, committed Mr. Cooke 
to the Tower, though he disavowed all dis¬ 
respectful intention, and begged pardon of 
the King and the House. Notwithstanding 
the king’s answer, they proceeded to provide 
means of raising the supply, and they re¬ 
sumed the consideration of a bill for the 
naturalisation of French Protestants—a 
tolerant measure, the introduction of which 
the zealous partisans of the Church had, at 
first, resisted, as they afterwards destroyed 
the greater part of its benefit by confining 
it to those who should conform to the Esta¬ 
blishment.} The motion for considering the 
king’s speech was not pursued, which, toge¬ 
ther with the proceeding on supply, seemed 
to imply a submission to the menacing answer 
of James, arising principally from the sub- 


« Le Roi me dit que si V. M. avoit quelque chose k 
d&irer de lui, il iroit au devant de tout ce qui peut 
plaire a V. M.; qu’il avoit ete eleve' en France, et 
mange le pain de Y. M.; que son cceur etoit Fran¬ 
cois” Only six weeks before (30th May), James 
had told his parliament that “ he had a true English 
heart” 

* Reresby, p. 218. Sir John Reresby, being a 
member of the House, was pvobably present. 

■}• Commons’ Journals, 18th Nov. 

J Ibid., 16th June, 1st July. 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


298 


servient character of the majority, but pro¬ 
bably, in some, from a knowledge of the 
vigorous measures about to be proposed in 
the House of Lords. 

At the opening of the session, that House 
had contented themselves with general 
thanks to the king for his speech, without 
any allusion to its contents. Jeffreys, in 
delivering the king’s answer, affected to 
treat this parliamentary courtesy as an 
approval of the substance of the speech. 
Either on that or on the preceding occasion, 
it was said by Lord Halifax or Lord Devon¬ 
shire (for it is ascribed to both), “ that they 
had now more reason than ever to give 
thanks to his Majesty for having dealt so 
plainly with them.” The House, not called 
upon to proceed as the other House was by 
the demand of supply, continued inactive 
for a few days, till they were roused by the 
imperious answer of the king to the Com¬ 
mons. On the 19th, the day of that answer, 
Lord Devonshire moved to take into con¬ 
sideration the dangerous consequences of an 
army kept up against law. He was sup¬ 
ported by Halifax, by Nottingham, and by 
Anglesea, who, in a very advanced age, still 
retained that horror of the yoke of Rome 
which he had found means to reconcile with 
frequent acquiescence in the civil policy of 
Charles and James. Lord Mordaunt, more 
known as Earl of Peterborough, signalised 
himself by the youthful spirit of his speech. 
“ Let us not,” he said, “ like the House of 
Commons, speak of jealousy and distrust: 
ambiguous measures inspire these feelings. 
What we now see is not ambiguous. A 
standing army is on foot, filled with officers, 
who cannot be allowed to serve without 
overthrowing the laws. To keep up a stand¬ 
ing army when there is neither civil nor 
foreign war, is to establish that arbitrary 
government which Englishmen hold in such 
just abhorrence.” Compton, bishop of Lon¬ 
don, a prelate of noble birth and military 
spirit, who had been originally an officer in 
the Guards, spoke for the motion in the 
name of all his brethren on the episcopal 
bench, who considered the security of the 
Church as involved in the issue of the ques¬ 


tion. He was influenced not only by the 
feelings of his order, but by his having been 
the preceptor of the Princesses hi ary and 
Anne, who were deeply interested in the 
maintenance of the Protestant Church, as 
well as conscientiously attached to it. Jef¬ 
freys was the principal speaker on the side 
of the Court. He urged the thanks already 
voted as an approval of the speech. His 
scurrilous invectives, and the tones and 
gestures of menace with which he was accus¬ 
tomed to overawe juries, roused the indigna¬ 
tion, instead of commanding the acquiescence, 
of the Lords. As this is a deportment which 
cuts off all honourable retreat, the contem¬ 
porary accounts are very probable which 
represent him as sinking at once from in¬ 
solence to meanness. His defeat must have 
been signal; for, in an unusually full House 
of Lords *, after so violent an opposition by 
the Chancellor of England, the motion for 
taking the address into consideration was, 
on the 23d, carried without a division.! 

On the next day the king prorogued the 
parliament; which never again was assembled 
but for the formalities of successive proroga¬ 
tions, by which its legal existence was pro¬ 
longed for two years. By this act, he lost 
the subsidy of seven hundred thousand 
pounds: but his situation had become diffi¬ 
cult. Though money was employed to cor¬ 
rupt some of the opponents of his measures, 
the Opposition was daily gaining strength, j 


* The attendance was partly caused by a call of 
the House, ordered for the trials of Lords Stamford 
and Delamere. There were present on the 19th of 
November, seventy-five temporal and twenty spi¬ 
ritual lords. On the call, two days before, it ap¬ 
peared that forty were either minors, abroad, or 
confined by sickness; six had sent proxies; two 
were prisoners for treason; and thirty absent with¬ 
out any special reason, of whom the great majority 
were disabled as Catholics: so that very few peers, 
legally and physically capable of attendance, were 
absent. 

f Barillon, 3rd Dec. Fox MSS. This is the 
only distinct narrative of the proceedings of this 
important and decisive day. Burnet was then on 
the Continent, but I have endeavoured to combine 
his account with that of Barillon. 

+ Barillon, 2Gth Nov. Fox, app. p. cxxxix. 












REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 299 


By rigorous economy, by diverting parlia¬ 
mentary aids from the purposes for which 
they were granted, the king had the means 
of maintaining the army, though his ministers 
had solemnly affirmed that he had not.* 
He was full of maxims for the necessity of 
firmness and the dangers of concession, which 
were mistaken by others, and perhaps by 
himself, for proofs of a vigorous character. 
He had advanced too far to recede with 
tolerable dignity. The energy manifested 
by the House of Lords would have com¬ 
pelled even the submissive Commons to co¬ 
operate with them, which might have given 
rise to a more permanent coalition of the 
High Church party with the friends of 
liberty. A suggestion had been thrown out 
in the Lords to desire the opinion of the 
judges on the right of the king to commis¬ 
sion the Catholic officers f; and it was feared 
that the terrors of impeachment might, 
during the sitting of parliament, draw an 
opinion from these magistrates against the 
prerogative, which might afterwards prove 
irrevocable. To reconcile Parliament to the 
officers became daily more hopeless: to sacri¬ 
fice those who had adhered to the king in a 
time of need appeared to be an example 
dangerous to all his projects, whether of en¬ 
larging his prerogative, or of securing, and 
perhaps finally establishing, his religion. 

Thus ended the active proceedings of a 
Parliament which, in all that did not con¬ 
cern the Church, justified the most sanguine 
hopes that James could have formed of their 


* Barillon, 13th Dec. Fox MSS. The expenses 
of the army of Charles had been 280,0007.; that of 
James was 600,0007. The difference of 320,0007. 
was, according to Barillon, thus provided for: 
100,0007., the income of James as Duke of York, 
which he still preserved; 800,0007. granted to pay 
the debts of Charles, which, as the king was to pay 
the debts as he thought Jit , would yield for some 
years 100,0007.; 800,0007. granted for the navy and 
the arsenals, on which the king might proceed slowly, 
or even do nothing; 400,0007. for the suppression of 
the rebellion. As these last funds were not to 
come into the Exchequer for some years, they were 
estimated as producing annually more than suffi¬ 
cient to cover the deficiency. 

f Barillon, 10th Dec. Fox MSS. 


submission to the Court, as well as their 
attachment to the monarchy. A body of 
men so subservient as that House of Com¬ 
mons could hardly be brought together by 
any mode of election or appointment; and 
James was aware that, by this angry pro¬ 
rogation, he had rendered it difficult for 
himself for a long time to meet another par¬ 
liament. The session had lasted only eleven 
days; during which the eyes of Europe had 
been anxiously turned towards their pro¬ 
ceedings. Louis XIV., not entirely relying 
on the sincerity or steadiness of James, was 
fearful that he might yield to the allies or to 
his people, and instructed Barillon in that 
case to open a negotiation with leading 
members of the Commons, that they might 
embarrass the policy of the king if it became 
adverse to France.* Spain and Holland, on 
the other hand, hoped that any compromise 
between the king and parliament would 
loosen the ties that bound the former to 
France. It was even hoped that he might 
form a triple alliance with Spain and Sweden, 
and large sums of money were secretly 
offered to him to obtain his accession to 
such an alliance, f Three days before the 
meeting of parliament, had arrived in London 
Monsignor D’Adda, a Lombard prelate of 
distinction, as the known, though then un¬ 
avowed, minister of the see of Rome J, wffiich 
was divided between the interest of the Ca¬ 
tholic Church of England and the animosity 
of Innocent XI. against Louis XIV. All 
these solicitudes, and precautions, and ex¬ 
pectations, were suddenly dispelled by the 
unexpected rupture between James and his 
Parliament. 

From the temper and opinions of that 
Parliament it is reasonable to conclude, that 
the king would have been more successful 
if he had chosen to make his first attack on 
the Habeas Corpus Act, instead of directing 
it against the Test. Both these laws were 
then only of a few years’ standing; and he, 


* Louis to Barillon, 19th Nov. Fox, app. p. 
cxxxvi. 

f Barillon, 26th Nov. Fox, app. p. cxxxix. 

J D’Adda to the Pope, 19th Nov. D’Adda MSS. 









300 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

as well as his brother, held them both in 
abhorrence. The Test gave exclusive privi¬ 
leges to the Established Church, and was, 
therefore, dear to the adherents of that 
powerful body. The Habeas Corpus Act 
was not then the object of that attachment 
and veneration which experience of its un¬ 
speakable benefits for a hundred and fifty 
years has since inspired. The most ancient 
of our fundamental laws had declared the 
principle that no freeman could be impri¬ 
soned without legal authority.* The imme¬ 
morial antiquity of the writ of Habeas Corpus, 
—an order of a court of justice to a gaoler 
to bring the body of a prisoner before them, 
that there might be an opportunity of ex¬ 
amining whether his apprehension and de¬ 
tention were legal,—seems to prove that 
this principle was coeval with the law of 
England. In irregular times, however, it 
had been often violated; and the judges 
under Charles I. pronounced a judgment^, 
which, if it had not been condemned by the 
Petition of Right j, would have vested in 
the crown a legal power of arbitrary im¬ 
prisonment. By the statute which abolished 
the Star Chamber, the Parliament of 1641 § 
made some important provisions to facilitate 
deliverance from illegal imprisonment. For 
eleven years Lord Shaftesbury struggled to 
obtain a law which should complete the 
securities of personal liberty; and at length 
that great, though not blameless, man 
obtained the object of his labours, and 
bestowed on his country the most perfect 
security against arbitrary imprisonment which 
has ever been enjoyed by any society of 
men. || It has banished that most dangerous 
of all modes of oppression from England. 
It has effected that great object as quietly 
as irresistibly; it has never in a single in- 

stance been resisted or evaded; and it must 
be the model of all nations who aim at 
securing that personal liberty without which 
no other liberty can subsist. But in the 
year 1685 it appeared to the predominant 
party an odious novelty, an experiment un¬ 
tried in any other nation,—carried through, 
in a period of popular frenzy, during the 
short triumph of a faction hostile to Church 
and State, and by him who was the most 
obnoxious of all the demagogues of the age. 
There were then, doubtless, many—perhaps 
the majority — of the partisans of authority 
who believed, with Charles and James, that 
to deprive a government of all power to 
imprison the suspected and the dangerous, 
unless there was legal ground of charge 
against them, was incompatible with the 
peace of society; and this opinion was the 
more dangerous because it was probably 
conscientious.* In this state of things it 
may seem singular that James did not first 
propose the repeal of the Habeas Corpus 
Act, by which he would have gained the 
means of silencing opposition to all his other 
projects. What the fortunate circumstances 
were which pointed his attack against the 
Test, we are not enabled by contemporary 
evidence to ascertain. He contemplated that 
measure with peculiar resentment, as a per¬ 
sonal insult to himself, and as chiefly, if not 
solely, intended as a safeguard against the 
dangers apprehended from his succession. 
He considered it as the most urgent object 
of his policy to obtain a repeal of it; which 
would enable him to put the administration, 
and especially the army, into the hands of 
those who were devoted by the strongest of 
all ties to his service, and whose power, 
honour, and even safety were involved in 
his success. An army composed of Catholics 

* Magna Charta, c. 29. 

f The famous case of commitments “ by the 
special command of the king,” which last words 
the Court of King’s Bench determined to be a suffi¬ 
cient cause for detaining a prisoner in custody, 
without any specification of an offence. State 
Trials, vol. iii. p. 1. 

t 3 Car. I. c. i. § 16 Car. I. c. 10. 

|| 31 Car. II. c. 2. 

* James retained this opinion till his death. “ It 
was a great misfortune to the people, as well as to 
the crown, the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act, 
since it obliges the crown to keep a greater force 
on foot to preserve the government, and encourages 
disaffected, turbulent, and unquiet spirits to carry 
on their wicked designs: it was contrived and 
carried on by the Earl of Shaftesbury to that in¬ 
tent.” Life, vol. ii. p. 621. 














REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 301 


must have seemed tlie most effectual of all 
the instruments of power in his hands; and 
it is no wonder that he should hasten to 
obtain it. Had he been a lukewarm or only 
a professed Catholic, an armed force, whose 
interests were the same with his own, might 
reasonably have been considered as that 
which it was in the first place necessary to 
secure. Charles II., with a loose belief in 
Popery, and no zeal for it, was desirous of 
strengthening its interests, in order to en¬ 
large his own power. As James was a con¬ 
scientious and zealous Catholic, it is probable 
that he was influenced in every measure of 
his government by religion, as well as ambi¬ 
tion. Both these motives coincided in their 
object: his absolute power was the only 
security for his religion, and a Catholic army 
was the most effectual instrument for the 
establishment of absolute power. In such a 
case of combined motives, it might have 
been difficult for himself to determine which 
predominated on any single occasion. Sun¬ 
derland, whose sagacity and religious in¬ 
difference are alike unquestionable, observed 
to Barillon, that on mere principles of policy 
James could have no object more at heart 
than to strengthen the Catholic religion *; 
— an observation which, as long as the king 
himself continued to be a Catholic, seems, 
in the hostile temper which then prevailed 
among all sects, to have had great weight. 

The best reasons for human actions are 
often not their true motives : but, in spite of 
the event, it does not seem difficult to de¬ 
fend the determination of the king on those 
grounds, merely political, which, doubtless, 
had a considerable share in producing it. 
It is not easy to ascertain how far his plans 
in favour of his religion at that time ex¬ 
tended. A great division of opinion pre¬ 
vailed among the Catholics themselves on 
this subject. The most considerable and 
opulent laymen of that communion, willing 
to secure moderate advantages, and desirous 
to employ their superiority with such for¬ 
bearance as might provoke.no new severities 
under a Protestant successor, would have 


* Barillon, 16th July. Fox, app. p. ciii. 


been content with a repeal of the penal laws, 
without insisting on an abrogation of the 
Test. The friends of Spain and Austria, 
with all the enemies of the French connec¬ 
tion, inclined strongly to a policy which, 
by preventing a rupture between the king 
and parliament, might enable, and perhaps 
dispose, him to espouse the cause of European 
independence. The sovereign pontiff him¬ 
self was of this party; and the'wary politi¬ 
cians of the court of Rome advised their 
English friends to calm and slow proceed¬ 
ings : though the Papal minister, with a cir¬ 
cumspection and reserve required by the 
combination of a theological with a diplo¬ 
matic character, abstained from taking any 
open part in the division, where it would 
have been hard for him to escape the impu¬ 
tation of being either a lukewarm Catholic 
or an imprudent counsellor. The Catholic 
lords who were ambitious of office, the Je¬ 
suits, and especially the king’s confessor, 
together with all the partisans of France, 
supported extreme counsels better suited to 
the temper of James, whose choice of politi¬ 
cal means was guided by a single maxim, — 
that violence (which he confounded with 
vigour) was the only safe policy for an 
English monarch. Their most specious argu¬ 
ment was the necessity of taking such de¬ 
cisive measures to strengthen the Catholics 
during the king’s life as would effectually 
secure them against the hostility of his 
successor.* 

The victory gained by this party over the 
moderate Catholics, as well as the Pro¬ 
testant Tories, was rendered more speedy 
and decisive by some intrigues of the Court 
which have not hitherto been fully known 
to historians. Mary of Este, the consort of 
James, was married at the age of fifteen, 
and had been educated in such gross igno¬ 
rance, that she never had heard of the name 
of England until it was made known to her 


* Barillon, 12th Nov. Fox, app. p. cxxxiv. 
Barillon, 31st Dec. Fox MSS. Burnet, vol. i. p. 662. 
The coincidence of Burnet with the more ample 
account of Barillon is an additional confirmation of 
the substantial accuracy of the honest prelate. 









302 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


on that occasion. She had been trained to 
a rigorous observance of all the practices of 
her religion, which sunk more deeply into 
her heart, and more constantly influenced 
her conduct, than was usual among Italian 
princesses. On her arrival in England, she 
betrayed a childish aversion to James, which 
was quickly converted into passionate fond¬ 
ness. But neither her attachment nor her 
beauty could fix the heart of that incon¬ 
stant prince, who reconciled a warm zeal for 
his religion with an habitual indulgence in 
those pleasures which it most forbids. Her 
life was embittered by the triumph of mis¬ 
tresses, and by the frequency of her own 
perilous and unfruitful pregnancies. Her 
most formidable rival, at the period of the 
accession, was Catherine Sedley, a woman of 
few personal attractions *, who inherited the 
wit and vivacity of her father, Sir Charles 
Sedley, which she unsparingly exercised on 
the priests and opinions of her royal lover. 
Her character was frank, her deportment 
bold, and her pleasantries more amusing 
than refined, f Soon after his accession, 
James was persuaded to relinquish his in¬ 
tercourse with her; and, though she retained 
her lodgings in the palace, he did not see 
her for several months. The connection was 
then secretly renewed; and, in the first 
fervour of a revived passion, the king offered 
to give her the title of Countess of Dorches¬ 
ter. She declined this invidious distinction, 
assuring him that, by provoking the anger 
of the queen and of the Catholics, it would 


* “ Elle a beaucoup d’esprit et de la vivacite, 
mais elle n’a plus aucune beaute, et est d’une ex¬ 
treme maigreur.” Barillon, 7th Feb. 1686. Fox, 
MSS. The insinuation of decline is somewhat sin¬ 
gular, as her father was then only forty-six. 

f These defects are probably magnified in the 
verses of Lord Dorset: — 

“ Dorinda’s sparkling wit and eyes 
United, cast too fierce a light, 

Which blazes high, but quickly dies, 

Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight. 

“ Love is a calmer, gentler joy; 

Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace: 

Her Cupid is a blackguard boy, 

That runs his link full in your face.” 


prove her ruin. He, however, insisted; and 
she yielded, upon condition that, if he was 
ever again prevailed upon to dissolve their 
connection, he should come to her to an¬ 
nounce his determination in person.* The 
title produced the effects she had foreseen. 
Mary, proud of her beauty, still enamoured 
of her husband, and full of religious horror 
at the vices of Mrs. Sedley, gave way to the 
most clamorous excesses of sorrow and anger 
at the promotion of her competitor. She 
spoke to the king with a violence for which 
she long afterwards reproached herself as a 
grievous fault. At one time she said to him, 
“ Is it possible that you are ready to sacri¬ 
fice a crown for your faith, and cannot dis¬ 
card a mistress for it P Will you for such a 
passion lose the merit of your sacrifices ? ” 
On another occasion she exclaimed, “ Give 
me my dowry, make her Queen of England, 
and let me never see her more. ” f Her 
transports of grief sometimes betrayed her 
to foreign ministers; and she neither ate 
nor spoke with the king at the public dinners 
of the Court.J The zeal of the queen for 
the Catholic religion, and the profane jests 
of Lady Dorchester against its doctrines and 
ministers, had rendered them the leaders of 
the Popish and Protestant parties at Court. 
The queen was supported by the Catholic 
clergy, who, with whatever indulgence their 
order had sometimes treated regal frailty, 
could not remain neuter in a contest be¬ 
tween an orthodox queen and an heretical 
mistress. These intrigues early mingled 
with the designs of the two ministers, who 
still appeared to have equal influence in the 
royal counsels. Lord Rochester, who had 
felt the decline of the king’s confidence from 
the day of Monmouth’s defeat, formed the 
project of supplanting Lord Sunderland, 
and of recovering his ascendant in public 
affairs through the favour of the mistress. 

* D’Adda to Cardinal Cybo, 1st Feb. D’Adda, 
MSS. 

t Memoires Historiques de la Reine D’Angle- 
terre, a MS. formerly in possession of the nuns of 
Chaillot, since in the Archives Generates de France. 

I Borirepaux, 7th Feb. 1686. MSS. — Evelyn, 
vol. i. p. 584. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 303 


Having lived in a court of mistresses, and 
maintained himself in office by compliance 
with them*, he thought it unlikely that 
wherever a favourite mistress existed she 
could fail to triumph over a queen. As the 
brother of the first Duchess of York, Mary 
did not regard him with cordiality: as the 
leader of the Church party, he was still more 
obnoxious to her. He and his lady were 
the principal counsellors of the mistress. 
They had secretly advised the king to confer 
on her the title of honour, —probably to 
excite the queen to such violence as might 
widen the rupture between her and the 
king ; and they declared so openly for her, 
as to abstain for several days, during the 
heat of the contest, from paying their re¬ 
spects to the queen; — a circumstance much 
remarked at a time when the custom was 
still observed, which had been introduced 
by the companionable humour of Charles, 
for the principal nobility to appear almost 
daily at Court. Sunderland, already con¬ 
nected with the Catholic favourites, was now 
more than ever compelled to make common 
cause with the queen. His great strength 
lay in the priests ; but he also called in the 
aid of Madame Mazarin, a beautiful woman, 
of weak understanding, but practised in 
intrigue, who had been sought in marriage 
by Charles II. during his exile, refused by 
him after his restoration, and who, on her 
arrival in England, ten years after, failed 
in the more humble attempt to become his 
mistress. 

The exhortations of the clergy, seconded 
by the beauty, the affection, and the tears of 
the queen, prevailed, after a severe struggle, 
over the ascendant of Lady Dorchester. 
James sent Lord Middleton, one of his 
secretaries of state, to desire that she would 
leave Whitehall, and go to Holland, to 
which country a yacht was in readiness to 
convey her. In a letter written by his 
own hand, he acknowledged that he vio¬ 
lated his promise ; but excused himself by 


* Carte, Life of Ormonde, vol. ii. p. 553. The 
old duke, high-minded as he was, commended the 
prudent accommodation of Rochester. 


saying, that he was conscious of not pos¬ 
sessing firmness enough to stand the test 
of an interview. She immediately retired 
to her house in St. James’s Square, and 
offered to go to Scotland or Ireland, or to 
her father’s estate in Kent; but protested 
against going to the Continent, where means 
might be found of immuring her in a con¬ 
vent for life. When threatened with being 
forcibly carried abroad, she appealed to the 
Great Charter against such an invasion of 
the liberty of the subject. The contest 
continued for some time; and the king’s 
advisers consented that she should go to 
Ireland, where Rochester’s brother was lord 
lieutenant. She warned the king of his 
danger, and freely told him, that, if he fol¬ 
lowed the advice of Catholic zealots, he 
would lose his crown. She represented her¬ 
self as the Protestant martyr ; and boasted, 
many years afterwards, that she had neither 
changed her religion, like Lord Sunderland, 
nor even agreed to be present at a disputation 
concerning its truth, like Lord Rochester.* 
After the complete victory of the queen, 
Rochester still preserved his place, and 
affected to represent himself as wholly un¬ 
concerned in the affair. Sunderland kept 
on decent terms with his rival, and dis¬ 
sembled his resentment at the abortive in¬ 
trigue for his removal. But the effects of 
it were decisive: it secured the power of 
Sunderland, rendered the ascendancy of the 
Catholic counsellors irresistible, gave them 
a stronger impulse towards violent measures, 
and struck a blow at the declining credit of 
Rochester, from which it never recovered. 
The removal of Halifax was the first step 
towards the new system of administration; 
the defeat of Rochester was the second. In 
the course of these contests the Bishop of 
London was removed from the Privy Coun¬ 
cil for his conduct in the House of Peers; 
several members of the House of Commons 
were dismissed from military as well as civil 
offices for their votes in parliament; and 
the place of lord president of the council 
was bestowed on Sunderland, to add a dig- 


* Halifax MSS. 











304 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


nity which was then thought wanting to his 
efficient office of secretary of state.* 

The Government now attempted to ob¬ 
tain, by the judgments of courts of law, that 
power of appointing Catholic officers which 
Parliament had refused to sanction. In¬ 
stances had occurred in which the Crown 
had dispensed with the penalties of certain 
laws ; and the recognition of this dispensing 
power, in the case of the Catholic officers, by 
the judges, appeared to be an easy mode of 
establishing the legality of their appoint¬ 
ments. The king was to grant to every 
Catholic officer a dispensation from the 
penalties of the statutes which, when ad¬ 
judged to be agreeable to law by a compe¬ 
tent tribunal, might supply the place of a 
repeal of the Test Act. To obtain the judg¬ 
ment, it was agreed that an action for the 
penalties should be collusively brought 
against one of these officers, which would 
afford an opportunity to the judges to de¬ 
termine that the dispensation was legal. 
The plan had been conceived at an earlier 
period, since (as has been mentioned) one 
of the reasons of the prorogation was an 
apprehension lest the terrors of Parliament 
might obtain from the judges an irrevocable 
opinion against the prerogative. No doubt 
seems to have been entertained of the com¬ 
pliance of magistrates, who owed their sta¬ 
tion to the king, who had recently incurred 
so much odium in his service, and who were 
removable at his pleasure.^ He thought it 
necessary, however, to ascertain their senti¬ 
ments. His expectations of their unanimity 
were disappointed. Sir John Jones, who 
had presided at the trial of Mrs. Gaunt; 
Montague, who had accompanied Jeffreys in 

* These intrigues are very fully related by Bon- 
repaux, a French minister of talent, at that time 
sent on a secret mission to London, and by Barillon 
in his ordinary communications to the king. The 
despatches of the French ministers afford a new 
proof of the good information of Burnet; but nei¬ 
ther he nor Reresby was aware of the connection of 
the intrigue with the triumph of Sunderland over 
Rochester. 

f “ Les juges declareront qu’il est la prerogative 
du roi de dispenser des peines portees par la loi.” 
Barillon, 3d Dec. Fox MSS. 


his circuit; Sir Job Charlton, a veteran 
royalist of approved zeal for the prerogative ; 
together with Neville, a baron of the Exche¬ 
quer, — declared their inability to comply 
with the desires of the king. Jones answered 
him with dignity worthy of more spotless 
conduct: — “I am not sorry to be removed. 
It is a relief to a man old and worn out as 
I am. But I am sorry that your Majesty 
should have expected a judgment from me 
which none but indigent, ignorant, or am¬ 
bitious men could give.” James, displeased 
at this freedom, answered, that he would 
find twelve judges of his opinion. “ Twelve 
judges, Sir,” replied Jones, “you may find ; 
but hardly twelve lawyers.” However 
justly these judges are to be condemned for 
their former disregard to justice and hu¬ 
manity, they deserve great commendation 
for having, on this critical occasion, retained 
their respect for law. James possessed 
that power of dismissing his judges which 
Louis XIY. did not enjoy; and he imme¬ 
diately exercised it by removing the un¬ 
complying magistrates, together with two 
others who held the same obnoxious prin¬ 
ciples. On the 21st of April, the day be¬ 
fore the courts were to assemble in West¬ 
minster for their ordinary term, the new 
judges were appointed; among whom, by a 
singular hazard, was a brother of the im¬ 
mortal John Milton, named Christopher, 
then in the seventieth year of his age, who 
is not known to have had any other preten¬ 
sion except that of having secretly conformed 
to the Church of Rome.* 

Sir Edward Hales, a Kentish gentleman 
who had been secretly converted to Popery 
at Oxford, by his tutor, Obadiah Walker, of 
University College (himself a celebrated 


* The conversion of Sir Christopher is, indeed, 
denied by Dodd, the very accurate historian of the 
English Catholics. Church History, vol. iii. p. 416. 
To the former concurrence of all contemporaries we 
may now add that of Evelyn (vol. i. p. 590.) and 
Narcissus Luttrell. “ All the judges,” says the 
latter, “ except Mr. Baron Milton, took the oaths 
in the Court of Chancery; but he, it is said, owns 
himself a Roman Catholic.” MSS. Diary, 8th 
June. 











REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 305 


convert), was selected to be the principal 
actor in the legal pageant for which the 
Bench had been thus prepared. He was 
publicly reconciled to the Church of Rome 
on the 11th of November, 1685*; he was 
appointed to the command of a regiment 
on the 28 th of the same month; and a dis¬ 
pensation passed the great seal on the 9th of 
January following, to enable him to hold his 
commission without either complying with 
the conditions or incurring the penalties of 
the statute. On the 16th of June, the case 
was tried in the Court of King’s Bench in 
the form of an action brought against him 
by Godden, his coachman, to recover the 
penalty granted by the statute to a common 
informer, for holding a military commission 
without having taken the oaths or the sacra¬ 
ment. The facts were admitted; the de¬ 
fence rested on the dispensation, and the 
case turned on its validity. Northey, the 
counsel for Godden, argued the case so 
faintly and coldly, that he scarcely dissembled 
his desire and expectation of a judgment 
against his pretended client. Sir Edward 
Herbert, the chief justice, a man of virtue, 
but without legal experience or knowledge, 
who had adopted the highest monarchical 
principles, had been one of the secret ad¬ 
visers of the exercise of the dispensing 
power: in his court he accordingly treated 
the validity of the dispensation as a point of 
no difficulty, but of such importance that it 
was proper for him to consult all the other 
judges respecting it. On the 21st of June, 
after only five days of seeming deliberation 
had been allowed to a question on the de¬ 
cision of which the liberties of the kingdom 
at that moment depended, he delivered the 
opinion of all the judges except Street — 
who finally dissented from his brethren — 
in favour of the dispensation. At a subse¬ 
quent period, indeed, two other judges, 
Powell and Atkyns, affirmed that they had 
dissented, and another, named Lutwych, de¬ 
clared that he had only assented with limita¬ 
tions.! But as these magistrates did not 


* Dodd, vol. iii. p. 451. 
f Commons’ Journals, 18th June, 1689. 


protest at the time against Herbert’s state¬ 
ment,—as they delayed their public dissent 
until it had become dishonourable, and per¬ 
haps unsafe, to have agreed with the ma¬ 
jority, no respect is due to their conduct, 
even if their assertion should be believed. 
Street, who gained great popularity by his 
strenuous resistance *, remained a judge 
during the whole reign of James; he was 
not admitted to the presence of King Wil¬ 
liam f, nor reappointed after the Revolution: 
—circumstances which, combined with some 
intimations unfavourable to his general cha¬ 
racter, suggest a painful suspicion, that the 
only judge who appeared faithful to his 
trust was, in truth, the basest of all, and 
that his dissent was prompted or tolerated 
by the Court, in order to give a false ap¬ 
pearance of independence to the acts of the 
degraded judges. 

In shortly stating the arguments which 
were employed on both sides of this question, 
it is not within the province of the histo¬ 
rian to imitate the laborious minuteness of a 
lawyer: nor is it consistent with the faith of 
history to ascribe reasons to the parties more 
refined and philosophical than could pro¬ 
bably have occurred to them, or influenced 
the judgment of those whom they addressed. 
The only specious argument of the advo¬ 
cates of prerogative arose from certain cases 
in which the dispensing power had been ex¬ 
ercised by the crown and apparently sanc¬ 
tioned by courts of justice. The case chiefly 
relied on was a dispensation from the an¬ 
cient laws respecting the annual nomination 
of sheriffs; the last of which, passed in the 
reign of Henry VI. j, subjected sheriffs, who 
continued in office longer than a year, to 
certain penalties, and declared all patents of 
a contrary tenor, even though they should 
contain an express dispensation, to be void. 
Henry VII., in defiance of this statute, had 


* “ Mr. Justice Street has lately married a wife, 
with a good fortune, since his opinion on the dis¬ 
pensing power.” Narcissus Luttrell, Oct. 1686. 

f “The Prince of Orange refused to see Mr. 
Justice Street. Lord Coote said he was a very ill 
man.” Clarendon, Diary, 27th Dec. 1688. 


X 









306 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


granted a patent to the Earl of Northum¬ 
berland to be sheriff of that county for life; 
and the judges in the second year of his 
reign declared that the earl’s appointment 
was valid. It has been doubted whether 
there was any such determination in that 
case; and it has been urged, with great ap¬ 
pearance of reason, that, if made, it pro¬ 
ceeded on some exceptions in the statute, 
and not on the unreasonable doctrine, that 
an act of parliament, to which the king was 
a party, could not restrain his prerogative. 
These are, however, considerations which 
are rather important to the character of 
those ancient judges than to the authority 
of the precedent. If they did determine 
that the king had a right to dispense with a 
statute, which had by express words de¬ 
prived him of such a right, so egregiously 
absurd a judgment, probably proceeding 
from base subserviency, was more fit to be 
considered as a warning, than as a precedent, 
by the judges of succeeding times. Two or 
three subsequent cases were cited in aid of 
this early precedent. But they either re¬ 
lated to the remission of penalties in offences 
against the revenue, which stood on a pe¬ 
culiar ground, or they were founded on the 
supposed authority of the first case, and 
must fall with that unreasonable determina¬ 
tion. Neither the unguarded expressions of 
Sir Edward Coke, nor the admissions in¬ 
cidentally made by Serjeant Glanville, in 
the debates on the Petition of Right, on a 
point not material to his argument, could 
deserve to be seriously discussed as autho¬ 
rities on so momentous a question. Had 
the precedents been more numerous, and less 
unreasonable,—had the opinions been more 
deliberate, and more uniform, they never 
could be allowed to decide such a case. 
Though the constitution of England had 
been from the earliest times founded on the 
principles of civil and political liberty, the 
practice of the government, and even the 
administration of the law, had often departed 
very widely from these sacred principles. In 
the best times, and under the most regular 
governments, we find practices to prevail 
which cannot be reconciled with the prin¬ 


ciples of a free constitution. During the 
dark and tumultuous periods of English 
history, kings had been allowed to do many 
acts, which, if they were drawn into pre¬ 
cedents, would be subversive of public li¬ 
berty. It is by an appeal to such precedents, 
that the claim to dangerous prerogatives has 
been usually justified. The partisans of 
Charles I. could not deny that the Great 
Charter had forbidden arbitrary imprison¬ 
ment, and levy of money without the con¬ 
sent of parliament. But in the famous cases 
of imprisonment by the personal command 
of the king, and of levying a revenue by 
writs of ship-money, they thought that they 
had discovered a means, without denying 
either of these principles, of universally 
superseding their application. Neither in 
these great cases, nor in the equally me¬ 
morable instance of the dispensing power, 
were the precedents such as justified the 
conclusion. If law could ever be allowed to 
destroy liberty, it would at least be neces¬ 
sary that it should be sanctioned by clear, 
frequent, and weighty determinations, by 
general concurrence of opinion after free 
and full discussion, and by the long usage of 
good times.' But, as in all doubtful cases 
relating to the construction of the most un¬ 
important statute, we consider its spirit and 
object; so, when the like questions arise on 
the most important part of law, called the 
constitution, we must try obscure and con¬ 
tradictory usage by constitutional principles, 
instead of sacrificing these principles to such 
usage. The advocates of prerogative, indeed, 
betrayed a consciousness that they were 
bound to reconcile their precedents with 
reason; for they, too, appealed to principles 
which they called “ constitutional.” A dis¬ 
pensing power, they said, must exist some¬ 
where, to obviate the inconvenience and 
oppression which might arise from the in¬ 
fallible operation of law; and where can it 
exist but in the crown, which exercises the 
analogous power of pardon? It was an¬ 
swered, that the difficulty never can exist 
in the English constitution, where all ne¬ 
cessary or convenient powers may be either 
exercised or conferred by the supreme autho- 






REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 307 


nty of parliament. The judgment in favour 
of the dispensing power was finally rested 
by the judges on still more general pro¬ 
positions, which, if they had any meaning, 
were far more alarming than the judgment 
itself. They declared, that “ the kings of 
England are sovereign princes; that the 
laws of England are the king’s laws; that, 
therefore, it is an inseparable prerogative in 
the King of England to dispense with penal 
laws in particular cases, and on particular 
necessary reasons, of which reasons and ne¬ 
cessities he is the sole judge; that this is 
not a trust vested in the king, but the an¬ 
cient remains of the sovereign power of the 
kings of England, which never yet was 
taken from them, nor can be.” * These pro¬ 
positions had either no meaning pertinent to 
the case, or they led to the establishment of 
absolute monarchy. The laws were, indeed, 
said to be the king’s, inasmuch as he was 
the chief and representative of the common¬ 
wealth, — as they were contradistinguished 
from those of any other state, — and as he 
had a principal part in their enactment, and 
the whole trust of their execution. These 
expressions were justifiable and innocent, as 
long as they were employed to denote that 
decorum and courtesy which are due to the 
regal magistracy: but if they are considered 
in any other light, they proved much more 
than the j udges dared to avow. If the king 
might dispense with the laws, because they 
were his laws, he might for the same reason 
suspend, repeal, or enact them. The appli¬ 
cation of these dangerous principles to the 
Test Act was attended with the peculiar 
absurdity of attributing to the king a power 
to dispense with provisions of a law which 
had been framed for the avowed and sole 
purpose of limiting his authority. The law 
had not hitherto disabled a Catholic from 
filling the throne. As soon, therefore,, as 
the next person in succession to the crown 
was discovered to be a Catholic, it was 
deemed essential to the safety of the esta¬ 
blished religion to take away from the crown 
the means of being served by Catholic 


* State Trials, vol. xi. p. 1199. 


ministers. The Test Act was passed to 
prevent a Catholic successor from availing 
himself of the aid of a party, whose outward 
badge was adherence to the Roman Catholic 
religion, and who were seconded by powerful 
allies in other parts of Europe, in over¬ 
throwing the constitution, the Protestant 
Church, and at last even the liberty of Pro¬ 
testants to perform their worship and profess 
their faith. To ascribe to that very Catholic 
successor the right of dispensing with all 
the securities provided against such dangers 
arising from himself, was to impute the most 
extravagant absurdity to the laws. It might 
be perfectly consistent with the principle of 
the Test Act, which was intended to provide 
against temporary dangers, to propose its 
repeal under a Protestant prince: but it is 
altogether impossible that its framers could 
have considered a power of dispensing with 
its conditions as being vested in the Catholic 
successor whom it was meant to bind. Had 
these objections been weaker, the means 
employed by the king to obtain a judgment 
in his favour rendered the whole of this 
judicial proceeding a gross fraud, in which 
judges professing impartiality had been 
named by one of the parties to a question 
before them, after he had previously ascer¬ 
tained their partiality to him, and effectually 
secured it by the example of the removal of 
more independent ones. The character of 
Sir Edward Herbert makes it painful to 
disbelieve his assertion, that he was unac¬ 
quainted with these undue practices; but 
the notoriety of the facts seems to render it 
quite incredible. In the same defence of 
his conduct which contains this assertion, 
there is another unfortunate departure from 
fairness. He rests his defence entirely on 
precedents, and studiously keeps o^t of view 
the dangerous principles which he had laid 
down from the bench as the foundation of 
his judgment. Public and solemn declara¬ 
tions, which ought to be the most sincere, 
are, unhappily, among the most disingenuous 
of human professions. This circumstance, 
which so much weakens the bonds of faith 
between men, is not so much to be imputed 
to any peculiar depravity in those who con- 















308 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


duct public affairs, as to the circumstances 
in which official declarations are usually 
made. They are generally resorted, to in 
times of difficulty, if not of danger, and are 
often sure of being countenanced for the 
time by a numerous body of adherents. 
Public advantage covers falsehood with a 
more decent disguise than mere private in¬ 
terest can supply; and the vagueness of 
official language always affords the utmost 
facilities for reserve and equivocation. But 
these considerations, though they may, in 
some small degree, extenuate the disinge¬ 
nuousness of politicians, must, in the same 
proportion, lessen the credit which is due to 
their affirmations.* 

After this determination, the judges on 
their circuit were not received with the ac¬ 
customed honours. - } - Agreeably to the me¬ 
morable observations of Lord Clarendon in 
the case of ship-money, they brought dis¬ 
grace upon themselves, and weakness upon 
the whole government, by that base com¬ 
pliance which was intended to arm the mo¬ 
narch with undue and irresistible strength. 
The people of England, peculiarly distin¬ 
guished by that reverence for the law, and 
its upright ministers, which is inspired by 
the love of liberty, have always felt the most 
cruel disappointment, and manifested the 
warmest indignation, at seeing the judges 
converted into instruments of oppression or 
usurpation. These proceedings were viewed 
in a very different light by the ministers of 
absolute princes. D’Adda only informed the 
Papal Court that the king had removed from 
office some contumacious judges, who had 
refused to conform to justice and reason on 
the subject of the king's dispensing power J ; 
and so completely was the spirit of France 
then subdued, that Barillon, the son of the 


* The arguments on this question are contained 
in The tracts of Sir Edward Herbert, Sir Robert 
Atkyns, and Mr. Attwood, published after the Re¬ 
volution. State Trials, vol. xi. p. 1200. That of 
Attwood is the most distinguished for acuteness 
and research. Sir Edward Herbert’s is feebly rea¬ 
soned, though elegantly written. 

f Narcissus Luttrell, 10th August, 1686. 

J D’Adda, 3d May. MS. 


president of the parliament of Paris — the 
native of a country where the independence 
of the great tribunals had survived every 
other remnant of ancient liberty — describes 
the removal of judges for their legal opinions 
as coolly as if he were speaking of the dis¬ 
missal of an exciseman.* 

The king having, by the decision of the 
judges, obtained the power of placing the 
military and civil authority in the hands of 
his own devoted adherents, now resolved to 
exercise that power, by nominating Catholics 
to stations of high trust, and to reduce the 
Church of England to implicit obedience by 
virtue of his ecclesiastical supremacy. Both 
these measures were agreed to at Hampton 
Court on the 4th of July, at which result he 
showed the utmost complacency, f It is 
necessary to give some explanation of the 
nature of the second, which formed one of 
the most effectual and formidable measures 
of his reign. 

When Henry VIII. was declared at the 
Reformation to be the supreme head of the 
Church of England, no attempt was made to 
define, with any tolerable precision, the au¬ 
thority to be exercised by him in that cha¬ 
racter. The object of the lawgiver was to 
shake off the authority of the see of Rome, 
and to make effectual provision that all 
ecclesiastical power and jurisdiction should 
be administered, like every other part of the 
public justice of the kingdom, in the name 
and by the authority of the king. That 
object scarcely required more than a de¬ 
claration that the realm was as independent 
of foreign power in matters relating to the 
Church as in any other branch of its legis¬ 
lation. | That simple principle is distinctly 
intimated in several of the statutes passed 
on that occasion, though not consistently 
pursued in any of them. The true princi¬ 
ples of ecclesiastical polity were then no¬ 
where acknowledged. The Court of Rome 
was far from admitting the self-evident truth, 


* Barillon, 29th April. Fox MSS. 
f D’Adda, 20th July. MS. 
t 24 Hen. VIII. c. 12. 25 Hen. VIII. c. 21. See 
especially the preambles to these two statutes. 








REVIEW OF TIIE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 309 


that all coercive and penal jurisdiction exer¬ 
cised by the clergy was, in its nature, a 
branch of the civil power delegated to them 
by the State, and that the Church, as such, 
could exercise only that influence (meta¬ 
phorically called “authority”) over the un¬ 
derstanding and conscience which depended 
on the spontaneous submission of its mem¬ 
bers. The Protestant sects were not willing 
to submit their pretensioiis to the control 
of the magistrate; and even the Reformed 
Church of England, though the creature of 
statute, showed, at various times, a disposi¬ 
tion to claim some rights under a higher 
title. All religious communities were at 
that time alike intolerant, and there was, 
perhaps, no man in Europe who dared to 
think that the State neither possessed, nor 
could delegate, nor could recognise as in¬ 
herent in another body, any authority over 
religious opinions. Neither was any dis¬ 
tinction made, in the laws to which we have 
adverted, between the ecclesiastical authority 
which the king might separately exercise 
and that which required the concurrence of 
parliament. From ignorance, inattention, 
and timidity, in regard to these important 
parts of the subject, arose the greater part 
of the obscurity which still hangs over the 
limits of the king’s ecclesiastical prerogative 
and the means of carrying it into execution. 
The statute of the first of Elizabeth, which 
established the Protestant Church of Eng¬ 
land, enacted that the crown should have 
power, by virtue of that act, to exercise its 
supremacy, by Commissioners for Ecclesias¬ 
tical Causes, nominated by the sovereign, 
and vested with uncertain and questionable, 
but very dangerous powers, for the execution 
of a prerogative of which neither law nor 
experience had defined the limits. Under 
the reigns of James and Charles, this court 
had become the auxiliary and rival of the 
Star Chamber; and its abolition was one of 
the wisest of those measures of reformation 
by which the Parliament of 1641 had sig¬ 
nalised the first and happiest period of their 
proceedings.* At the Restoration, when the 

* 17 Car. I. c. 11. 


Church of England was re-established, a 
part of the Act for the Abolition of the Court 
of High Commission, taking away coercive 
power from all ecclesiastical judges and per¬ 
sons, was repealed; but the clauses for the 
abolition of the obnoxious court, and for 
prohibiting the erection of any similar court, 
were expressly reaffirmed.* Such was the 
state of the law on this subject when James 
conceived the design of employing his au¬ 
thority as head of the Church of England, 
as a means of subjecting that Church to his 
pleasure, if not of finally destroying it. It 
is hard to conceive how he could reconcile 
to his religion the exercise of supremacy in 
a heretical sect, and thus sanction by his 
example the usurpations of the Tudors on 
the rights of the Catholic Church. It is 
equally difficult to conceive how he recon¬ 
ciled to his morality the employment, for 
the destruction of a community, of a power 
with which he was intrusted by that com¬ 
munity for its preservation. But the fatal 
error of believing it to be lawful to use 
bad means for good ends, was not peculiar 
to James, nor to the zealots of his com¬ 
munion. He, indeed, considered the eccle¬ 
siastical supremacy as placed in his hands 
by Providence to enable him to betray the 
Protestant establishment. “ God,” said he 
toBarillon, “has permitted that all the laws 
made to establish Protestantism now serve 
as a foundation for my measures to re¬ 
establish true religion, and give me a right 
to exercise a more extensive power than 
other Catholic princes possess in the eccle¬ 
siastical affairs of their dominions.” f He 
found legal advisers ready with paltry expe¬ 
dients for evading the two statutes of 1641 
and 1660, under the futile pretext that they 
forbade only a court vested with such powers 
of corporal punishment as had been exer¬ 
cised by the old Court of High Commission; 
and, in conformity to their pernicious coun¬ 
sel, he issued, in July, a commission to cer¬ 
tain ministers, prelates, and judges, to act 
as a Court of Commissioners in Ecclesiastical 


* 13 Car. II. c. 12. 

f Barillon, 22d July, 1686. Fox MSS. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


310 

Causes. The first purpose of this court was 
to enforce directions to preachers, issued by 
the king, enjoining them to abstain from 
preaching on controverted questions. It 
must be owned that an enemy of the Pro¬ 
testant religion, placed at the head of the 
Church, could not adopt a more perfidious 
measure. He well knew that the Protestant 
clergy alone could consider his orders as of 
any authority; those of his own persuasion, 
totally exempt from his supremacy, would 
pursue their course, secure of protection 
from him against the dangers of penal law. 
The Protestant clergy were forbidden by 
their enemy to maintain their religion by 
argument, when they justly regarded it as 
being in the greatest danger: they disre¬ 
garded the injunction, and carried on the 
controversy against Popery with equal abi¬ 
lity and success. 

Among many others, Sharpe, dean of 
Norwich, had distinguished himself; and he 
was selected for punishment, on pretence 
that he had aggravated his disobedience by 
intemperate language, and by having spoken 
contemptuously of the understanding of all 
who could be seduced by the arguments for 
Popery, including of necessity the king him¬ 
self, — as if it were possible for a man of 
sincerity to speak on subjects of the deepest 
importance without a correspondent zeal 
and warmth. The mode of proceeding to 
punishment was altogether summary and ar¬ 
bitrary. Lord Sunderland communicated to 
the Bishop of London the king’s commands 
to suspend Sharpe from preaching. The 
bishop answered that he could proceed only 
| in a judicial manner—that he must hear 
j Sharpe in his defence before such a sus- 
; pension, but that Sharpe was ready to give 
I every proof of deference to the king. The 
; Court, incensed at the parliamentary conduct 
of the bishop, saw, with great delight, that 
he had given them an opportunity to humble 
and mortify him. Sunderland boasted to the 
Papal minister that the case of that bishop 
would be a great example.* * * * * § He was sum¬ 


* “ II Re, sommaraente intento a levare gli osta- 
coli, che possono irapedire l’avanzamento della re- 


moned before the Ecclesiastical Commission, 
and required to answer why he had not 
obeyed his majesty’s commands to suspend 
Sharpe for seditious preaching.* The bishop 
conducted himself with considerable address. 
After several adjournments he tendered a 
plea to the jurisdiction, founded on the ille¬ 
gality of their commission; and he was heard 
by his counsel in vindication of his refusal 
to suspend an accused clergyman until he 
had been heard in his own defence. The 
king took a warm interest in the proceedings, 
and openly showed his joy at being in a 
condition to strike bold strokes of authority. 
He received congratulations on that subject 
with visible pleasure, and assured the French 
minister that the same vigorous system should 
be inflexibly pursued.f He did not conceal 
his resolution to remove any of the commis¬ 
sioners who should not do “ his duty.” j The 
Princess of Orange interceded in vain with 
the king for her preceptor, Compton. The 
influence of the Church party was also 
strenuously exerted for that prelate. They 
were not, indeed, aided by the primate 
Sancroft, who, instead of either attending 
as a commissioner to support the Bishop of 
London, or openly protesting against the 
illegality of the court, petitioned for and 
obtained from the king leave to be excused 
from attendance on the ground of age and 
infirmities. § By this irresolute and equi¬ 
vocal conduct, the archbishop deserted the 

ligione Cattoliea, a trovato il mezzo piii atto a 
mortificare il maltalento di Vescovo di Londra. 
Sari un gran buono e un gran esempio, come mi ha 
detto Milord Sunderland.” D’Adda, 12th July. 
MSS. 

* State Trials, vol. xi. p. 1158. 

f Barillon, 29th July. Fox MSS. 

j Barillon, 1st August. Fox MSS. 

§ This petition (in the appendix to Clarendon’s 
Diary) is without a date; but it is a formal one, 
which seems to imply a regular summons. No 
such summons could have issued before the 14th 
July, on which day Evelyn, as one of the Commis¬ 
sioners of the Privy Seal, affixed it to the Eccle¬ 
siastical Commission. Sancroft’s ambiguous peti¬ 
tion was therefore subsequent to his knowledge of 
Compton’s danger, so that the excuses of Dr. 
D’Oylev (Life of Sancroft, vol.i. p. 225.) cannot be 
allowed. 

















REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 311 


Church in a moment of danger, and yet in¬ 
curred the displeasure of the king. Lord 
Rochester resisted the suspension, and was 
supported by Sprat, bishop of Rochester, 
and Sir Edward Herbert. Even Jeffreys, 
for the first time, inclined towards the milder 
opinion, for neither his dissolute life nor his 
judicial cruelty, however much at variance 
with the principles of religion, were, it seems, 
incompatible with that fidelity to the Church 
which on this and some subsequent occasions 
prevailed over his zeal for prerogative. A 
majority of the commissioners were for some 
time favourable to Compton; Sunderland, 
and Crew, bishop of Durham, were the only 
members of the commission who seconded 
the projects of the king.* The presence or 
protest of the primate might have produced 
the most decisive effects. Sunderland re¬ 
presented the authority of government as 
interested in the judgment, which, if it were 
not rigorous, would secure a triumph to a 
disobedient prelate, who had openly espoused 
the cause of faction. Rochester at length 
yielded, in the presence of the Icing, to what¬ 
ever his majesty might determine, giving it 
to be understood that he acted against his 
own ponviction.f His followers made no 
longer any stand, after seeing the leader of 
their party, and the lord high treasurer of 
England, set the example of sacrificing his 
opinion as a judge, in favour of lenity, to the 
pleasure of the king; and the court finally 
pronounced sentence of suspension on the 
bishop against the declared opinion of three 
fourths of its members. 

The attempts of James to bestow tolera¬ 
tion on his Catholic subjects would doubt¬ 
less, in themselves, deserve high commenda¬ 
tion, if we could consider them apart from 
the intentions which they manifested, and 
from the laws of which they were a con- 


* “ L’Archevesque de Canterbury s’etoit excuse 
de se trouver a la Commission Ecclesiastique sur sa 
mauvaise sante et son grand age. On a pris aussi ce 
pretexte pour l’exclure de la se'ance de conseil.” 
Barillon, 21st Oct. Fox MSS. 

f Barillon, 16th Sept, and 23d Sept. Fox MSS.; 
a full and apparently accurate account of these 
divisions among the commissioners. 


tinued breach. But zealous Protestants, in 
the peculiar circumstances of the time, were, 
with reason, disposed to regard them as 
measures of hostility against their religion; 
and some of them must always be consi¬ 
dered as daring or ostentatious manifesta¬ 
tions of a determined purpose to exalt pre¬ 
rogative above law. A few days after the 
resolution of the Council for the admission 
of Catholics to high civil trust, the first step 
was made to its execution by the appoint¬ 
ment of the Lords Powys, Arundel, Bellasis, 
and Dover, to be privy councillors. In a 
short time afterwards the same honour was 
conferred on Talbot, who was created Earl 
of Tyrconnel, and destined to be the Catholic 
lord lieutenant of Ireland. Sheffield, earl 
of Mulgrave, a man who professed indiffer¬ 
ence in religion, but who acquiesced in all 
the worst measures of this reign, was ap- j 
pointed a member of the Ecclesiastical 
Commission.* Cartwright, dean of Ripon, 
whose talents were disgraced by peculiarly 
infamous vices, was raised to the vacant 
bishopric of Chester, in spite of the recom¬ 
mendation of Sancroft, who, when consulted 
by James, proposed Jeffreys, the chancel- 
lor’s brother, for that see.f But the merit 
of Cartwright, which prevailed even over 
that connection, consisted in having preached 
a sermon in which he inculcated the courtly 
doctrine, that the promises of kings were 
declarations of a favourable intention, not 
to be considered as morally binding. A re¬ 
solution was taken to employ Catholic mini- j 
sters at the two important stations of Paris J 
and the Hague;—“it being,” said James 
to Barillon, “almost impossible to find an 
English Protestant who had not too great a 
consideration for the Prince of Orange.” J 
White, an Irish Catholic of considerable 
ability, who had received the foreign title 
of Marquis d’Abbeville, was sent to the 
Hague, partly, perhaps, with a view to mor- 

* D’Adda, in his letter 1st Nov., represents Mul¬ 
grave as favourable to the Catholics. MS. 

f D’Oyley, Life of Sancroft, vol. i. p. 235., where 
the archbishop’s letter to the king (dated 29th 
July, 1685) is printed. 

J Barillon, 22d July. Fox MSS. 



















312 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


tify the Prince of Orange. It was foreseen 
that the known character of this adventurer 
would induce the prince to make attempts 
to gain him; but Barillon advised his master 
to make liberal presents to the new minister, 
who would prefer the bribes of Louis, be¬ 
cause the views of that monarch agreed with 
those of his own sovereign and the interests 
of the Catholic religion.* * * * § James even pro¬ 
posed to the Prince of Orange to appoint a 
Catholic nobleman of Ireland, Lord Carling- 
ford, to the command of the British regi¬ 
ments ; — a proposition which, if accepted, 
would embroil that prince with all his 
friends in England, and if rejected, as it 
must have been known that it would be, 
gave the king a new pretext for displeasure, 
to be avowed at a convenient season. 

But no part of the foreign policy of the 
king is so much connected with our present 
subject as the renewal of that open inter¬ 
course with the see of Rome which was 
prohibited by the unrepealed laws passed in 
the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. 
D’Adda had arrived in England before the 
meeting of Parliament, as the minister of 
the pope, but appeared at Court, at first, 
only as a private gentleman. In a short 
time James informed him that he might 
assume the public character of his Holiness’s 
minister, with the privilege of a chapel in his 
house, and the other honours and immuni¬ 
ties of that character, without going through 
the formalities of a public audience. The 
assumption of this character James repre¬ 
sented as the more proper, because he was 
about to send a solemn embassy to Rome as 
his Holiness’s most obedient son.f D’Adda 


* “M. le Prince d’Change fera ce qu’il pourra 
pour le gagner; mais je suis persuade qu’il aimera 
mieux etre dans les interets de votre majestd, 
sachant bien qu’ils sont conformes a ceux du Roi 
son maitre, et que c’est l’avantage de la religion 
Catholique.” Four thousand livres, which Barillon 
calculates as then equivalent to three hundred 
pounds sterling, were given to D’Abbeville in 
London. Two thousand more were to be advanced 
to him at the Hague. .Barillon, 2d Sept. Fox 
MSS. 

t D’Adda, 14tli Dec. 1G85. MS. 


professed great admiration for the pious 
zeal and filial obedience of the king, and for 
his determination, as far as possible, to re¬ 
store religion to her ancient splendour *; 
but he dreaded the precipitate measures to 
which James was prompted by his own dis¬ 
position and by the party of zealots who 
surrounded him. He did not assume the 
public character till two months afterwards, 
when he received instructions to that effect 
from Rome. Hitherto the king had co¬ 
loured his interchange of ministers with the 
Roman Court under the plausible pretext 
of maintaining diplomatic intercourse with 
the government of the Ecclesiastical State 
as much as with the other princes of Europe. 
But his zeal soon became impatient of this 
slight disguise. In a few days after D’Adda 
had announced his intention to assume the 
public character of a minister, Sunderland 
came to him to convey his Majesty’s desire 
that he might take the title of Nuncio, which 
would, in a more formal and solemn manner, 
distinguish him from other ministers as the 
representative of the Apostolic See. D’Adda 
was surprised at this rash proposal about 
which the Court of Rome long hesitated, 
from aversion to the foreign policy of Jantes, 
from a wish to moderate rather than encou¬ 
rage the precipitation of his domestic coun¬ 
sels, and from apprehension of the insults 
which might be offered to the Holy See, in 
the sacred person of its Nuncio, by the tur¬ 
bulent and heretical populace of London. 

The king had sent the Earl of Castle- 
maine, the husband of the Duchess of Cleve¬ 
land, as his ambassador to Rome. “ It 
seemed singular,” said Barillon, “ that he 
should have chosen for such a mission a man 
so little known on his own account, and too 
well known on that of his wife.”| The 
ambassador, who had been a polemical 
writer in defence of the Catholics §, and who 
was almost the only innocent man acquitted 


* D’Adda, 81st Dec. 

f Ibid. 22d Feb. 1G86. “Io resto alquanto 
sorpreso da questa ambasciata.” 

X Barillon, 29th Oct. 1685. Fox. app. p. exxii. 

§ Dodd, vol. iii. p. 450. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 313 


on the prosecutions for the Popish Plot, 
seems to have listened more to zeal and re¬ 
sentment than to discretion in the conduct 
of his delicate negotiation. He probably 
expected to find nothing but religious zeal 
prevalent in the Papal councils: but Inno¬ 
cent XI. was influenced by his character as 
a temporal sovereign. He considered James 
not solely as an obedient son of the Church, 
but rather as the devoted or subservient ally 
of Louis XIV. As prince of the Roman 
state, he resented the outrages offered to 
him by that monarch, and partook with all 
other states the dread justly inspired by his 
ambition and his power. Even as head 
of the Church, the merits of Louis as the 
persecutor of the Protestants* * * * § did not, in 
the eye of Innocent, atone for his encou¬ 
raging the Gallican Church in their recent 
resistance to the unlimited authority of the 
Roman pontiff. These discordant feelings 
and embroiled interests, which it would have 
required the utmost address and temper to 
reconcile, were treated by Castlemaine with 
the rude hand of an inexperienced zealot. 
Hoping, probably, to be received with open 
arms as the forerunner of the reconciliation 
of a great kingdom, he was displeased at 
the reserve and coldness with which the 
pontiff treated him; and instead of patiently 
labouring to overcome obstacles which he 
ought to have foreseen, he resented them 
with a violence more than commonly foreign 
to the decorum of the Papal Court. He was 
instructed to solicit a cardinal’s hat for 
Prince Rinaldo of Este, the queen’s bro¬ 
ther ; — a moderate suit, the consent to 
which was for a considerable time retarded 
by an apprehension of strengthening the 
French interest in the Sacred College. The 
second request was that the pope would 
confer a titular bishopric f on Edward 

* It appears, by the copy of a letter in my pos¬ 
session from Don Pedro Ronquillo, the Spanish 
ambassador in London, to Don Francesco Bernado 
de Quixos (dated 5th April, 1686), that Innocent, 
though he publicly applauded the zeal of Louis, 
did not in truth approve the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes. 

f “ In partibus infidelium,” as it is called. Ba- 
rillon, 27th June. Fox MSS. 


Petre, an English Jesuit of noble family, 
who, though not formally the king’s con¬ 
fessor*, had more influence on his mind than 
any other ecclesiastic. This honour was 
desired in order to qualify this gentleman 
for performing with more dignity the duties 
of dean of the Chapel Royal. Innocent 
declined, on the ground that the Jesuits 
were prohibited by their institution from 
accepting bishoprics, and that he would 
sooner make a Jesuit a cardinal than a 
bishop. But as the popes had often dis¬ 
pensed with this prohibition, Petre himself 
rightly conjectured that the ascendant of 
the Austrian party at Rome — who looked 
on him with an evil eye as a partisan of 
France —was the true cause of the refusal.j* 
The king afterwards solicited for his fa¬ 
vourite the higher dignity of cardinal; but 
he was finally refused, though with profuse 
civility j, from the same motive, but under 
the pretence that there had been no Jesuit 
cardinal since Bellarmine, the great contro¬ 
versialist of the Roman Catholic Church.§ 
Besides these personal objects, Castlemaine 
laboured to reconcile the pope to Louis 
XIV., and to procure the interposition of 
Innocent for the preservation of the general 
peace. But of these objects, specious as 
they were, the attainment of the first would 
strengthen France, and that of the second 
imported a general acquiescence in her un¬ 
just aggrandisement. Even the triumph of 
monarchy and Popery in England, together 
with the projects already entertained for the 
suppression of the “ Northern heresy,” as 
the Reformation was then called, and for 
the conquest of Holland, which was consi¬ 
dered as a nest of heretics, could not fail to 
alarm the most zealous of those Catholic 
powers who dreaded the power of Louis, 
and who were averse to strengthen his 
allies. It was impossible that intelligence 
of such suggestions at Rome should not im- 


* This office was held by a learned Jesuit, named 
Warner. Dodd, vol. iii. p. 491. 

f Barillon, 20th Dec. 1686. Fox MSS. 

j Dodd, vol. iii. p. 511., where the official cor¬ 
respondence in 1687 is published. 

§ D’Adda, 8th August, 1687. MS. 

















314 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


mediately reach the courts of Vienna and 
Madrid, or should not be communicated by 
them to the Prince of Orange. Castlemaine 
suffered himself to be engaged in contests 
for precedency with the Spanish minister, 
which served, and were perhaps intended, 
to embroil him more deeply with the pope. 
James at first resented the refusal to pro¬ 
mote Petre* * * § *, and for a time seemed to 
espouse the quarrel of his ambassador. 
D’Adda was obliged, by his station, and by 
his intercourse with Lord Sunderland, to 
keep up friendly appearances with Petre; 
but Barillon easily discovered that the Papal 
minister disliked that Jesuit and his order, 
whom he considered as devoted to France.j 
The pope instructed his minister to com¬ 
plain of the conduct of Castlemaine, as very 
ill-becoming the representative of so pious 
and so prudent a king; and D’Adda made 
the representation to James at a private 
audience where the queen and Lord Sun¬ 
derland were present. That zealous prin¬ 
cess, with more fervour than dignity, often 
interrupted his narrative by exclamations of 
horror at the liberty with which a Catholic 
minister had spoken to the successor of St. 
Peter. Lord Sunderland said to him, “ The 
king will do whatever you please.” James 
professed the most unbounded devotion to 
the Holy See, and assured D’Adda that he 
would write a letter to his Holiness, to ex¬ 
press his regret for the unbecoming conduct 
of his ambassador.]; When this submission 
was made, Innocent formally forgave Castle¬ 
maine for his indiscreet zeal in promoting 
the wishes of his sovereign §; and James 
publicly announced the admission of his am¬ 
bassador at Rome into the Privy Council, 
both to console the unfortunate minister, 
and to show the more how much he set at 
defiance the laws which forbade both the 
embassy and the preferment. || 

* Barillon, 2d Dec. 1686. Fox MSS. 

t Barillon, 17th June, 1686,— 10th March, 1687. 
Fox MSS. 

X D’Adda, 30th May, —6th June, 1687. MS. 

§ Letter of Innocent to James, 16th Aug. Dodd, 
vol. iii. p. 511. 

|| London Gazette, 26th Sept. 


CHAPTER III. 

State of the Army. — Attempts of the King to 
convert it. — The Princess Anne. — Dryden.— 
Lord Middleton and others. — Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes.—Attempt to convert Rochester. 

— Conduct of the Queen.—Religious Conference. 

— Failure of the Attempt. — His Dismissal. 

During the summer of 1686, the king had 
assembled a body of 15,000 troops, who were 
encamped on Hounslow Heath;—a spectacle 
new to the people of England, who, though 
full of martial spirit, have never regarded 
with favour the separate profession of arms.* 
He viewed this encampment w T ith a com¬ 
placency natural to princes, and he expressed 
his feelings to the Prince of Orange in a 
tone of no friendly boast, f He caressed the 
officers, and he openly declared that he should 
keep none but those on whom he could 
rely.]: A Catholic chapel was opened in 
the camp, and missionaries were distributed 
among the soldiers. The numbers of the 
army rendered it an object of very serious 
consideration. Supposing them to be only 
32,000 in England and Scotland alone, they 
were twice as many as were kept up in 
Great Britain in the year 1792, when the 
population of the island had certainly more 
than doubled. As this force was kept on 
foot without the consent of parliament, there 


* The army, on the 1st of January, 1685, 
amounted to 19,978. Accounts in the War Office. 
The number of the army in Great Britain in 1824 
is 22,019 (Army Estimates), the population being 
14,391,681 (Population Returns); which gives a 
proportion of nearly one out of every 654 persons, 
or of one soldier out of every 160 men of the fight¬ 
ing age. The population of England and Wales, 
in 1685, not exceeding five millions, the proportion 
of the army to it was one soldier to eveiy 250 
persons, or of one soldier to every sixty-five men of 
the fighting age. Scotland, in 1685, had a separate 
establishment. The army of James at his acces¬ 
sion, therefore, was more than twice and a half 
greater in comparison with the population than the 
present force (1822). The comparative wealth, if 
it could be estimated, would probably afford similar 
results. 

f James to the Prince of Orange, 29th June. 
Dalrvmple, app. to books iii. and iv. 

X Barillon, 8th July, Ibid. 












REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 315 

was no limit to its numbers but the means 
of supporting it possessed by the king; 
which might be derived from the misappli¬ 
cation of funds granted for other purposes, 
or be supplied by foreign powers interested 
in destroying the liberties of the kingdom. 
The means of governing it were at first a 
source of perplexity to the king, but in the 
sequel a new object of apprehension to the 
people. The Petition of Right*, in affirm¬ 
ance of the ancient laws, had forbidden the 
exercise of martial law within the kingdom; 
and the ancient mode of establishing those 
summary jurisdictions and punishments which 
seem to be necessary to secure the obedience 
of armies was, in a great measure, wanting. 
The servile ingenuity of aspiring lawyers 
was, therefore, set at work to devise some 
new expedient for more easily destroying 
the constitution, according to the forms of 
law. For this purpose they revived the 
provisions of some ancient statutes f, which 
had made desertion a capital felony; though 
these were, in the opinion of the best law¬ 
yers, either repealed, or confined to soldiers 
serving in the case of actual or immediately 
impending hostilities. Even this device did 
not provide the means of punishing the other 
military offences, which are so dangerous to 
the order of armies, that there can be little 
doubt of their having been actually punished 
by other means, however confessedly illegal. 
Several soldiers were tried, convicted, and 
executed for the felony of desertion; and 
the scruples of judges on the legality of 
these proceedings induced the king more 
than once to recur to his ordinary‘measure 
for the purification of tribunals by the re¬ 
moval of the judges. Sir John Holt, who 
was destined, in better times, to be one of 
the most inflexible guardians of the laws, 
was also then dismissed from the recorder- 
ship of London. 

The only person who ventured to express 
the general feeling respecting the army was 

*Mr. Samuel Johnson, who had been chaplain 
to Lord Russell, and who was then in prison 
for a work which he had published some 
years before against the succession of James, 
under the title of “ Julian the Apostate.” * 
He now wrote, and sent to an agent to be 
dispersed (for there was no proof of actual 
dispersion or sale f), an address to the army, 
expostulating with them on the danger of 
serving under illegally commissioned officers, 
and for objects inconsistent with the safety 
of their country. lie also wrote another 
paper, in which he asserted that “ resistance 
may be used in case our religion or our 
rights should be invaded.” For these acts 
he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to pay 
a small fine, to be thrice pilloried, and to 
be whipped by the common hangman from 
Newgate to Tyburn. For both these pub¬ 
lications his spirit was, doubtless, deserving 
of the highest applause. The prosecution 
in the first case can hardly be condemned, 
and the conviction still less : but the cruelty 
of the punishment reflects the highest dis¬ 
honour on the judges, more especially on 
Sir Edward Herbert, whose high pretensions 
to morality and humanity deeply aggravate 
the guilt of his concurrence in this atrocious 
judgment. Previous to its infliction he was 
degraded from his sacred character by Crew, 
Sprat, and White, three bishops authorised 
to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the 
diocese of London during the suspension of 
Compton. When, as part of the formality, 
the Bible was taken out of his hands, he 
struggled to preserve it, and, bursting into 
tears, cried out, “ You cannot take from me 
the consolation contained in the sacred 
volume.” The barbarous judgment was 
“ executed -with great rigour and cruelty.” j 
In the course of a painful and ignominious 

* State Trials, vol. xi. p. 1339. 
f In fact, however, many were dispersed. Ken- 
net, History, vol. iii. p. 450. 

J Commons’ Journals, 24tli June, 1690. These 
are the words of the report of a committee who 
examined evidence on the case, and whose resolu¬ 
tions were adopted by the House. They suffi- j 
ciently show that Echard’s extenuating statements 
| are false. 

* 3 Car. I. c. 1. 

t 7 Hen. VII. c. 1. ; 3 Hen. VIII. c. 5. ; and 2 & 

3 Edw. VI. c. 2. See Hale, Pleas of the Crown, 
book i. c. 63. 




















316 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

progress of two miles through crowded 
streets, he received 317 stripes, inflicted with 
a whip of nine cords knotted. It will be a 
consolation to the reader, as soon as he has 
perused the narrative of these enormities, to 
learn, though with some disturbance of the 
order of time, that amends were in some 
measure made to Mr. Johnson, and that his 
persecutors were reduced to the bitter morti¬ 
fication of humbling themselves before their 
victim. After the Revolution, the judg¬ 
ment pronounced on him was voted by the 
House of Commons to be illegal and cruel. * 
Crew, bishop of Durham, one of the com¬ 
missioners who deprived him, made him a 
considerable compensation in money f; and 
Withins, the judge who delivered the sen¬ 
tence, counterfeited a dangerous illness, and 
pretended that his dying hours were dis¬ 
turbed by the remembrance of what he had 
done, in order to betray Johnson, through 
his humane and Christian feelings, into such 
a declaration of forgiveness as might con¬ 
tribute to shelter the cruel judge from fur¬ 
ther animadversion. | 

The desire of the king to propagate his 
religion was a natural consequence of zealous 
attachment to it. But it was a very dan¬ 
gerous quality in a monarch, especially when 
the principles of religious liberty were not 
adopted by any European government. The 
royal apostle is seldom convinced of the 
good faith of the opponent whom he has 
Tailed to convert: he soon persuades himself 
that the pertinacity of the heretic arises 
more from the depravity of his nature than 
from the errors of his judgment. He first 
shows displeasure to his perverse antagonists; 
he then withdraws advantages from them; 
he, in many cases, may think it reasonable 
to bring them to reflection by some degree 
of hardship ; and the disappointed disputant 
may at last degenerate into the furious per¬ 
secutor. The attempt to convert the army 
was peculiarly dangerous to the king’s own 
object. He boasted of the number of con- 

verts in one of his regiments of Guards, 
without considering the consequences of 
teaching controversy to an army. The poli¬ 
tical canvass carried on among the officers, 
and the controversial sermons preached to 
the soldiers, probably contributed to awaken 
that spirit of inquiry and discussion in his 
camp which he ought to have dreaded as his 
most formidable enemy. He early destined 
the revenue of the Archbishop of York to 
be a provision for converts*, — being pro¬ 
bably sincere in his professions, that he 
meant only to make it one for those who 
had sacrificed interest to religion. But ex¬ 
perience shows how easily such a provision 
swells into a reward, and how naturally it at 
length becomes a premium for hypocrisy. 
It was natural that his passion for making 
proselytes should show itself towards his 
own children. The pope, in his conversa¬ 
tions with Lord Castlemaine, said, that with¬ 
out the conversion of the Princess Anne no 
advantage obtained for the Catholic religion 
could be permanently secured, f The king 
assented to this opinion, and had, indeed, 
before attempted to dispose his daughter 
favourably to his religion, influenced pro¬ 
bably by the parental kindness which was 
one of his best qualities. { He must have 
considered as hopeless the case of his eldest 
daughter, early removed from her father, 
and the submissive as well as affectionate 
wife of a husband of decisive character, who 
was also the leader of the Protestant cause. 
To Anne, therefore, his attention was turned: 
but with her he found insurmountable diffi- 
culties. Both these princesses, after their 
father had become a Catholic, were con¬ 
sidered as the hope of the Protestant re¬ 
ligion, and accordingly trained in the utmost 
horror of Popery. Their partialities and 
resentments were regulated by difference of 
religion ; their political importance and their 
splendid prospects were dependent on the 
Protestant Church. Anne was surrounded 
by zealous churchmen; she was animated 

* Commons’ Journals, 24th June, 1690. 
t Narcissus Luttrell, February, 1690. 

X State Trials, voi. xi. p. 1354. 

* D’Adda, 10th May, 1686. MS. 
f Barillon, 27th June. Fox MSS. 

| D’Adda, supra , 








J -—---- 

REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


by her preceptor Compton; her favourites 
Lord and Lady Churchill had become de¬ 
termined partisans of Protestantism; and the 
king found in the obstinacy of liis daughter’s 
character a resistance hardly to be appre¬ 
hended from a young princess of slight un¬ 
derstanding. * Some of the reasons of this 
zeal for converting her clearly show that, 
whether the successsion was actually held 
out to her as a lure or not, at least there 
was an intention, if she became a Catholic, 
to prefer her to the Princess of Orange. 
Bonrepos, a minister of ability, had indeed, 
at a somewhat earlier period, tried the effect 
of that temptation on her husband, Prince 
George, f He ventured to ask his friend 
the Danish envoy, “ whether the prince had 
any ambition to raise his consort to the 
throne at the expense of the Princess Mary, 
which seemed to be practicable if he became 
a Catholic.” The envoy hinted this bold 
suggestion to the prince, who appeared to 
receive it well, and even showed a willing¬ 
ness to be instructed on the controverted 
questions. Bonrepos found means to supply 
the Princess Anne with Catholic books, 
which, for a moment, she showed some will¬ 
ingness to consider. He represented her to 
his Court as timid and silent, but ambitious 
and of some talent, with a violent hatred for 
the queen. He reported his attempts to the 
king, who listened to him with the utmost 
pleasure; and the subtle diplomatist ob¬ 
serves, that, though he might fail in the 
conversion, he should certainly gain the good 
graces of James by the effort, which his 
knowledge of that monarch’s hatred of the 
Prince of Orange had been his chief induce¬ 
ment to hazard. 

The success of the king himself, in his 
attempts to make proselytes, was less than 
might have been expected from his zeal and 
influence. Parker, originally a zealous non¬ 
conformist, afterwards a slanderous buffoon, 
and an episcopalian of persecuting princi¬ 
ples, earned the bishopric of Oxford by 
showing a strong disposition to favour, if 


* Barillon, supra. 

| Bonrepos, 28th March. Fox MSS. 


317 

not to be reconciled to, the Church of Rome. 
Two bishops publicly visited Mr. Leyburn, 
the Catholic prelate, at his apartments in 
St. James’s Palace, on his being made al¬ 
moner to the king, when it was, unhappily, 
impossible to impute their conduct to libe¬ 
rality or charity.* Walker, the master of 
University College in Oxford, and three of 
the fellows of that society, were the earliest 
and most noted of the few open converts 
among the clergy. L’Estrange, though he 
had for five-and-twenty years written all 
the scurrilous libels of the Court, refused to 
abandon the Protestant Church. Dryden, 
indeed, conformed to the doctrines of his 
master f; and neither the critical time, nor 
his general character, has been sufficient to 
deter some of the admirers of that great poet 
from seriously maintaining that his con¬ 
version was real. The same persons who 
make this stand for the conscientious cha¬ 
racter of the poet of a profligate court, have 
laboured with all their might to discover 
and exaggerate those human frailties from 
which fervid piety and intrepid integrity did 
not altogether preserve Milton, in the evil 
days of his age, and poverty, and blindness.} 
The king failed in a personal attempt to 
convert Lord Dartmouth, whom he con¬ 
sidered as his most faithful servant for 
having advised him to bring Irish troops 


* D’Adda, 21st January, 1686. MS. The king 
and queen took the sacrament at St. James’s 
Chapel. “ Monsig re Yescovo Leyburn, passato da 
alcuni giorni nell’ apartamento de St. James desti- 
nato al gran Elimosiniere de S. M. in habito lungo 
nero portando la croce nera, si fa vedere in publico 
visitando i ministri del Principe e altri: furono uu 
giomo per fargli una visita due vescovi Protes- 
tanti.” As this occurred before the promotion of 
the two profligate prelates, Parker and Cartwright, 
one of these visitors must have been Crew, and the 
other was, too probably, Sprat. The former had 
been appointed clerk of the closet, and dean of the 
chapel royal, a few days before. 

f “ Dryden, the famous play-writer, and his two 
sons, and Mrs. Nelly, were said to go to mass. 
Such proselytes were no great loss to the Church.” 
—Evelyn, vol. i. p. 594. The rumour, as far as it 
related "to Mrs. Gwynne, was calumnious. 

t Compare Dr. Johnson’s biography of Milton 
with his generally excellent life of Dryden. 














318 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


into England, such being more worthy of 
trust than others*—a remarkable instance 
of a man of honour adhering inflexibly to 
the Church of England, though his counsels 
relating to civil affairs were the most fatal 
to public liberty. Middleton, one of the 
secretaries of state, a man of ability, sup¬ 
posed to have no strong principles of reli¬ 
gion, was equally inflexible. The Catholic 
divine who was sent to him began by at¬ 
tempting to reconcile his understanding to 
the mysterious doctrine of transubstantiation. 
“ Your lordship,” said he, “ believes the Tri¬ 
nity.”—“Who told you so?” answered Mid¬ 
dleton ; “ you are come here to prove your 
own opinions, not to ask about mine.” The 
astonished priest is said to have immediately 
retired. Sheffield, earl of Mulgrave, is also 
said to have sent away a monk, who came to 
convert him, by a jest upon the same doc¬ 
trine : — “I have convinced myself,”said he, 
“ by much reflection, that God made man; 
but I cannot believe that man can make 
God.” But though there is no reason to 
doubt his pleasantry or profaneness, his 
integrity is more questionable.! Colonel 
Kirke, from whom strong scruples were 
hardly to be expected, is said to have an¬ 
swered the Icing’s desire, that he would 


* D’Adda, 10th May. MS. “ Diceva il Re che 
il detto Milord veramente gli aveva dato consigli 
molto fedeli, uno di quelli era stato di far venire 
truppi Irlandesi in Inghilterra, nelli quali poteva 
S. M. meglio fidarsi che negli altri.” 

f He had been made lord chamberlain imme¬ 
diately after Jeffreys’s circuit, and had been ap¬ 
pointed a member of the Ecclesiastical Commission, 
in November, 1685, when Sancroft refused to act, 
in which last office he continued to the last. He 
held out hopes that he might be converted to a 
very late period of the reign (Barillon, 30th August, 
1687), and was employed by James to persuade Sir 
George Mackenzie to consent to the removal of the 
Test. (Halifax MSS.) He brought a patent for a 
marquisate to the king half an hour before King 
James went away. (Ibid.) In October, 1688, he 
thought it necessary to provide against the ap¬ 
proaching storm by obtaining a general pardon. 
Had not Lord Mulgrave written some memoirs of 
his own time, his importance as a statesman would 
not have deserved so full an exposure of his politi¬ 
cal character. 


listen to Catholic divines, by declaring, that 
when he was at Tangier he had engaged 
himself to the Emperor of Morocco, if ever 
he changed his religion, to become a Ma¬ 
hometan. Lord Churchill, though neither 
insensible to the kindness of James, nor dis¬ 
tinguished by a strict conformity to the 
precepts of religion, withstood the attempts 
of his generous benefactor to bring him over 
to the Church of Rome. He said of himself, 
“ that though he could not lead the life of a 
saint, he was resolved, if there was ever 
occasion for it, to show the resolution of a 
martyr.” * So much constancy in religious 
opinion may seem singular among courtiers 
and soldiers : but it must be considered, that 
the inconsistency of men’s actions with their 
opinions is more often due to infirmity than 
to insincerity; that the members of the 
Protestant party were restrained from de¬ 
serting it by principles of honour ; and that 

the disgrace of desertion was much aggra- 
© ©© 

vated by the general unpopularity of the 

adverse cause, and by the violent animosity 

then raging between the two parties who 

divided England and Europe. 

Nothing so much excited the abhorrence 
of all Protestant nations against Louis XIY. 
as the measures which he adopted against 
his subjects of that religion. As his policy 
on that subject contributed to the downfal 
of James, it seems proper to state it more 
fully than the internal occurrences of a fo¬ 
reign country ought generally to be treated 
in English history. The opinions of the 
Reformers, which triumphed in some coun¬ 
tries of Europe, and were wholly banished 
from others, had very early divided France 
and Germany into two powerful but unequal 
parties. The wars between the princes of 
the Empire which sprung from this source, 
after a period of one hundred and fifty years, 
were finally composed by the treaty of West¬ 
phalia. In France, where religious enthu¬ 
siasm was exasperated by the lawless cha¬ 
racter and mortal animosities of civil war, 
these hostilities raged for nearly forty years 


* Coxe, Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough, 
vol. i. p. 27. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 319 


with a violence unparalleled in any civilised 
age or country. As soon as Henry IV. had 
established his authority by conformity to 
the worship of the majority of his people, 
the first object of his paternal policy was to 
secure the liberty of the Protestants, and to 
restore the quiet of the kingdom by a general 
law on this equally arduous and important 
subject. The contending opinions in their 
nature admitted no negotiation or concession. 
The simple and effectual expedient of per¬ 
mitting them all to be professed with equal 
freedom, was then untried in practice, and 
almost unknown in speculation. The tole¬ 
ration of error, according to the received 
principles of that age, differed little from the 
permission of crimes. Amidst such opinions 
it was extremely difficult to frame a specific 
law for the government of hostile sects; and 
the Edict of Nantes, passed by Henry for 
that purpose in the year 1598, must be con¬ 
sidered as honourable to the wisdom and 
virtue of his Catholic counsellors. This 
edict*, said to be composed by the great 
historian De Thou, was based on the prin¬ 
ciple of a treaty of peace between belli¬ 
gerent parties, sanctioned and enforced by 
the royal authority. Though the transaction 
was founded merely in humanity and pru¬ 
dence, without any reference to religious 
liberty, some of its provisions were conform¬ 
able to the legitimate results of that great 
principle. All Frenchmen of the reformed 
religion were declared to be admissible to 
every office, civil and military, in the king¬ 
dom ; and they were received into all schools 
and colleges without distinction. Dissent 
from the established church was exempted 
from all penalty or civil inconvenience. The 
public exercise of the Protestant religion 
was confined to those cities and towns where 
it had been formerly granted, and to the 
mansions of the gentry who had seignorial 
jurisdiction over capital crimes. It might, 
however, be practised in other places by the 
permission of the Catholics, who were lords 
of the respective manors. Wherever the 


* The original is to be found in Benoit, Histoire 
de l’Edit de Nantes, vol. i. app. pp. 62—85. 


worship of the Protestants was lawful, their 
religious books might freely be bought and 
sold. They might inhabit any part of the 
kingdom without molestation for their opi¬ 
nion ; and private worship was every where 
protected by the exemption of their houses 
from all legal search on account of religion. 
These restrictions, though they show the 
edict to have been a pacification between 
parties, with little regard to the conscience 
of individuals, yet do not seem in practice 
to have much limited the religious liberty of 
French Protestants. To secure an impartial 
administration of justice, Chambers, into 
which Protestants and Catholics were ad¬ 
mitted in equal numbers, were established 
in the principal parliaments.* The edict 
was declared to be a perpetual and irre¬ 
vocable law. By a separate grant executed 
at Nantes, the king authorised the Pro¬ 
testants, for eight years, to garrison the 
towns and places of which they were at that 
time in military possession, and to hold them 
under his authority and obedience. The 
possession of these places of security was 
afterwards continued from time to time, and 
the expense of their garrisons defrayed by 
the crown. Some cities also, where the ma¬ 
jority of the inhabitants were Protestants, 
and where the magistrates, by the ancient 
constitution, regulated the armed force, with 
little dependence on the crown, such as 
Nismes, Rochelle, and Montaubanf, though 
not formally garrisoned by the Reformed, 
still constituted a part of their military se¬ 
curity for the observance of the edict. An 
armed sect of dissenters must have afforded 
many plausible pretexts for attack; and 
Cardinal Richelieu had justifiable reasons of 
policy for depriving the Protestants of those 
important fortresses, the possession of which 
gave them the character of an independent 
republic, and naturally led them into dan- 


* Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, and Bourdeaux. 
The Chamber of the Edict at Paris took cognisance 
of all causes where Protestants were parties in 
Normandy and Brittany. 

f Cautionary towns. “ La Rochelle surtout avait 
des traites avec les rois de France qui la rendoient 
presque indepen dante.”—Benoit, vol. i. p. 251. 








320 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


gerous connection with Protestant and rival 
states. His success in accomplishing that 
important enterprise is one of the most 
splendid parts of his administration, though 
he owed the reduction of Rochelle to the 
feebleness and lukewarmness, if not to the 
treachery, of the Court of England. Riche¬ 
lieu discontinued the practice of granting 
the royal licence to the Protestant body to 
hold political assemblies; and he adopted it 
as a maxim of permanent policy, that the 
highest dignities of the army and the state 
should be granted to Protestants only in 
cases of extraordinary merit. In other re¬ 
spects that haughty minister treated them 
as a mild conqueror. When they were re¬ 
duced to entire submission, in 1629, an edict 
of pardon was issued at Nismes, confirming 
all the civil and religious principles which 
had been granted by the Edict of Nantes.* 
At the moment that they were reduced to 
the situation of private subjects, they dis¬ 
appear from the history of France. They 
are not mentioned in the dissensions which 
disturbed the minority of Louis XIV., nor 
are they named by that prince in the enu¬ 
meration which he gives of objects of public 
anxiety at the period which preceded his as¬ 
sumption of the reins of government in 1660. 
The great families attached to them by birth 
and honour during the civil wars were gra¬ 
dually allured to the religion of the Court; 
while those of inferior condition, like the 
members of other sects excluded from power, 
applied themselves to the pursuit of wealth, 
and were patronised by Colbert as the most 
ingenious manufacturers in France. A de¬ 
claration, prohibiting the relapse of con¬ 
verted Protestants under pain of confiscation, 
indicated a disposition to persecute, which 
that prudent minister had the good fortune 
to check. An edict punishing emigration 
with death, though long after turned into 
the sharpest instrument of intolerance, seems 


* Benoit, vol. ii. app 92. Madame de Duras, the 
sister of Turenne, was so zealous a Protestant that 
she wished to educate as a minister her son, who 
afterwards went to England, and became Lord 
Feversham. Yol. iv. p. 129. 


originally to have flowed solely from the 
general prejudices on that subject which 
have infected the laws and policy of most 
states. Till the peace of Nimeguen, when 
Louis had reached the zenith of his power, 
the French Protestants experienced only 
those minute vexations from which sectaries, 
discouraged by a government, are seldom 
secure. 

The immediate cause of a general and 
open departure from the moderate system, 
under which France had enjoyed undis¬ 
turbed quiet for half a century, is to be 
discerned only in the character of the king, 
and the inconsistency of his conduct with his 
opinions. Those conflicts between his dis¬ 
orderly passions and his unenlightened devo¬ 
tion, which had long agitated his mind, were 
at last composed under the ascendant of 
Madame de Maintenon; and in this situation 
he was seized with a desire of signalising his 
penitence, and atoning for his sins, by the 
conversion of his heretical subjects.* Her 
prudence as well as moderation prevented 
her from counselling the employment of 
violence against the members of her former 
religion; nor do such means appear to have 
been distinctly contemplated by the king ;— 
still she dared not moderate the zeal on 
which her greatness was founded. But the 
passion for conversion, armed with absolute 
power, fortified by the sanction of mistaken 
conscience, intoxicated by success, exaspe¬ 
rated by resistance, anticipated and carried 
beyond its purpose by the zeal of subaltern 
agents, deceived by their false representa¬ 
tions, often irrevocably engaged by their 
rash acts, and too warm to be considerate in 
choosing means or weighing consequences, 
led the government of France, under a 
prince of no cruel nature, by an almost 
unconscious progress, in the short space of 
six years, from a successful system of tole¬ 
ration to the most unprovoked and furious 
persecution ever carried on against so great, 
so innocent, and so meritorious a body of 


* “ Le Boi pense serieusement k la conversion des 
here'tiques, et dans peu on y travaillera tout de 
bon.” — Mad. de Maintenon, Oct. 28th, 1679. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 321 


men. The Chambers of the Edict were sup¬ 
pressed on general grounds of judicial re¬ 
formation, and because the concord between 
the two religions rendered them no longer ne¬ 
cessary. By a series of edicts the Protestants 
were excluded from all public offices, and 
from all professions which were said to give 
them a dangerous influence over opinion. 
They were successively rendered incapable 
of being judges, advocates, attorneys, nota¬ 
ries, clerks, officers, or even attendants of 
courts of law. They were banished in 
multitudes from places in the revenue, to 
which their habit of method and calcu¬ 
lation had directed their pursuits. They 
were forbidden to exercise the occupations 
of printers and booksellers.* Even the 
pacific and neutral profession of medicine, 
down to its humblest branches, was closed 
to their industry. They were prohibited 
from intermarriage with Catholics, and from 
hiring Catholic domestics, without exception 
of convenience or necessity. Multitudes of 
men were thus driven from their employ¬ 
ments, without any regard to the habits, 
expectations, and plans which they had 
formed on the faith of the laws. Besides 
the misery which immediately flowed from 
these acts of injustice, they roused and 
stimulated the bigotry of those who need 
only the slightest mark of the temper of 
government to inflict on their dissenting 
countrymen those minute but ceaseless 
vexations which embitter the daily course 
of human life. 

As the Edict of Nantes had only permitted 
the public worship of Protestants in certain 
places, it had often been a question whether 
particular churches were erected conform¬ 
ably to that law. The renewal and multi¬ 
plication of suits on this subject furnished 
the means of striking a dangerous blow 
against the Reformed religion. Prejudice 
and servile tribunals adjudged multitudes of 
churches to be demolished by decrees which 
were often illegal, and always unjust. By 
these judgments a hundred thousand Pro¬ 


* It is singular that they were not excluded from 
the military service by sea or land. 


testants were, in fact, prohibited from the 
exercise of their religion. They were de¬ 
prived of the means of educating their 
clergy by the suppression of their flourish¬ 
ing colleges at Sedan, Saumur, and Mon- 
tauban, which had long been numbered 
among the chief ornaments of Protestant 
Europe. Other expedients were devised to 
pursue them into their families, and harass 
them in those situations where the disturb¬ 
ance of quiet inflicts the deepest wounds 
on human nature. The local judges were 
authorised and directed to visit the death¬ 
beds of Protestants, and to interrogate them 
whether they determined to die in obstinate 
heresy. Their children were declared com¬ 
petent to abjure their errors at the age of 
seven; and by such mockery of conversion 
they might escape, at that age, from the 
affectionate care of their parents. Every 
childish sport was received as evidence of 
abjuration; and every parent dreaded the 
presence of a Catholic neighbour, as the 
means of ensnaring a child into irrevocable 
alienation. Each of these disabilities or 
severities was inflicted by a separate edict; 
and each was founded on the allegation of 
some special grounds, which seemed to guard 
against any general conclusion at variance 
with the privileges of Protestants. 

On the other hand, a third of the king’s 
savings on his privy purse was set apart to 
recompense converts to the Established re¬ 
ligion. The new converts were allowed a 
delay of three years for the payment of 
their debts; and they were exempted for 
the same period from the obligation of 
affording quarters to soldiers. This last 
privilege seems to have suggested to Lou- 
vois, a minister of great talent but of tyran¬ 
nical character, a new and more terrible 
instrument of conversion. He despatched 
regiments of dragoons into the Protestant 
provinces, with instructions that they should 
be almost entirely quartered on the richer 
Protestants. This practice, which after¬ 
wards, under the name of “ Dragonnades” 
became so infamous throughout Europe, 
was attended by all the outrages and bar¬ 
barities to be expected from a licentious 


Y 







MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


322 


soldiery let loose on those whom they con¬ 
sidered as the enemies of their king, and the 
blasphemers of their religion. Its effects 
became soon conspicuous in the feigned 
conversion of great cities and extensive 
provinces; which, instead of opening the 
eyes of the government to the atrocity of 
the policy adopted under its sanction, served 
only to create a deplorable expectation of 
easy, immediate, and complete success. At 
Nismes, 60,000 Protestants abjured their 
religion in three days. The king was in¬ 
formed by one despatch that all Poitou was 
converted, and that in some parts of Dau- 
phine the same change had been produced 
by the terror of the dragoons without their 
actual presence.* 

All these expedients of disfranchisement, 
chicane, vexation, seduction, and military 
licence, almost amounting to military execu¬ 
tion, were combined with declarations of 
respect for the Edict of Nantes, and of re¬ 
solutions to maintain the religious rights of 
the new churches. Every successive edict 
spoke the language of toleration and libe¬ 
rality : every separate exclusion was justi¬ 
fied on a distinct ground of specious policy. 
The most severe hardships were plausibly 
represented as necessarily arising from a 
just interpretation and administration of the 
law. Many of the restrictions were in them¬ 
selves small; many tried in one province, 
and slowly extended to all; some apparently 
excused by the impatience of the sufferers 
under preceding restraints. In the end, 
however, the unhappy Protestants saw them¬ 
selves surrounded by a persecution which, 
in its full extent, had probably never been 
contemplated by the author; and, after all 
the privileges were destroyed, nothing re¬ 
mained but the formality of repealing the 
law by which these privileges had been 
conferred. 

At length, on the 18th of October, 1685, 


* Lemontey, Nouveaux Memoires de Dangeau, 
p. 19. The fate of the province of Bearn was 
peculiarly dreadful. It may be seen in Rulhi&re 
(Eclaircissemens, &c. chap, xv.), and Benoit, liv. 
xxii. 


the government of France, not unwillingly 
deceived by feigned conversions, and, as it 
now appears, actuated more by sudden im¬ 
pulse than long-premeditated design, re¬ 
voked the Edict of Nantes. In the preamble 
of the edict of revocation it was alleged, 
that, as the better and greater part of those 
who professed the pretended Reformed re¬ 
ligion had embraced the Catholic faith, the 
Edict of Nantes had become unnecessary. 
The ministers of the Reformed faith were 
banished from France in fifteen days, under 
pain of the galleys. All Protestant schools 
were shut up; and the unconverted children, 
at first allowed to remain in France without 
annoyance on account of their religion, were 
soon afterwards ordered to be taken from 
their parents, and committed to the care of 
their nearest Catholic relations, or, in default 
of such relations, to the magistrates. The 
return of the exiled ministers, and the at¬ 
tendance on a Protestant church for reli¬ 
gious worship, were made punishable with 
death. Carrying vengeance beyond the 
grave, another edict enjoined, that if any 
new converts should refuse the Catholic 
sacraments on their death-bed, when re¬ 
quired to receive them by a magistrate, 
their bodies should be drawn on a hurdle 
along the public way, and then cast into the 
common sewers. 

The conversion sought by James with 
most apparent eagerness was that of Lord 
Rochester. Though he had lost all favour, 
and even confidence, James long hesitated 
to remove him from office. The latter was 
willing, but afraid to take a measure which 
would involve a final rupture with the 
Church of England. Rochester’s connection 
with the family of Hyde, and some remains 
perhaps of gratitude for past services, and a 
dread of increasing the numbers of his ene¬ 
mies, together with the powerful influence 
of old habits of intimacy, kept his mind for 
some time in a state of irresolution and 
fluctuation. His dissatisfaction with the 
lord treasurer became generally known in 
the summer, and appears to have been con¬ 
siderably increased by the supposed connec¬ 
tion of that nobleman with the episcopalian 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 323 


administration in Scotland; of whose re¬ 
moval it will become our duty presently to 
speak.* * * § The sudden return of Lady Dor¬ 
chester revived the spirits of his adherents.f 
But the queen, a person of great importance 
in these affairs, was, on this occasion, per¬ 
suaded to repress her anger, and to profess 
a reliance on the promise made by the king 
not to see his mistress.]; Formerly, indeed, 
the violence of the queen’s temper is said to 
have been one source of her influence over 
the king; and her ascendency was observed 
to be always greatest after those paroxysms 
of rage to which she was excited by the de¬ 
tection of his infidelities. But, in circum¬ 
stances so critical, her experienced advisers 
dissuaded her from repeating hazardous ex¬ 
periments §; and the amours of her husband 
are said, at this time, to have become so 
vulgar and obscure as to elude her vigilance. 
She was mild and submissive to him; but 
she showed her suspicion of the motive of 
Lady Dorchester’s journey by violent re¬ 
sentment against Clarendon, the lord lieu¬ 
tenant of Ireland, whom she believed to be 
privy to it, and who in vain attempted to 
appease her anger by the most humble — 
not to say abject—submissions. || She at 
this moment seemed to have had more than 
ordinary influence, and was admitted into 
the secret of all affairs. Supported, if not 
instigated, by her, Sunderland and Petre, 
with the more ambitious and turbulent part 
of the Catholics, represented to the king 
that nothing favourable to the Catholics was 
to be hoped from Parliament as long as his 

* Barillon, 18 th July. Fox MSS. 

f Id. 2nd Sept. Ibid. 

J Report of an agent of Louis XIV. in London, 
in 1686, of which a copy is in my possession. 

§ In a MS. among the Stuart papers in pos¬ 
session of his Majesty, which was written by She¬ 
ridan, secretary for Ireland under Tyrconnel, we 
are told that Petre and Sunderland agreed to dis¬ 
miss Mrs. Sedley, under pretence of morality, but 
really because she was thought the support of Ro¬ 
chester ; and that it was effected by Lady Powis 
and Bishop Giffard, to the queen’s great joy. See 
farther Barillon, 5th Sept. Fox MSS. 

|| Letters of Henry, earl of Clarendon. 

Barillon, 23rd Sept. Fox MSS. 


Court and Council were divided, and as long 
as he was surrounded by a Protestant cabal, 
at the head of which was the lord treasurer, 
professing the most extravagant zeal for the 
English Church; that, notwithstanding the 
pious zeal of his Majesty, nothing important 
had yet been done for religion; that not one 
considerable person had declared himself a 
Catholic; that no secret believer would avow 
himself, and no well-disposed Protestant 
would be reconciled to the Church, till the 
king’s administration was uniform, and the 
principles of government more decisive; and 
that the time was now come when it was 
necessary for his Majesty to execute the in¬ 
tention which he had long entertained, either 
to bring the treasurer to more just senti¬ 
ments, or to remove him from the important 
office which he filled, and thus prove to the 
public that there was no means of preserv¬ 
ing power or credit but by supporting the 
king’s measures for the Catholic religion.* 
They reminded him of the necessity of 
taking means to perpetuate the benefits 
which he designed for the Catholics, and of 
the alarming facility with which the Tudor 
princes had made and subverted religious 
revolutions. Even the delicate question of 
the succession was agitated, and some had 
the boldness of throwing out suggestions to 
James on the most effectual means of en¬ 
suring a Catholic successor. These extra¬ 
ordinary suggestions appear to have been 
in some measure known to Van Citters, the 
Dutch minister, who expressed his fears that 
projects were forming against the rights of 
the Princess of Orange. The more affluent 
and considerable Catholics themselves be¬ 
came alarmed, seeing, as clearly as their 
brethren, the dangers to which they might 
be exposed under a Protestant successor. 
But they thought it wiser to entitle them¬ 
selves to his favour by a moderate exercise 
of their influence, than to provoke his hosti- 


* The words of Barillon, “ pour l’dtablissement 
de la religion Catholique,” being capable of two 
senses, have been translated in the text in a manner 
which admits of a double interpretation. The con¬ 
text removes all ambiguity in this case. 

















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


324 


lity by precautions so unlikely to be effectual 
against his succession or his religion. Mo- 
deration had its usual fate: the faction of 
zealots, animated by the superstition, the 
jealousy, and the violence of the queen, be¬ 
came the most powerful. Even at this time, 
however, the treasurer was thought likely 
to have maintained his ground for some 
time longer, if he had entirely conformed to 
the king’s wishes. His friends Ormonde, Mid¬ 
dleton, Feversham, Dartmouth, and Preston 
were not without hope that he might retain 
office. At last, in the end of October, James 
declared that Rochester must either go to 
mass, or go out of office.* His advisers 
represented to him that it was dangerous to 
leave this alternative to the treasurer, which 
gave him the means of saving his place by 
a pretended conformity. The king replied 
that he hazarded nothing by the proposal, 
for he knew that Rochester would never 
conform. If this observation was sincere, it 
seems to have been rash; for some of Ro¬ 
chester’s friends still believed he would do 
whatever was necessary, and advised him to 
keep his office at any price, f The Spanish 
and Dutch ambassadors expressed their fear 
of the fall of their last friend in the cabinet J; 
and Louis XIV. considered the measure as 
certainly favourable to religion and to his 
policy, whether it ended in the conversion 
of Rochester or in his dismissal; in acquiring 
a friend, or in disabling an enemy. § 

It was agreed that a conference on the 
questions in dispute should be held in the 
presence of Rochester, by Dr. Jane and Dr. 
Patrick on behalf of the Church of England, 
and by Dr. Giffard and Dr. Tilden || on the 


* Barillon, 4th Nov. Fox MSS, It is curious 
that the report of Rochester’s dismissal is men¬ 
tioned by Narcissus Luttrell on the same day on 
which Barillon’s despatch is dated. 

f Id. 9th Dec. Ibid. 

J Id. 18th Nov. Ibid. 

§ The King to Barillon. Versailles, 19th Oct. 
Fox MSS. 

|| This peculiarly respectable divine assumed the 
name of Godden, — a practice to which Catholic 
clergymen were then sometimes reduced to elude 
persecution. 


part of the Church of Rome. It is not easy 
to believe that the king or his minister should 
have considered a real change of opinion as 
a possible result of such a dispute. Even if 
the influence of attachment, of antipathy, of 
honour, and of habit on the human mind 
were suspended, the conviction of a man of 
understanding on questions of great import¬ 
ance, then the general object of study and 
discussion, could hardly be conceived to 
depend on the accidental superiority in skill 
and knowledge exhibited by the disputants of 
either party in the course of a single debate. 
But the proposal, if made by one party, was 
too specious and popular to be prudently 
rejected by the other: they were alike in¬ 
terested in avoiding the imputation of shrink¬ 
ing from an argumentative examination of 
their faith. The king was desirous of being 
relieved from his own indecision by a signal 
proof of Rochester’s obstinacy; and in the 
midst of his fluctuations he may sometimes 
have indulged a lingering hope that the dis¬ 
putation might supply a decent excuse for 
the apparent conformity of his old friend 
and servant. In all prolonged agitations of 
the mind, it is in succession affected by mo¬ 
tives not very consistent with each other. 
Rochester foresaw that his popularity among 
Protestants would be enhanced by his tri¬ 
umphant resistance to the sophistry of their 
adversaries; and he gave the king, by con¬ 
senting to the conference, a pledge of his 
wish to carry compliance to the utmost 
boundaries of integrity. He hoped to gain 
time; he retained the means of profiting by 
fortunate accidents; at least he postponed 
the fatal hour of removal; and there were 
probably moments in which his fainting vir¬ 
tue looked for some honourable pretence for 
deserting a vanquished party. 

The conference took place on the 30th of 
November.* Each of the contending parties, 
as usual, claimed the victory. The Pro- 

* Dodd, vol. iii. p. 419. Barillon’s short account 
of the conference is dated on the 12th December, 
which, after making allowance for the difference of 
calendars, makes the despatch to be written two 
days after the conference, which deserves to be 
mentioned as a proof of Dodd’s singular exactness 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 325 


testant writers, though they agree that the 
Catholics were defeated, vary from each 
other. Some ascribe the victory to the two 
divines; others to the arguments of Roches¬ 
ter himself; and one of the disputants of the 
English Church said that it was unnecessary 
for them to do much. One writer tells us 
that the king said he never saw a good cause 
so ill defended; and all agree that Rochester 
closed the conference with the most deter¬ 
mined declaration that he was confirmed in 
his religion.* * * § * Giffard, afterwards a Catholic 
prelate of exemplary character, published 
an account of the particulars of the contro¬ 
versy, which gives a directly opposite ac¬ 
count of it. In the only part of it which 
can in any degree be tried by historical evi¬ 
dence, the Catholic account of the dispute is 
more probable. Rochester, if we may be¬ 
lieve Giffard, at the end of the conference 
said, “ The disputants have discoursed 
learnedly, and I desire time to consider.” f 
Agreeably to this statement, Barillon, after 
mentioning the dispute, told his Court that 
Rochester still showed a disposition to be 
instructed with respect to the difficulties 
which prevented him from declaring himself 
a Catholic, and added that some even then 
expected that he would determine for con¬ 
formity.]: This despatch was written two 
days after the disputation, by a minister who 
could neither be misinformed nor have any 
motive to deceive. Some time afterwards, 
indeed, Rochester made great efforts to pre¬ 
serve his place, and laboured to persuade 
the moderate party among the Catholics that 
it was their interest to support him.§ He 
did not, indeed, offer to sacrifice his opinions; 
but a man who, after the loss of all con¬ 
fidence and real power, clung with such 
tenacity to mere office, under a system of 
which he disapproved every principle, could 
hardly be supposed to be unassailable. The 

* Burnet, Echard, and Kennet. There are other 
contradictions in the testimony of these historians, 
and it is evident that Burnet did not implicitly be¬ 
lieve Rochester’s own story. 

f Dodd, vol. iii. p. 420. 

J Barillon, 12th Dec. Fox MSS. 

§ Id. 30th Dec. Ibid. 


violent or decisive politicians of the Catholic 
party dreaded that Rochester might still take 
the king at his word, and defeat all their 
plans by a feigned compliance. James dis¬ 
trusted his sincerity, suspected that his ob¬ 
ject was to amuse and temporise, and at 
length, weary of his own irresolution, took 
the decisive measure of removing the only 
minister by whom the Protestant, party had 
a hold on his councils. 

The place of Lord Rochester was ac¬ 
cordingly supplied on the 5th of January, 
1687, by commissioners, of whom two were 
Catholics — Lord Bellasis of the cautious, 
and Lord Dover of the zealous party; and 
the remaining three, Lord Godolphin, Sir 
John Ernley, and Sir Stephen Fox, were 
probably chosen for their capacity and ex¬ 
perience in the affairs of finance. Two days 
afterwards, parliament, in which the Pro¬ 
testant Tories, the followers of Rochester, 
predominated, was prorogued. James en¬ 
deavoured to soften the removal of his 
minister by a pension of 4000/. a year on the 
Post Office for a term of years, together 
with the polluted grant of a perpetual an¬ 
nuity of 1700/. a year out of the forfeited 
estate of Lord Grey *, for the sake of which 
the king, under a false show of mercy, had 
spared the life of that nobleman. The king 
was no longer, however, at pains to conceal 
his displeasure. He told Barillon that Ro¬ 
chester favoured the French Protestants, 
whom, as a term of reproach, he called 
“ Calvinists,” and added that this was one 
of many instances in which the sentiments 
of the minister were opposite to those of 
his master.]' He informed D’Adda that the 
treasurer’s obstinate perseverance in error 
had at length rendered his removal inevi¬ 
table ; but that wary minister adds, that they 
who had the most sanguine hopes of the 
final success of the Catholic cause were 
obliged to own that, at that moment, the 
public temper was inflamed and exasperated, 
and that the cry of the people was, that 
since Rochester was dismissed because he 


* Evelyn, vol. i. p. 595. 
f Barillon, 13th Jan. 1687. Fox MSS. 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


326 


would not become a Catholic, there must be 
a design to expel all Protestants from office.* * * * § 
The fall of Rochester was preceded, and 
probably quickened, by an important change 
in the administration of Scotland, and it was 
also connected with a revolution in the go¬ 
vernment of Ireland, of both which events it 
is now necessary to relate the most important 
particulars. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Scotland.—Administration of Queensberry.—Con¬ 
version of Perth. — Measures contemplated by 
the King. — Debates in Parliament on the King’s 
Letter. — Proposed Bill of Toleration — unsa¬ 
tisfactory to James. — Adjournment of Parlia¬ 
ment. — Exercise of Prerogative. 

Ireland. — Character of Tyrconnel. — Review of 
the State of Ireland. — Arrival of Tyrconnel. — 
His appointment as Lord Deputy. — Advance¬ 
ment of Catholics to Offices. — Tyrconnel aims 
at the Sovereign Power in Ireland. — Intrigues 
with France. 

The government of Scotland, under the 
episcopal ministers of Charles II., was such, 
that, to the Presbyterians, who formed the 
majority of the people, “ their native coun¬ 
try had, by the prevalence of persecution 
and violence, become as insecure as a den 
of robbers.”! The chief place in the ad¬ 
ministration had been filled for some years 
by Queensberry, a man of ability, the leader 
of the Episcopal party, who, in that charac¬ 
ter as well as from a matrimonial connection 
between their families, was disposed to an 
union of councils with Rochester.]; Adopt¬ 
ing the principles of his English friends, he 
seemed ready to sacrifice the remaining li¬ 
berties of his country, but resolved to ad¬ 
here to the Established Church. The acts 
of the first session in the reign of James are 
such as to have extorted from a great his¬ 
torian of calm temper, and friendly to the 


* D’Adda, 10th Jan. 1G87. MS. 
f Hume, Histoiy of England, chap. lxix. 
t His sou had married the niece of Lady Ro¬ 
chester. 


house of Stuart, the reflection that “ nothing 
could exceed the abject servility of the 
Scotch nation during this period but the 
arbitrary severity of the administration.” * 
Not content with servility and cruelty for 
the moment, they laid down principles which 
would render slavery universal and per¬ 
petual, by assuring the king “ that they 
abhor and detest all principles and positions 
which are contrary or derogatory to the 
king’s sacred, supreme, absolute power and 
authority, which none, whether persons or 
collective bodies, can participate of, in any 
manner or on any pretext, but in dependence 
on him and by commission from him.” f 

But the jealousies between the king’s 
party and that of the Church among the 
Scotch ministers were sooner visible than 
those between the corresponding factions in 
the English council; and they seem in some 
degree to have limited the severities which 
followed the revolt of Argyle. The Privy 
Council, at the intercession of some ladies of 
distinction, prevented the Marquis of Athol 
from hanging Mr. Charles Campbell, then 
confined by a fever, at the gates of his 
father’s castle of Inverary J : and it was 
probably by their representations that James 
was induced to recall instructions which he 
had issued to the Duke of Queensberry for 
the suppression of the name of Campbell § ; 
which would have amounted to a proscrip¬ 
tion of several noblemen, a considerable 
body of gentry, and the most numerous and 
powerful tribe in the kingdom. They did 
not, however, hesitate in the execution of 
the king’s orders to dispense with the Test 
in the case of four peers and twenty-two 
gentlemen, who were required by law to 
take it before they exercised the office of 
commissioners to assess the supply in their 
respective counties. || 

The Earl of Perth, the chancellor of 
Scotland, began now to attack Queensberry 
by means somewhat similar to those em- 

* Hume, chap. lxx. 

t Acts of Parliament, vol. viii. p. 459. 

J Fountainliall, Chronicle, vol. i. p. 366. 

§ Warrant, 1st June, 1685. State Paper Office. 

|| Warrant, 7th Dec. Ibid. 














REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF TIIE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 327 


ployed by Sunderland against Rochester. 
Queensberry had two years before procured 
the appointment of Perth, as it was believed, 
by a present of a sum of 27,000Z. of public 
money to the Duchess of Portsmouth. 
Under a new reign, when that lady was by 
no means a favourite, both Queensberry and 
Perth apprehended a severe inquisition into 
this misapplication of public money.* Perth, 
whether actuated by fear or ambition, made 
haste to consult his security and advance¬ 
ment by conforming to the religion of the 
Court, on which Lord Halifax observed that 
“ his faith had made him whole.” Queens¬ 
berry adhered to the Established Church. 

The chancellor soon began to exercise 
that ascendency which he acquired by his 
conversion, in such a manner as to provoke 
immediate demonstrations of the zeal against 
the Church of Rome, which the Scotch 
Presbyterians carried farther than any other 
Reformed community. He issued an order 
against the sale of any books without li¬ 
cence, which was universally understood as 
intended to prevent the circulation of con¬ 
troversial writings against the king’s re- 
ligion. Glen, a bookseller in Edinburgh, 
when he received this warning, said, that he 
had one book which strongly condemned 
Popery, and desired to know whether he 
might continue to sell it. Being asked what 
the book was, he answered, “The Bible.”f 
Shortly afterwards the populace manifested 
their indignation at the public celebration 
of mass by riots, in the suppression of which 
several persons were killed. A law to in¬ 
flict adequate penalties on such offences 
against the security of religious worship 
would have been perfectly just. But as the 
laws of Scotland had, however unjustly, 
made it a crime to be present at the cele¬ 
bration of mass, it was said, with some plau¬ 
sibility, that the rioters had only dispersed 
an unlawful assembly. The lawyers evaded 
this difficulty by the ingenious expedient of 
keeping out of view the origin and object 
of the tumults, and prosecuted the offenders 
merely for rioting in violation of certain an- 

* Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 189. f Ibid. p. 390. 


cient statutes, some of which rendered that 
offence capital. They were pursued with 
such singular barbarity, that one Keith, who 
was not present at the tumult, was executed 
for having said that he would have helped 
the rioters, and for having drank confusion 
to all Papists; though he at the same time 
drank the health of the king, and though 
in both cases he only followed the example 
of the witnesses on whose evidence he was 
convicted. Attempts were vainly made to 
persuade this poor man to charge Queens¬ 
berry with being accessory to the riots, 
which he had freely ridiculed in private. 
That nobleman was immediately after re¬ 
moved from the office of treasurer, but he 
was at the same time appointed lord pre¬ 
sident of the council with a pension, that 
the Court might retain some hold on him 
during the important discussions at the ap¬ 
proaching session of parliament. 

The king communicated to the secret 
committee of the Scotch Privy Council his 
intended instructions to the commissioner 
relative to the measures to be proposed to 
Parliament. They comprehended the re¬ 
peal of the Test, the abrogation of the san¬ 
guinary laws as far as they related to Papists, 
the admission of these last to all civil and 
military employments, and the confirmation 
of all the king’s dispensations, even in the 
reigns of his successors, unless they were 
recalled by parliament. On these terms he 
declared his willingness to assent to any law 
(not repugnant to these things) for securing 
the Protestant religion, and the personal 
dignities, offices, and possessions of the 
clergy, and for continuing all laws against 
fanaticism.* The Privy Council manifested 
some unwonted scruples about these pro¬ 
positions : James answered them angrily .f 
Perplexed by this unexpected resistance, as 
well as by the divisions in the Scottish coun¬ 
cils, and the repugnance shown by the Epis¬ 
copalian party to any measure which might 
bring the privileges of Catholics more near 
to a level with their own, he commanded the 


* 4th March, 1686. State Paper Office, 
f 18th March. Ibid. 









828 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


Duke of Hamilton and Sir George Lock¬ 
hart, president of the Court of Session, to 
come to London, with a view to ascertain 
their inclinations, and to dispose them fa¬ 
vourably to his objects, but under colour of 
consulting them on the nature of the relief 
which it might be prudent to propose for the 
members of his own communion.”' The 
Scotch negotiators (for as such they seem to 
have acted) conducted the discussion with 
no small discretion and dexterity. They 
professed their readiness to concur in the 
repeal of the penal and sanguinary laws 
against Catholics; observing, however, the 
difficulty of proposing to confine such an 
indulgence to one class of dissidents, and the 
policy of moving for a general toleration, 
which it would be as much the interests of 
Presbyterians as of Catholics to promote. 
They added, that it might be more politic 
not to propose the repeal of the Test as a 
measure of government, but either to leave 
it to the spontaneous disposition of Parlia¬ 
ment, which would very probably repeal a 
law aimed in Scotland against Presbyterians 
as exclusively as it had in England been 
intended to exclude Catholics, or to trust to 
the king’s dispensing power, which was 
there undisputed — as indeed every part of 
the prerogative was in that country held to 
be above question, and without limits.f 
These propositions embarrassed James and 
his more zealous counsellors. The king 
struggled obstinately against the extension 
of the liberty to the Presbyterians. The 
Scotch councillors required, that if the 
Test was repealed, the king should bind 
himself by the most solemn promise to at¬ 
tempt no farther alteration or abridgment 
of the privileges of the Protestant clergy. 
James did not conceal from them his repug¬ 
nance thus to confirm and to secure the 
establishment of a heretical Church. He 
imputed the pertinacity of Hamilton to the 
insinuations of Rochester, and that of Lock¬ 
hart to the still more obnoxious influence of 
his father-in-law, Lord Wharton. { 


* Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 410. 
t Barillon, April 22. Fox MSS. J Id. April 29. Ib. 


The Earl of Moray, a recent convert to 
the Catholic religion, opened parliament on 
the 29th of April, and laid before it a royal 
letter, exhibiting traces of the indecision and 
ambiguity which were the natural conse¬ 
quence of the unsuccessful issue of the con¬ 
ferences in London. The king begins with 
holding out the temptation of a free trade 
with England, and after tendering an ample 
amnesty, proceeds to state, that while he 
shows these acts of mercy to the enemies of 
his crown and royal dignity, he cannot be 
unmindful of his Roman Catholic subjects, 
who had adhered to the crown in rebellions 
and usurpations, though they lay under dis¬ 
couragements hardly to be named. He re¬ 
commends them to the care of parliament, 
and desires that they may have the protec¬ 
tion of the laws and the same security with 
other subjects, without being laid under 
obligations which their religion will not 
admit of. “ This love,” he says, “ we expect 
ye will show to your brethren, as you see 
we are an indulgent father to you all.” * 

At the next sitting an answer was voted, 
thanking the king for his endeavours to pro¬ 
cure a free trade with England; expressing 
the utmost admiration of the offer of am¬ 
nesty to such desperate rebels against so 
merciful a prince; declaring, “as to that 
part of your Majesty’s letter which relates to 
your subjects of the Roman Catholic per¬ 
suasion, we shall, in obedience to your Ma¬ 
jesty’s commands, and in tenderness to their 
persons, take the same into our serious and 
dutiful consideration, and go as great lengths 
therein as our consciences will allow; ” and 
concluding with these words, which were 
the more significant because they were not 
called for by any correspondent paragraph 
in the king’s letter: — “Not doubting that 
your Majesty will be careful to secure the 
Protestant religion established by law.” 
Even this answer, cold and guarded as it 
was, did not pass without some debate, im¬ 
portant only as indicating the temper of the 
assembly. The words, “ subjects of the 
Roman Catholic religion,” were objected to, 

* Acts of Parliament, vol. viii. p. 580. 















REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 329 


“as not to be given by Parliament to in¬ 
dividuals whom the law treated as criminals, 
and to a Church which Protestants could 
not, without inconsistency, regard as en¬ 
titled to the appellation of Catholic.” Lord 
Fountainhall proposed, as an amendment, 
the substitution of “ those commonly called 
Roman Catholics.” The Earl of Perth called 
this nicknaming the king, and proposed, 
“those subjects your Majesty has recom¬ 
mended.” The Archbishop of Glasgow sup¬ 
ported the original answer, upon condition 
of an entry in the Journals, declaring that the 
words were used only out of courtesy to the 
king, as a repetition of the language of his 
letter. A minority of 56 in a house of 182 
voted against the original words, even though 
they were to be thus explained.* * * § Some 
members doubted whether they could sin¬ 
cerely profess a disposition to go any farther 
lengths in favour of the Romanists, being 
convinced that all the laws against the mem¬ 
bers of that communion ought to continue 
in force. The parliament having been elected 
under the administration of Queensberry, 
the Episcopal party was very powerful both 
in that assembly and in the committee 
called the “Lords of the Articles,” with 
whom alone a bill could originate. The 
Scottish Catholics were an inconsiderable 
body; and the Presbyterians, though com¬ 
prehending the most intelligent, moral, and 
religious part of the people, so far from 
having any influence in the legislature, were 
proscribed as criminals, and subject to a 
more cruel and sanguinary persecution at 
the hands of their Protestant brethren than 
either of these communions had ever ex¬ 
perienced from Catholic rulers, f Those of 
the prelates who preferred the interest of 
their order to their own were dissatisfied 


* Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 413. 
f Wodrow, History of the Church of Scotland, 
&c., vol. ii. p. 498.: — an avowed partisan, but a 
most sincere and honest writer, to whom great 
thanks are due for having preserved that collection 
of facts and documents which will for ever render 
it impossible to extenuate the tyranny exercised 
over Scotland from the Restoration to the Revo¬ 
lution. 


even with the very limited measure of tolera¬ 
tion laid before the Lords of the Articles, 
which only proposed to exempt Catholics 
from punishment on account of the private 
exercise of their religious worship. * The 
primate was alarmed by a hint thrown out 
by the Duke of Hamilton, that a toleration 
so limited might be granted to dissenting 
Protestants f; nor, on the other hand, was 
the resistance of the prelates softened by 
the lure held out by the king in his first 
instructions, that if they would remove the 
Test against Catholics they should be in¬ 
dulged in the persecution of their fellow 
Protestants. The Lords of the Articles 
were forced to introduce into the bill two 
clauses;—one declaring their determination 
to adhere to the established religion, the 
other expressly providing, that the immunity 
and forbearance contemplated should not 
derogate from the laws, which required the 
oath of allegiance and the test to be taken 
by all persons in offices of public trust. \ 

The arguments on both sides are to be 
found in pamphlets then printed at Edin¬ 
burgh; those for the government publicly 
and actively circulated, those of the oppo¬ 
site party disseminated clandestinely. § The 
principal part, as in all such controver¬ 
sies, consists in personalities, recriminations, 
charges of inconsistency, and addresses to 
prejudice, which scarcely any ability can 
render interesting after the passions from 
which they spring have subsided and are 
forgotten. It happened, also, that tempo¬ 
rary circumstances required or occasioned 
the best arguments not to be urged by the 
disputants. Considered on general prin¬ 
ciples, The bill, like every other measure of 

* Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 594. 

f Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 415. 

j Wodrow, vol. ii. app. 

§ Ibid. Wodrow ascribes the Court pamphlet to 
Sir Roger L’Estrange, in which he is followed by 
Mr. Laing, though, in the answer to it, it is said 
to have been written by a clergyman who had 
preached before the Parliament. L’Estrange was 
then in Edinburgh, probably engaged in some 
more popular controversy. The tract in question 
seems more likely to have been written by Pater¬ 
son, bishop of Edinburgh. 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


330 


toleration, was justly liable to no permanent 
objection but its incompleteness and par¬ 
tiality. But no Protestant sect was then so 
tolerant as to object to the imperfection of 
the relief to be granted to Catholics; and 
the ruling party were neither entitled nor 
disposed to complain, that the Protestant 
Nonconformists, whom they had so long per¬ 
secuted, were not to be comprehended in 
the toleration. The only objection which 
could reasonably be made to the tolerant 
principles, now for the first time inculcated 
by the advocates of the Court, was, that they 
were not proposed with good faith, or for 
the relief of the Catholics, but for the sub¬ 
version of the Protestant Church, and the 
ultimate establishment of Popery, with all 
the horrors which were to follow in its train. 
The present effects of the bill were a subject 
of more urgent consideration than its general 
character. It was more necessary to ascer¬ 
tain the purpose which it was intended and 
calculated to promote at the instant, than to 
examine the principles on which such a 
measure, in other circumstances and in com¬ 
mon times, might be perfectly wise and just. 
Even then, had any man been liberal and 
bold enough to propose universal and perfect 
liberty of worship, the adoption of such a 
measure would probably have afforded the 
most effectual security against the designs 
of the crown. But very few entertained so 
generous a principle: and of these, some 
might doubt the wisdom of its application 
in that hour of peril, while no one could 
have proposed it with any hope that it could 
be adopted by the majority of such a par¬ 
liament. It can hardly be a subject of 
wonder, that the Established clergy, without 
any root in the opinions and affections of 
the people, on whom they were imposed by 
law, and against whom they were main¬ 
tained by persecution, should not in the 
midst of conscious weakness have had calm¬ 
ness and fortitude enough to consider the 
policy of concession, but, trembling for their 
unpopular dignities and invidious revenues, 
should recoil from the surrender of the most 
distant outpost which seemed to guard them, 
and struggle with all their might to keep 


those who threatened to become their most 
formidable rivals under the brand at least — 
if not the scourge — of penal laws. It must 
be owned, that the language of the Court 
writers was not calculated either to calm 
the apprehensions of the Church, or to satisfy 
the solicitude of the friends of liberty. They 
told Parliament, “ that if the king were ex¬ 
asperated by the rejection of the bill, he 
might, without the violation of any law, alone 
remove all Protestant officers and judges 
from the government of the State, and all 
Protestant bishops and ministers from the 
government of the Church*—a threat the 
more alarming, because the dispensing power 
seemed sufficient to carry it into effect in 
civil offices, and the Scotch Act of Supre¬ 
macy, passed in one of the paroxysms of 
servility which were frequent in the first 
years of the Restoration f, appeared to afford 
the means of fully accomplishing it against 
the Church. 

The unexpected obstinacy of the Scottish 
Parliament alarmed and offended the Court. 
Their answer did not receive the usual 
compliment of publication in the Gazette. 
Orders were sent to Edinburgh to remove 
two privy councillors];, to displace Seton, a 
judge, and to deprive the Bishop of Dunkeld 
of a pension, for their conduct. Sir George 
Mackenzie himself, the most eloquent and 
accomplished Scotchman of his age, was for 
the same reason dismissed from the office of 
lord advocate.§ It was in vain that he had 


* Wodrow, vol. ii. app. f 1669. 

t The Earl of Glencairn and Sir W. Bruce. 

§ “ Sir George Mackenzie was the grandson of 
Kenneth, first Lord Mackenzie of Kintail, and the 
nephew of Colin and George, first and second Earls 
of Seaforth. He was horn at Dundee in 1636, and 
after passing through the usual course of education 
in his own country, he was sent for three years to 
the University of Bourges, at that time, as he tells 
us, called the ‘Athens of Lawyers,’ — as in later 
times the Scotch lawyers usually repaired to 
Utrecht and Leyden. He was called to the bar, 
and began to practise before the Restoration; im¬ 
mediately after which he was appointed one of the 
justices-depute—criminal judges, who exercised 
that jurisdiction which was soon after vested in 
five lords of session under the denomination of 






REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 331 


dishonoured his genius by being for ten years 
the advocate of tyranny and the minister of 


‘commissioners of justiciary.* * His name appears 
in the parliamentary proceedings as counsel in al¬ 
most every important cause. He represented the 
county of Ross for the four sessions of the parlia¬ 
ment which was called in 1669. In 1677 he was 
appointed lord advocate; and was involved by that 
preferment, most unhappily for his character, in 
the worst acts of the Scotch administration of 
Charles II. At the Revolution he adhered to the 
fortunes of his master. Being elected a member 
of the Convention, he maintained the pretensions 
of James with courage and ability against Sir John 
Dalrymple and Sir James Montgomery, who were 
the most considerable of the revolutionary party; 
and remaining in his place after the imprisonment 
of Balcarras and the escape of Dundee, he was one 
of the minority of five in the memorable division 
on the forfeiture of the crown. When the death of 
Dundee destroyed the hopes of his party in Scot¬ 
land, he took refuge at Oxford—the natural asylum 
of so learned and inveterate a Tory. Under the 
tolerant government of William, he appears to 
have enjoyed his ample fortune — the fruit of his 
professional labours — with perfect comfort as well 
as security. He died in St. James’s Street, in May 
1691; and his death is mentioned as that of an 
extraordinary person by several of those who re¬ 
corded the events of their time, before the necro¬ 
logy of this country was so undistinguishing as it 
has now become. The pomp and splendour of his 
interment at Edinburgh affords farther evidence 
how little the administration of William was dis¬ 
posed to discourage the funeral honours paid to his 
most inflexible opponents. The writings of Sir 
George Mackenzie are literary, legal, and political. 
His Miscellaneous Essays, both in prose and verse, 
may now be dispensed with, or laid aside, without 
difficulty. They have not vigour enough for long 
life. But if they be considered as the elegant 
amusements of a statesman and lawyer, who had 
little leisure for the cultivation of letters, they 
afford a striking proof of the variety of his accom¬ 
plishments, and of the refinement of his taste. In 
several of his Moral Essays, both the subject and 
the manner betray an imitation of Cowley, who 
was at that moment beginning the reformation of 
English style. Sir George Mackenzie was proba¬ 
bly tempted, by the example of this great master, 
to write in praise of Solitude; and Evelyn answered 
by a panegyric on Active Life. It seems singular 
that Mackenzie, plunged in the harshest labours of 
ambition, should be the advocate of retirement; 
and that Evelyn, comparatively a recluse, should 
have commended that mode of life which he did 
not choose. Both works were, however, rhetorical 


persecution: all his ignominious claims were 
cancelled by the independence of one day. 
It was hoped that such examples might 
strike terror.* Several noblemen, who held 
commissions in the army, were ordered to 
repair to their posts. Some members were 
threatened with the avoidance of their elec- 
tions.f A prosecution was commenced 
against the Bishop of Ross, and the pro¬ 
ceedings were studiously protracted, to 
weary out the poorer part of those who re¬ 
fused to comply with the court. The minis¬ 
ters scrupled at no expedient for seducing, 
or intimidating, or harassing. But these ex¬ 
pedients proved ineffectual. The majority 
of the parliament adhered to their princi¬ 
ples ; and the session lingered for about a 
month in the midst of ordinary or unim¬ 
portant affairs. J The bill for toleration was 
not brought up by the Lords of the Articles. 

exercises, in which a puerile ingenuity was em¬ 
ployed on questions which admitted no answer, and 
were not therefore the subject of sincere opinion. 
Before we can decide whether a retired or a public 
life be best, we must ask—best for whom? The 
absurdity of these childish generalities, which ex¬ 
ercised the wit of our forefathers, has indeed been 
long acknowledged. Perhaps posterity may dis¬ 
cover, that many political questions which agitate 
our times are precisely of the same nature; and 
that it would be almost as absurd to attempt the 
establishment of a democracy in China as the 
foundation of a nobility in Connecticut.”—Abridged 
from the “ Edinburgh Review,” vol. xxxvi. p. 1. 
Ed. 

* Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 414. f Ibid. p. 419. 

X Among the frivolous but characteristic trans¬ 
actions of this session was the “ Bore Brieve,” or 
authenticated pedigree granted to the Marquis de 
Seignelai, as a supposed descendant of the ancient 
family of Cuthbert of Castlehill, in Inverness-shire. 
His father, the great Colbert, who appears to have 
been the son of a reputable woollen-draper of 
Troyes, had attempted to obtain the same cer¬ 
tificate of genealogy; but such was the pride of 
birth at that time in Scotland, that his attempts 
were vain. It now required all the influence of the 
Court, set in motion by the solicitations of Ba- 
rillon, to obtain it for Seignelai. By an elaborate 
display of all the collateral relations of the Cuth- 
berts, the “ Bore Brieve ” connects Seignelai with 
the royal family, and with all the nobility and 
gentry of the kingdom. Acts of Parliament, 
vol. viii. p. 611. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


332 

The commissioners, doubting whether it 
would be carried, and probably instructed 
by the Court that it would neither satisfy 
the expectations nor promote the purposes 
of the king, in the middle of June adjourned 
the parliament, which was never again to 
assemble. 

It was no wonder that the king should 
have been painfully disappointed by the 
failure of his attempt; for, after the conclu¬ 
sion of the session, it was said by zealous 
and pious Protestants that nothing less than 
a special interposition of Providence could 
have infused into such an assembly a stead¬ 
fast resolution to withstand the Court.* * * § * The 
royal displeasure was manifested by mea¬ 
sures of a very violent sort. The despotic 
supremacy of the king over the Church was 
exercised by depriving Bruce of his bishopric 
of Dunkeldf — a severity which, not long 
after, was repeated in the deprivation of 
Cairncross, archbishop of Glasgow, for some 
supposed countenance to an obnoxious 
preacher, though that prelate laboured to 
avert it by promises of support to all mea¬ 
sures favourable to the king’s religion.]; A 
few days after the prorogation, Queensberry 
was "dismissed from all his offices, and re¬ 
quired not to leave Edinburgh until he had 
rendered an account of his administration 
of the treasury. § Some part of the royal 
displeasure fell upon Sir George Mackenzie, 
the lord register, lately created Lord Cro¬ 
marty, the most submissive servant of every 
government, for having flattered the king, 
by too confident assurances of a majority as 
obsequious as himself. The connection of 
Rochester with Queensberry now aggra¬ 
vated the offence of the latter, and prepared 
the way for the downfall of the former. 
Moray, the commissioner, promised positive 
proofs, but produced at last only such cir¬ 
cumstances as were sufficient to confirm the 
previous jealousies of James, that the Scotch 


* Fountainliall, vol. i. p. 419. 

t Ibid. p. 416. 

X Ibid. p. 441. Skinner, Ecclesiastical History, 
vol. ii. p. 503. 

§ Ibid. p. 420. 


Opposition were in secret correspondence 
with Pensionary Fagel, and even with the 
Prince of Orange.* Sir George Mackenzie, 
whose unwonted independence seems to have 
speedily faltered, was refused an audience of 
the king when he visited London with the 
too probable purpose of making his peace. 
The most zealous Protestants being soon 
afterwards removed from the Privy Council, 
and the principal noblemen of the Catholic 
communion being introduced in their stead, 
James addressed a letter to the Council, 
informing them that his application to Par¬ 
liament had not arisen from any doubt of his 
own power to stop the severities against 
Catholics, declaring his intention to allow 
the exercise of the Catholic worship, and to 
establish a chapel for that purpose in his 
own palace of Holyrood House, and inti¬ 
mating to the judges, that they were to 
receive the allegation of this allowance as a 
valid defence, any law to the contrary not¬ 
withstanding^ The warm royalists, in their 
proposed answer, expressly acknowledged 
the king’s prerogative to be a legal security; 
but the council, in consequence of an objec¬ 
tion of the Duke of Hamilton, faintly as¬ 
serted their independence, by substituting 
“ sufficient” instead of “ legal.” J 
The determination was thus avowed of 
pursuing the objects of the king’s policy in 
Scotland by the exercise of prerogative, at 
least until a more compliant parliament 
could be obtained, which would not only 
remove all doubt for the present, but pro¬ 
tect the Catholics against the recall of the 
dispensations by James’s successors. The 
means principally relied on for the accom¬ 
plishment of that object was the power now 
assumed by the king to stop the annual elec¬ 
tions in burghs, to nominate the chief magis¬ 
trates, and through them to command the 
election by more summary proceedings than 


* Barillon, 1st—22nd July, 1686. Fox MSS. 
It will appear in the sequel, that these suspicions 
are at variance with probability, and unsupported 
by evidence. 

t "VVodrow, vol. ii. p. 598. 

X Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 424. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 333 


those of the English courts. The choice of 
ministers corresponded with the principles 
of administration. The disgrace of the Duke 
of Hamilton, a few months later* * * § *, completed 
the transfer of power to the party which 
professed an unbounded devotion to the 
principles of their master in the government 
both of Church and State. The measures of 
the government did not belie their profes¬ 
sions. Sums of money, considerable when 
compared with the scanty revenue of Scot¬ 
land, were employed in support of establish¬ 
ments for the maintenance and propagation 
of the Roman Catholic religion. A sum of 
1400Z. a year was granted, in equal portions, 
to the Catholic missionaries, to the Jesuit 
missionaries, to the mission in the High¬ 
lands, to the Chapel Royal, and to each of 
the Scotch colleges at Paris, Douay, and 
Rome.f The Duke of Hamilton, keeper of 
the palace, was commanded to surrender the 
chancellor’s apartments in Holyrood House 
to a college of Jesuits.^ By a manifest act 
of partiality, two-thirds of the allowance 
made by Charles II. to indigent royalists 
were directed to be paid to Catholics; and 
all pensions and allowances to persons of 
that religion were required to be paid in the 
first place, in preference to all other pen¬ 
sions^ Some of these grants, it is true, if 
they had been made by a liberal sovereign 
in a tolerant age, were in themselves justi¬ 
fiable ; but neither the character of the king, 
nor the situation of the country, nor the 
opinions of the times, left any reasonable 
man at liberty then to doubt their purpose; 
and some of them were attended by circum¬ 
stances which would be remarkable as proofs 
of the infatuated imprudence of the king 
and his counsellors, if they were not more 


* Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 449—451. Letter (in 
State Paper Office), 1st March, 1687, expressing 
the king’s displeasure at the conduct of Hamilton, 
and directing the names of his sons-in-law, Pan- 
mure and Dunmore, to be struck out of the list of 
the Council. 

f Warrants in the State Paper Office, dated 19th 
May, 1687. 

X Ibid. 15th August. 

§ Ibid. 7th January, 1688. 


worthy of observation as symptoms of that 
insolent contempt with which they trampled 
on the provisions of law, and on the strongest 
feelings of the people. 

The government of Ireland, as well as 
that of England and Scotland, was, at the 
accession of James, allowed to remain in the 
hands of Protestant Tories. The lord-lieu¬ 
tenancy was, indeed, taken from the Duke 
of Ormonde, then far advanced in years, but 
it was bestowed on a nobleman of the same 
party, Lord Clarendon, whose moderate un¬ 
derstanding added little to those claims on 
high office which he derived from his birth, 
connections, and opinions. But the feeble 
and timid lord lieutenant was soon held in 
check by Richard Talbot, then created Earl 
of Tyrconnel, a Catholic gentleman of an¬ 
cient English extraction, who joined talents 
and spirit to violent passions, boisterous 
manners, unbounded indulgence in every 
excess, and a furious zeal for his religious 
party.* His character was tainted by that 
disposition to falsehood and artifice which, 
however seemingly inconsistent with violent 
passions, is often combined with them ; and 
he possessed more of the beauty and bravery 

* The means by which Talbot obtained the favour 
of James, if we may believe the accounts of his 
enemies, were somewhat singular. “Clarendon’s 
daughter had been got with child in Flanders, on 
a pretended - promise of marriage, by the Duke of 
York, who was forced by the king, at her father’s 
importunity, to marry her, after he had resolved 
the contrary, and got her reputation blasted by 
Lord Fitzharding and Colonel Talbot, who impu¬ 
dently affirmed that they had received the last 
favours from her.” Sheridan MS. Stuart Papers. 
“ 5th July, 1694. Sir E. Harley told us, that when 
the Duke of York resolved on putting away his 
first wife, particularly on discovery of her com¬ 
merce with -, she, by her father’s advice, 

turned Roman Catholic, and thereby secured her¬ 
self from reproach; and that the pretence of her 
father’s opposition to it was only to act a part, and 
secure himself from blame.” MSS. in the hand¬ 
writing of Lord Treasurer Oxford, in the possession 
of the Duke of Portland. The latter of these pas¬ 
sages from the concluding part must refer to the 
time of the marriage. But it must not be forgotten 
that both the reporters were the enemies of Cla¬ 
rendon, and that Sheridan was the bitter enemy of 
Tyrconnel. 









334 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


than of the wit or eloquence of his unhappy 
nation. He had been first introduced to 
Charles II. and his brother before the Re¬ 
storation, as one who was willing to assassi¬ 
nate Cromwell, and had made a journey into 
England with that resolution. He soon 
after received an appointment in the house¬ 
hold of the Duke of York, and retained the 
favour of that prince during the remainder 
of his life. In the year 1666, he was im¬ 
prisoned for a few days by Charles II., for 
having resolved to assassinate the Duke of 
Ormonde, with whose Irish administration 
he was dissatisfied.* He did not, however, 
even by the last of these criminal projects, 
forfeit the patronage of either of the royal 
brothers, and at the accession of James held 
a high place among his personal favourites. 
He was induced, both by zeal for the Ca¬ 
tholic party, and by animosity against the 
family of Hyde, to give effectual aid to Sun¬ 
derland in the overthrow of Rochester, and 
required in return that the conduct of Irish 
affairs should be left to him.f Sunderland 
dreaded the temper of Tyrconnel, and was 
desirous of performing his part of the bar¬ 
gain with as little risk as possible to the 
quiet of Ireland. The latter at first con¬ 
tented himself with the rank of senior 
general officer on the Irish staff; in which 
character he returned to Dublin in June, 
1686, as the avowed favourite of the king, 
and with powers to new-model the army. 
His arrival, however, had been preceded by 
reports of extensive changes in the govern¬ 
ment of the kingdom. | The State, the 
Church, the administration, and the pro¬ 
perty of that unhappy island, were bound 
together by such unnatural ties, and placed 
on such weak foundations, that every rumour 
of alteration in one of them spread the 
deepest alarm for the safety of the whole. 

From the colonisation of a small part of 
the eastern coast under Henry II., till the 
last years of the reign of Elizabeth, an un- 


* Clarendon, Continuation of History (Oxford, 
1759), p. 862. 

f Sheridan MS. Stuart Papers, 
t Clarendon’s Letters, passim. 


ceasing and cruel warfare was waged by the 
English governors against the princes and 
chiefs of the Irish tribes, with little other 
effect than that of preventing the progress 
of civilisation among the Irish, of replunging 
many of the English into barbarism, and of 
generating that deadly animosity between 
the natives and the invaders, under the 
names of Irishry and Englishry, which, as¬ 
suming various forms, and exasperated by a 
fatal succession of causes, has continued 
even to our days the source of innumerable 
woes. During that dreadful period of four 
hundred years, the laws of the English co¬ 
lony did not .punish the murder of a man of 
Irish blood as a crime.* Even so late as the 
year 1547, the Colonial Assembly, called a 
“ Parliament,” confirmed the insolent laws 
which prohibited the English “ of the pale” 
from marrying persons of Irish blood.j - Re¬ 
ligious hostility inflamed the hatred of these 
mortal foes. The Irish, attached to their 
ancient opinions as well as usages, and little 
addicted to doubt or inquiry, rejected the 
reformation of religion offered to them by 
their enemies. The Protestant worship be¬ 
came soon to be considered by them as the 
odious badge of conquest and oppression j ; 
while the ancient religion was endeared by 
persecution, and by its association with the 
name, the language, and the manners of their 

* Sir J. Davies, Discoverie, &c., pp. 102—112. 
“ They were so far out of the protection of the laws 
that it was often adjudged no felony to kill a mere 
Irishman in time of peace,” — except he were of 
the five privileged tribes of the O’Neils of Ulster, 
the O’Malaghlins of Meath, the O’Connors of Con¬ 
naught, the O’Briens of Thomond, and the Mac- 
Murroughs of Leinster; to whom are to be added 
the Oastmen of the city of Waterford. See also 
Leland, History of Ireland, book i. chap. 3. 

f 28 Hen. VIII. c. 13. “ The English,” says 

Sir W. Petty, “ before Henry VII.’s time, lived in 
Ireland as the Europeans do in America.” Politi¬ 
cal Anatomy of Ireland, p. 112. 

J That the hostility of religion was, however, a 
secondary prejudice, superinduced on hostility be¬ 
tween nations, appears very clearly from the laws 
of Catholic sovereigns against the Irish, even after 
the Reformation, particularly the Irish stat. of 3 & 4 
Ph. & M. c. 2., against the O’Mores and O’Dempsies 
and O’Connors, “ and others of the Irishry.” 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 335 


country. The island had long been repre¬ 
sented as a fief of the see of Rome; the 
Catholic clergy, and even laity, had no un¬ 
changeable friend but the sovereign pontiff; 
and their chief hope of deliverance from a 
hostile yoke was long confined to Spain, the 
leader of the Catholic party in the European 
commonwealth. The old enmity of Irishry 
and Englishry thus appeared with redoubled 
force under the new names of Catholic and 
Protestant. The necessity of self-defence 
compelled Elizabeth to attempt the complete 
reduction of Ireland, which, since she had 
assumed her station at the head of Protest¬ 
ants, became the only vulnerable part of 
her dominions, and a weapon in the hands 
of her most formidable enemies. But few of 
the benefits which sometimes atone for con¬ 
quest were felt by Ireland. Neither the 
success with which Elizabeth broke the bar¬ 
baric power of the Irish chieftains, nor the 
real benevolence and seeming policy of in¬ 
troducing industrious colonies under her 
successor, counterbalanced the dreadful evil 
which was then for the first time added to 
her hereditary sufferings. The extensive 
forfeiture of the lands of the Catholic Irish, 
and the grant of these lands to Protestant 
natives of Great Britain, became a new 
source of hatred between these irreconcilable 
factions. Forty years of quiet, however, 
followed, in which a parliament of all dis¬ 
tricts, and of both religions, was assembled. 
The administration of the Earl of Strafford 
bore the stamp of the political vices which 
tarnished his genius, and which often pre¬ 
vailed over those generous affections of which 
he was not incapable towards those who 
neither rivalled nor resisted him. The state 
of Ireland abounded with temptations — to 
a man of daring and haughty spirit, intent 
on taming a turbulent people, and impatient 
of the slow discipline of law and justice — 
to adopt those violent and summary mea¬ 
sures, the necessity of which his nature 
prompted him too easily to believe.* * * * § When 


* See Carte’s Life of Ormonde, and the confes¬ 
sions of Clarendon, together with the evidence on 
the Trial of Strafford. 


his vigorous arm was withdrawn, the Irish 
were once more excited to revolt by the 
memory of the provocations which they had 
received from him and from his predecessors, 
by the feebleness of their government, and 
by the confusion and distraction which an¬ 
nounced the approach of civil war in Great 
Britain. This insurrection, which broke out 
in 1641, and of which the atrocities appear 
to have been extravagantly exaggerated* 
by the writers of the victorious party, was 
only finally subdued by the genius of Crom¬ 
well, who, urged by the general antipathy 
against the Irish f, and the peculiar animo¬ 
sity of his own followers towards Catholics, 
exercised more than once in his Irish cam¬ 
paigns the most odious rights or practices 
of war, departing from the clemency which 
usually distinguished him above most men 
who have obtained supreme power by vio¬ 
lence. The confiscations which followed 
Cromwell’s victories, added to the forfeitures 
under Elizabeth and James, transferred 
more than two-thirds of the land of the 
kingdom to British adventurers. J “Not 
only all the Irish nation (with very few ex¬ 
ceptions) were found guilty of the rebellion, 
and forfeited all their estates, but all the 
English Catholics of Ireland were declared 
to be under the same guilt.” § The ancient 
proprietors conceived sanguine hopes, that 
confiscations by usurpers would not be rati¬ 
fied by the restored government. But their 
agents were inexperienced, indiscreet, and 
sometimes mercenary; while their oppo- 


* Evidence of this exaggeration is to be found 
in Carte and Leland, in the Political Anatomy of 
Ireland, by Sir W. Petty, — to say nothing of 
Curry’s Civil Wars, which, though the work of an 
Irish Catholic, deserves the serious consideration of 
every historical inquirer. Sir W. Petty limits the 
number of Protestants killed throughout the island, 
in the first year of the war, to 37,000. The mas¬ 
sacres were confined to Ulster, and in that province 
were imputed only to the detachment of insurgents 
under Sir Phelim O’Neal. 

f Even Milton calls the Irish Catholics, or, in 
other words, the Irish nation, “ conscelerata et 
barbara colluvies.” 

X Petty, pp. 1—3. 

§ Life of Clarendon (Oxford, 1759), vol. ii. p. 115. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


336 


nents, who were in possession of power and 
property, chose the Irish House of Com¬ 
mons, and secured the needy and rapacious 
courtiers of Charles II. by large bribes.* 
The Court became a mart at which much of 
the property of Ireland was sold to the 
highest bidder ; the inevitable result of mea¬ 
sures not governed by rules of law, but 
loaded with exceptions and conditions, where 
the artful use of a single word might affect 
the possession of considerable fortunes, and 
where so many minute particulars relating 
to unknown and uninteresting subjects were 
necessarily introduced, that none but parties 
deeply concerned had the patience to ex¬ 
amine them. Charles was desirous of an 
arrangement which should give him the 
largest means of quieting, by profuse grants, 
the importunity of his favourites. He be¬ 
gan to speak of the necessity of strengthen¬ 
ing the English interest in Ireland, and he 
represented the “ settlement ” rather as a 
matter of policy than of justice. The usual 
and legitimate policy of statesmen and law¬ 
givers is, doubtless, to favour every measure 
which quiets present possession, and to dis¬ 
courage all retrospective inquisition into 
the tenure of property. But the Irish go¬ 
vernment professed to adopt a principle of 
compromise, and the general object of the sta¬ 
tute called the “ Act of Settlement ” was to 
secure the land in the hands of its possessors, 
on condition of their making a certain com¬ 
pensation to those classes of expelled pro¬ 
prietors who were considered as innocent of 
the rebellion. Those, however, were de¬ 
clared not to be innocent who had accepted 
the terms of peace granted by the king in 
T648, who had paid contributions to support 
the insurgent administration, or who en¬ 
joyed any real or personal property in the 
districts occupied by the rebel army. The 
first of these conditions was singularly 
unjust; the two latter must have compre¬ 
hended many who were entirely innocent; 
and all of them were inconsistent with those 


* Carte, Life of Ormonde, vol. ii. p. 295. Talbot, 
afterwards Earl of Tyrconnel, returned to Ireland 
with 18,000/. 


principles of compromise and provision for 
the interest of all on which the act was 
professedly founded. Ormonde, however, 
restored to his own great estates, and grati¬ 
fied by a grant of 30,000Z. from the Irish 
Commons, acquiesced in this measure, and 
it was not opposed by his friend Clarendon; 
— circumstances which naturally, though 
perhaps not justly, have rendered the me¬ 
mory of these celebrated men odious to the 
Irish Catholics. During the whole reign of 
Charles II. they struggled to obtain a repeal 
of the Act of Settlement. But Time op¬ 
posed his mighty power to their labours. 
Every new year strengthened the rights of 
the possessors, and furnished additional ob¬ 
jections against the claims of the old owners. 
It is far easier to do mischief than to repair 
it; and it is one of the most malignant pro¬ 
perties of extensive confiscation that it is 
commonly irreparable. The land is shortly 
sold to honest purchasers; it is inherited by 
innocent children; it becomes the security 
of creditors ; its safety becomes interwoven, 
by the complicated transactions of life, with 
all the interests of the community. One 
act of injustice is not atoned for by the 
commission of another against parties who 
may be equally unoffending. In such cases 
the most specious plans for the investigation 
of conflicting claims lead either to endless 
delay, attended by the entire suspension of 
the enjoyment of the disputed property, if 
not by a final extinction of its value, or to 
precipitate injustice, arising from caprice, 
from favour, from enmity, or from venality. 
The resumption of forfeited property, and 
the restoration of it to the heirs of the an¬ 
cient owners, may be attended by all the 
mischievous consequences of the original 
confiscation; by the disturbance of habits, 
and by the disappointment of expectations; 
and by an abatement of that reliance on the 
inviolability of legal possession, which is the 
mainspring of industry, and the chief source 
of comfort. 

The arrival of Tyrconnel revived the 
hopes of the Catholics. They were at that 
time estimated to amount to 800,000 souls ; 
the English Episcopalians, the English Non- 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 337 


conformists, and the Scotch Presbyterians, 
each to 100,000.* There was an army of 3000 
men, which in the sequel of this reign was 
raised to 8000. The net revenue afforded 
a yearly average of 300,000/.| Before the 
civil war of 1641, the disproportion of num¬ 
bers of Catholics to Protestants had been 
much greater; and, by the consequences of 
that event, the balance of property had been 
entirely reversed.j “In playing of this 
game or match” (the war of 1641) “ upon 
so great odds, the English,” says Sir William 
Petty, “ won, and have a gamester’s right at 
least to their estates.” § On the arrival of 
Tyrconnel, too, were redoubled the fears of 
the Protestants for possessions always in¬ 
vidious, and now, as it seemed, about to be 
precarious. The attempt to give both par¬ 
ties a sort of representation in the govern¬ 
ment, and to balance the Protestant lord 
lieutenant by a Catholic commander of the 
army, unsettled the minds of the two com¬ 
munions. The Protestants, though they saw 
that the rising ascendant of Tyrconnel would 
speedily become irresistible, were betrayed 
into occasional indiscretion by the declara¬ 
tions of the lord lieutenant; and the Catho¬ 
lics, aware of their growing force, were only 
exasperated by Clarendon’s faint and fearful 
show of zeal for the established laws. The 
contemptuous disregard, or rather indecent 
insolence, manifested by Tyrconnel in his 
conversations with Lord Clarendon, betrayed 
a consciousness of the superiority of a royal 
favourite over a lord lieutenant, who had to 
execute a system to which he was disin¬ 
clined, and was to remain in office a little 
longer only as a pageant of state. He in- 


* Petty, p. 8. As Sir William Petty exaggerates 
the population of England, which he rates at six 
millions, considerably more than its amount in 
1700 (Population Returns, 1821, Introduction), it 
is probable he may have overrated that of Ireland; 
but there is no reason to suspect a mistake in the 
proportions. 

f Supposing the taxes then paid by England 
and Wales to have been about three millions, each 
inhabitant contributed ten shillings, while each 
Irishman paid somewhat more than five. 

% Petty, p. 24. § Ibid. 


dulged all his habitual indecencies and ex¬ 
cesses ; he gave loose to every passion, and 
threw off every restraint of good manners 
in these conversations. It is difficult to re¬ 
present them in a manner compatible with 
the decorum of history: yet they are too 
characteristic to be passed over. “You 
must know, my lord,” said Tyrconnel, “ that 
the king is a Roman Catholic, and resolved 
to employ his subjects of that religion, and 
that he will not keep one man in his service 
who ever served under the usurpers. The 
sheriffs you have made are generally rogues 
and old Cromwellians. There has not been 
an honest man sheriff in Ireland these twenty 
years.” Such language, intermingled with 
oaths, and uttered in the boisterous tone of 
a braggart youth, somewhat intoxicated, in 
a military guard-house, are specimens of the 
manner in which Tyrconnel delivered his 
opinions to his superior on the gravest affairs 
of state. It was no wonder that Clarendon 
told his brother Rochester — “If this lord 
continue in the temper he is in, he will gain 
here the reputation of a madman; for his 
treatment of people is scarce to be de¬ 
scribed.” * The more moderate of his own 
communion, comprehending almost all lay¬ 
men of education or fortune, he reviled as 
trimmers. He divided the Catholics, and 
embroiled the king’s affairs still farther by a 
violent prejudice against the native Irish, 
whom he contemptuously called the “O’s 
and Macs.”f To the letter of the king’s 
public declarations, or even positive instruc¬ 
tions to the lord lieutenant, he paid very 
little regard. He was sent by James “ to 
do the rough work” of remodelling the army 
and the corporations. With respect to the 
army, the king professed only to admit all 
his subjects on an equal footing without 
regard to religion ; but Tyrconnel’s lan¬ 
guage, and, when he had the power, his 
measures, led to the formation of an exclu¬ 
sively Catholic force.J The lord lieutenant 

* Correspondence of Clarendon and Rochester, 
vol. ii. Clarendon, Diary, 5th—14th June, 1686. 

f Sheridan MS. 

X Sheridan MS. It should be observed, that the 
passages relating to Ireland in the Life of James II., 


Z 








338 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


reasonably understood the royal intentions 
to be no more than that the Catholic religion 
should be no bar to the admission of persons 
otherwise qualified into corporations. Tyr- 
connel disregarded such distinctions, and 
declared, with one of his usual oaths, “ I do 
not know what to say to that; I would have 
all the Catholics in.” * * Three unexception¬ 
able judges of the Protestant persuasion 
were, by the king’s command, removed from 
the bench to make way for three Catholics — 
Daly, Rice, and Nugent — also, it ought to 
be added, of unobjectionable character and 
competent learning in their profession.| 
Officious sycophants hastened to prosecute 
those incautious Protestants who, in the late 
times of zeal against Popery, had spoken with 
freedom against the succession of the Duke 
of York, though it is due to justice to re¬ 
mark, that the Catholic council, judges, and 
juries discouraged these vexatious prose¬ 
cutions, and prevented them from producing 
any very grievous effects. The king had in 
the beginning solemnly declared his deter¬ 
mination to adhere to the Act of Settlement; 
but Tyrconnel, with his usual imprecations, 
said to the lord lieutenant, “These Acts of 
Settlement, and this new interest, are cursed 
things.” j The coarseness and insolence of 
Tyrconnel could not fail to offend the lord 
lieutenant; but it is apparent, from the lat¬ 
ter’s own description, that he was still more 
frightened than provoked; and perhaps more 
decorous language would not have so sud¬ 
denly and completely subdued the little 
spirit of the demure lord. Certain it is that 
these scenes of violence were immediately 
followed by the most profuse professions of 
his readiness to do whatever the king re¬ 
quired, without any reservation even of the 
interest of the Established Church. These 
professions were not merely formularies of 
that ignoble obsequiousness which degrades 
the inferior too much to exalt the superior: 

vol. ii. pp. 59—G3., were not written by the king, 
and do not even profess to be founded on the au¬ 
thority of his MSS. They are merely a statement 
made by Mr. Dicconson, the compiler of that work. 

* Clarendon, 20th—31st July. 

t Id. 19th June. J Id. 8th June. 


they were explicit and precise declarations 
relating to the particulars of the most mo¬ 
mentous measures then in agitation. In 
speaking of the reformation of the army he 
repeated his assurance to Sunderland, “ that 
the king may have every thing done here 
which he has a mind to; and it is more easy 
to do things quietly than in a storm.” * He 
descended to declare even to Tyrconnel 
himself, that “ it was not material how many 
Roman Catholics were in the army, if the 
king would have it so, for whatever his Ma¬ 
jesty would have should be made easy as far 
as lay in me.” f 

In the mean time Clarendon had incurred 
the displeasure of the queen by his supposed 
civilities to Lady Dorchester during her re¬ 
sidence in Ireland. The king was also dis¬ 
pleased at the disposition which he imputed 
to the lord lieutenant rather to traverse than 
to forward the designs of Tyrconnel in favour 
of the Catholics.| It was in vain that the 
submissive viceroy attempted to disarm these 
resentments by abject declarations of deep 
regret and unbounded devotedness. § The 
daily decline of the credit of Rochester de¬ 
prived his brother of his best support; and 
Tyrconnel, who returned to Court in August 
1686 , found it easy to effect a change in the 
government of Ireland. But he found more 
difficulty in obtaining that important govern¬ 
ment for himself. Sunderland tried every 
means but the resignation of his own office 
to avert so impolitic an appointment. He 
urged the declaration of the king, on the 
removal of Ormonde, that he would not 
bestow the lieutenancy on a native Irish¬ 
man : he represented the danger of alarming 
all Protestants by appointing to that office 
an acknowledged enemy of the Act of Set¬ 
tlement, and of exciting the apprehensions 
of all Englishmen by intrusting Ireland to 
a man so devoted to the service of Louis 
XIV.: he offered to make Tyrconnel a 
major-general on the English staff, with a 


* Clarendon, 20th July. j- Id. 30th July. 

X Id. 6th Oct. 

§ Clarendon to the king, 6th Oct.; to Lord Ro¬ 
chester, 23rd Oct. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 339 


pension of 5000Z. a year, and with as abso¬ 
lute though as secret authority in the affairs 
of Ireland, as Lauderdale had possessed in 
those of Scotland: he promised that after 
the abrogation of the penal laws in England, 
Tyrconnel, if he pleased, might be appointed 
lord lieutenant in the room of Lord Powis, 
who was destined for the present to succeed 
Clarendon. Tyrconnel turned a deaf ear to 
these proposals, and threatened to make dis¬ 
closures to the king and queen which might 
overthrow the policy and power of Sunder¬ 
land. The latter, when he was led by his 
contest with Rochester to throw himself into 
the arms of the Roman Catholics, had formed 
a more particular connection with Jermyn 
and Talbot, as the king’s favourites, and as 
the enemies of the family of Hyde. Tyr¬ 
connel now threatened to disclose the terms 
and objects of that league, the real purpose 
of removing Lady Dorchester, and the de¬ 
claration of Sunderland, when this alliance 
was formed, “that the king could only be 
governed by a woman or a priest, and that 
they must therefore combine the influence 
of the queen with that of Father Petre.” 
Sunderland appears to have made some re¬ 
sistance even after this formidable threat; 
and Tyrconnel proposed that the young 
Duke of Berwick should marry his daugh¬ 
ter, and be created lord lieutenant, while he 
himself should enjoy the power under the 
more modest title of “ lord deputy.” * A 
council, consisting of Sunderland, Tyrconnel, 
and the Catholic ministers, was held on the 
affairs of Ireland in the month of October. 
The members who gave their opinions before 
Tyrconnel maintained the necessity of con¬ 
forming to the Act of Settlement; but Tyr¬ 
connel exclaimed against them for advising 
the king to an act of injustice ruinous to 
the interests of religion. The conscience of 
James was alarmed, and he appointed the 
next day to hear the reasons of state which 
Sunderland had to urge on the opposite side. 


* London Gazette. All these particulars are to 
be found in Sheridan’s MS. It is but fair to add 
that, in a few months after Sheridan accompanied 
Tyrconnel to Ireland, they became violent enemies. 


Tyrconnel renewed his vehement invectives 
against the iniquity and impiety of the 
counsels which he opposed; and Sunder¬ 
land, who began, as he often did, with use¬ 
ful advice, ended, as usual, with a hesitating 
and ambiguous submission to his master’s 
pleasure, trusting to accident and his own 
address to prevent or mitigate the execution 
of violent measures.* These proceedings 
decided the contest for office; and Tyr¬ 
connel received the sword of state as lord 
deputy on the 12th February, 1687. 

The king’s professions of equality and 
impartiality in the distribution of office 
between the two adverse communions were 
speedily and totally disregarded. The lord 
deputy and the greater part of the Privy 
Council, the lord chancellor with three- 
fourths of the judges, all the king’s counsel 
but one, almost all the sheriffs, and a ma¬ 
jority of corporators and justices, were, in 
less than a year, Catholics; — numbers so 
disproportioned to the relative property, 
education, and ability for business, to be 
found in the two religions, that even if the 
appointments had not been tainted with the 
inexpiable blame of defiance to the laws, 
they must still have been regarded by the 
Protestants with the utmost apprehension, 
as indications of sinister designs. Fitten, 
the chancellor, was promoted from the 
King’s Bench prison, where he had been 
long a prisoner for debt; and he was 
charged, though probably without reason, 
by his opponents, with forgery, said to have 
been committed in a long suit with Lord 
Macclesfield. His real faults were igno¬ 
rance and subserviency. Neither of these 
vices could be imputed to Sir Richard 
Nagle, the Catholic attorney-general, who 
seems chargeable only with the inevitable 
fault of being actuated by a dangerous zeal 
for his own suffering party. It does not 
appear that the Catholic judges actually 
abused their power. We have already seen 
that, instead of seeking to retaliate for the 
murders of the Popish Plot, they discoun¬ 
tenanced prosecutions against their adver- 

* D’Ackla, loth Nov. 1687. MS. 

Z 2 














MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


340 


saries with a moderation and forbearance 
very rarely to be discovered in the policy of 
parties in the first moments of victory over 
long oppression. It is true that these Ca¬ 
tholic judges gave judgment against the 
charters of towns; but in these judgments 
they only followed the example of the most 
eminent of their Protestant brethren in 
England.* The evils of insecurity and 
alarm were those which were chiefly ex¬ 
perienced by the Irish Protestants. These 
mischiefs, very great in themselves, depended 
so much on the character, temper, and man¬ 
ner, of the lord deputy, on the triumphant 
or sometimes threatening conversation of 
their Catholic neighbours, on the recollection 
of bloody civil wars, and on the painful con¬ 
sciousness which haunts the possessors of 
recently confiscated property, that it may 
be thought unreasonable to require any 
other or more positive proof of their pre¬ 
valence. Some visible fruits of the alarm 
are pointed out. The Protestants, who were 
the wealthiest traders as well as the most 
ingenious artisans of the kingdom, began to 
emigrate: the revenue is said to have de¬ 
clined: the greater part of the Protestant 
officers of the army, alarmed by the removal 
of their brethren, sold their commissions for 
inadequate prices, and obtained military 
appointments in Holland, then the home of 
the exile and the refuge of the oppressed.f 
But that which Tyrconnel most pursued, and 


* Our accounts of Tyrconnel’s Irish administra¬ 
tion before the Revolution are peculiarly imperfect 
and suspicious. King, afterwards Archbishop of 
Dublin, whose State of the Protestants has been 
usually quoted as authority, was the most zealous 
of Irish Protestants, and his ingenious antagonist, 
Leslie, was the most inflexible of Jacobites. Though 
both were men of great abilities, their attention was 
so much occupied in personalities, and in the dis¬ 
cussion of controverted opinions, that they have 
done little to elucidate matters of fact. Clarendon’s 
and Sheridan’s MS. agree so exactly in their pic¬ 
ture of Tyrconnel, and have such an air of truth in 
their accounts of him, that it is not easy to refuse 
them credit, though they were both his enemies. 

f “ The Earl of Donegal,” says Sheridan, “ sold 
for 600 guineas a troop’ of horse which, two years 
before, cost him 1800 guineas.” Sheridan MS. 


the Protestants most dreaded, was the repeal 
of the Act of Settlement. The new pro¬ 
prietors were not, indeed, aware how much 
cause there was for their alarms. Tyrconnel 
boasted that he had secured the support of 
the queen by the present of a pearl neck¬ 
lace worth 10,000/., which Prince Rupert 
had bequeathed to his mistress. In all ex¬ 
tensive transfers of property not governed 
by rules of law, where both parties to a 
corrupt transaction have a great interest in 
concealment, and where there can seldom be 
any effective responsibility, either judicial 
or moral, the suspicion of bribery must be 
incurred, and the temptation itself must 
often prevail. Tyrconnel asked Sheridan, 
his secretary, whether he did not think the 
Irish would give 50,000/. for the repeal of 
the Act of Settlement. “ Certainly,” said 
Sheridan, “ since the new interest paid three 
times that sum to the Duke of Ormonde for 
passing it.” Tyrconnel then authorised She¬ 
ridan to offer to Lord Sunderland 50,000/. 
in money, or 5000/. a year in land, for the 
repeal. Sunderland preferred the 50,000/.; 
but with what seriousness of purpose cannot 
be ascertained, for the repeal was not adopted, 
and the money was never paid* ; and he 
seems to have continued to thwart and tra¬ 
verse a measure which he did not dare openly 
to resist. The absolute abrogation of laws 
under which so much property was held 
seemed to be beset with such difficulty, that 
in the autumn of the following year Tyr¬ 
connel, on his visit to England, proposed a 
more modified measure, aimed only at afford¬ 
ing a partial relief to the ancient proprietors. 
In the temper which then prevailed, a par¬ 
tial measure produced almost as much alarm 
as one more comprehensive, and was thought 
to be intended to pave the way for total re¬ 
sumption. The danger consisted in inquiry : 
the object of apprehension was any pro¬ 
ceeding which brought this species of legal 
possession into question; and the proprietors 
dreaded the approach even of discussion to 
their invidious and originally iniquitous 
titles. It would be hard to expect that 


* Sheridan MS. 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 341 


James should abstain from relieving his 
friends lest he might disturb the secure en¬ 
joyment of his enemies. Motives of policy, 
however, and some apprehensions of too 
sudden a shock to the feelings of Protestants 
in Great Britain, retarded the final adoption 
of this measure. It could only be carried 
into effect by the parliament of Ireland; and 
it was not thought wise to call it together 
till every part of the internal policy of the 
kingdom which could influence the elections 
of that assembly should be completed. Pro¬ 
bably, however, the delay principally arose 
from daring projects of separation and inde¬ 
pendence, which were entertained by Tyr- 
connel, and of which a short statement (in 
its most important parts hitherto unknown 
to the public) will conclude the account of 
his administration. 

In the year 1666, towards the close of the 
first Dutch war, Louis XIV. had made pre¬ 
parations for invading Ireland with an army 
of 20,000 men, under the Due de Beaufort, 
assured by the Irish ecclesiastics, that he 
would be joined by the Catholics, then more 
than usually incensed by the confirmation of 
the Act of Settlement, and by the English 
statutes against the importation of the pro¬ 
duce of Ireland. To this plot (which was 
discovered by the queen-mother at Paris, 
and by her disclosed to Charles II.), it is 
not probable that so active a leader as Tyr- 
connel could have been a stranger.* We 
are informed by his secretary, that, during 
his visits to England in 1686, he made no 


* There are obscure intimations of this intended 
invasion in Carte, Life of Ormonde, vol. ii. p. 328. 
The resolutions of the Parliament of Ireland con¬ 
cerning it are to be found in the Gazette, 25th— 
28th December, 1665. Louis XIV. himself tells us, 
that he had a correspondence with those whom he 
calls the “remains of Cromwell” in England, and 
“ with the Irish Catholics, who, always discontented 
with their condition, seem ever ready to join any en¬ 
terprise which may render it more supportable.” 
Oeuvres de Louis XIV., vol. ii. p. 203. Sheridan’s 
MS. contains more particulars. It is supported by 
the printed authorities as far as they go; and being 
written at St. Germains, probably differed little in 
matters of fact from the received statements of the 
Jacobite exiles. 


scruple to avow projects of the like nature, 
when, after some remarks on the king’s de¬ 
clining age, and on the improbability that 
the queen’s children, if ever she had any, 
should live beyond infancy, he declared, 
“ that the Irish would be fools or madmen 
if they submitted to be governed by the 
Prince of Orange, or by Hyde’s grand¬ 
daughters ; that they ought rather to take 
that opportunity of resolving no longer to 
be the slaves of England, but to set up a 
king of their own under the protection of 
France, which he was sure would be readily 
granted; ” and added, that “ nothing could 
be more advantageous to Ireland or ruinous 
to England.”* His reliance on French sup¬ 
port was probably founded on the general 
policy of Louis XIV., on his conduct to¬ 
wards Ireland in 1666, and, perhaps, on 
information from Catholic ecclesiastics in 
France; but he was not long content with 
these grounds of assurance. During his re¬ 
sidence in England in the autumn of 1687, 
he had recourse to decisive and audacious 
measures for ascertaining how far he might 
rely on foreign aid in the execution of his 
ambitious schemes. A friend of his at court 
(whose name is concealed, but who probably 
was either Henry Jermyn or Father Petre) 
applied on his behalf to Bonrepos (then em¬ 
ployed by the Court of Versailles in London, 
on a special mission f), expressing his desire, 
in case of the death of James II., to take 
measures to prevent Ireland from falling 
under the domination of the Prince of 
Orange, and to place that country under the 
protection of the most Christian king. Tyr- 
connel expressed his desire that Bonrepos 
should eo to Chester for the sake of a full 
discussion of this important proposition; 
but the wary minister declined a step which 
would have amounted to the opening of a 
negotiation, until he had authority from his 
government. He promised, however, to keep 
the secret, especially from Barillon, who it 
was feared would betray it to Sunderland, 


* Sheridan MS. 

f Bonrepos to Seignelai, 4th Sept. 1687. Fox 
MSS. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


342 

then avowedly distrusted by the lord deputy. 
Bonrepos, in communicating this proposition 
to his court, adds, that he very certainly 
knew the King of England’s intention to be 
to deprive his presumptive heir of Ireland, 
to make that country an asylum for all his 
Catholic subjects, and to complete his mea¬ 
sures on that subject in the course of five 
years — a time which Tyrconnel thought 
much too long, and earnestly besought the 
king to abridge, and that the Prince of 
Orange certainly apprehended such designs. 
James himself told the nuncio that one of 
the objects of the extraordinary mission of 
Dykveldt was the affair of Ireland, happily 
begun by Tyrconnel *; and the same prelate 
was afterwards informed by Sunderland, that 
Dykveldt had expressed a fear of some 
general designs against the succession of the 
Prince and Princess of Orange, f Bonrepos 
was speedily instructed to inform Tyrconnel, 
that if on the death of James he could main¬ 
tain himself in Ireland, he might rely on 
effectual aid from Louis to preserve the Ca¬ 
tholic religion, and to separate that country 
from England, when under the dominion of 
a Protestant sovereign. J Tyrconnel is said 
to have agreed, without the knowledge of his 
own master, to put four Irish seaports — 
Kinsale, Waterford, Limerick, and either 
Galway or Coleraine — into the hands of 
France. § The remaining particulars of this 
bold and hazardous negotiation were re¬ 
served by Bonrepos till his return to Paris; 
but he closes his last despatch with the sin¬ 
gular intimation that several Scotch lords 
had sounded him on the succour they might 
expect from France, on the death of James, 
to exclude the Prince and Princess of Orange 
from the throne of Scotland. Objects so far 
beyond the usual aim of ambition, and means 
so much at variance with prudence as well 
as duty, could hardly have presented them¬ 
selves to any mind whose native violence had 
not been inflamed by an education in the 


* D’Adda, 7th Feb. 1687, MS. 
t Ibid. 20th June. 

% Seignelai to Bonrepos, 29th Sept. Fox MSS. 
§ Sheridan MS. 


school of conspiracy and insurrection; — nor 
even to such but in a country which, from 
the division of its inhabitants, and the im¬ 
policy of its administration, had constantly 
stood on the brink of the most violent revo¬ 
lutions ; where quiet seldom subsisted long 
but as the bitter fruit of terrible examples 
of cruelty and rapine; and where the major¬ 
ity of the people easily listened to offers of 
foreign aid against a government which they 
considered as the most hostile of foreigners. 


CHAPTER V. 

Rupture with the Protestant Tories. — Increased 
Decision of the King’s Designs. — Encroach¬ 
ments on the Church Establishment.— Charter 
House. — Oxford, University College. — Christ 
Church.—Exeter College, Cambridge. — Ox¬ 
ford, Magdalen College. — Declaration of Liberty 
of Conscience. — Similar Attempts of Charles. 
— Proclamation at Edinburgh. — Resistance of 
the Church. — Attempt to conciliate the Non¬ 
conformists. — Review of their Sufferings. — 
Baxter.—Bunyan.—Presbyterians. — Independ¬ 
ents. — Baptists. — Quakers. — Addresses of 
Thanks for the Declaration. 

In the beginning of the year 1687 the 
rupture of James with the powerful party 
who were ready to sacrifice all but the 
Church to his pleasure appeared to be irre¬ 
parable. Pie had apparently destined Scot¬ 
land to set the example of unbounded 
submission, under the forms of the constitu¬ 
tion; and he undoubtedly hoped that the 
revolution in Ireland would supply him with 
the means of securing the obedience of his 
English subjects by intimidation or force. 
The failure of his project in the most Pro¬ 
testant part of his dominions, and its alarming 
success in the most Catholic, alike tended to 
widen the breach between parties in Eng¬ 
land. The Tories were alienated from the 
Crown by the example of their friends in 
Scotland, as well as by their dread of the 
Irish. An unreserved compliance with the 
king’s designs became notoriously the con¬ 
dition by which office was to be obtained or 









REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 343 


preserved; and, except a very few instances 
of personal friendship, the public profession 
of the Catholic faith was required as the 
only security for that compliance. The royal 
confidence and the direction of public affairs 
were transferred from the Protestant Tories, 
in spite of their services and sufferings 
during half a century, into the hands of a 
faction, who, as their title to power was zeal 
for the advancement of popery, must be 
called “ Papists; ” though some of them pro¬ 
fessed the Protestant religion, and though 
their maxims of policy, both in Church and 
State, were dreaded and resisted by the most 
considerable of the English Catholics. 

It is hard to determine—perhaps it might 
have been impossible for James himself to 
say—how far his designs for the advance¬ 
ment of the Roman Catholic Church ex¬ 
tended at the period of his accession to the 
throne. It is agreeable to the nature of 
such projects that he should not, at first, 
have dared to avow to himself any intention 
beyond that of obtaining relief for his re¬ 
ligion, and of placing it in a condition of 
safety and honour; but it is altogether im¬ 
probable that he had even then steadily 
fixed on a secure toleration as the utmost 
limit of his endeavours. His schemes were 
probably vague and fluctuating, assuming a 
greater distinctness with respect to the re¬ 
moval of grievous penalties and disabilities, 
but always ready to seek as much advantage 
for his Church as the progress of circum¬ 
stances should render attainable;—some¬ 
times drawn back to toleration by prudence 
or fear, and on other occasions impelled to 
more daring counsels by the pride of success, 
or by anger at resistance. In this state of 
fluctuation it is not altogether irreconcileable 
with the irregularities of human nature, that 
he might have sometimes yielded a faint 
and transient assent to those principles of 
religious liberty which he professed in his 
public acts; though even this superficial 
sincerity is hard to be reconciled with his 
share in the secret treaty of 1670, — with 
his administration of Scotland, where he 
carried his passion for intolerance so far as 
to be the leader of one sect of heretics in 


the bloody persecution of another, — and 
with his language to'Barillon, to whom, at 
the yery moment of his professed toleration, 
he declared his approbation of the cruelties 
of Louis XIV. against his own Protestant 
subjects.* It would be extravagant to ex¬ 
pect that the liberal maxims which adorned 
his public declarations had taken sucli a 
hold on his mind as to withhold him from 
endeavouring to establish his own religion 
as soon as his sanguine zeal should lead him 
to think it practicable; or that he should 
not in process of time go on to guard it by 
that code of disabilities and penalties which 
was then enforced by every state in Europe 
except Holland, and deemed indispensable 
security for their religion by every Christian 
community, except the obnoxious sects of 
the Socinians, Independents, Anabaptists, and 
Quakers. Whether he meditated a violent 
change of the established religion from the 
beginning, or only entered on a course of 
measures which must terminate in its sub¬ 
version, is rather a philosophical than a 
political question. In both cases, appre¬ 
hension and resistance were alike reasonable; 
and in neither could an appeal to arms be 
warranted until every other means of self- 
defence had proved manifestly hopeless. 

Whatever opinions may be formed of his 
intentions at an earlier period, it is evident 
that in the year 1687 his resolution was 
taken; though still no doubt influenced by 
the misgivings and fluctuations incident to 
vast and perilous projects, especially when 
they are entertained by those whose character 
is not so daring as their designs. All the 
measures of his internal government, during 
the eighteen months which ensued, were 
directed to the overthrow of the Established 
Churqh, — an object which was to be at¬ 
tained by assuming a power above law, and 

* “ J’ai dit au Eoi que V. M. n’avoit plus au 
cceur que de voir prosp^rer les soins qu’il prend 
ici pour y etablir la religion Catholique. S. M. B. 
me dit en me quittant; ‘ Yous voyez que je n’omets 
rien de ce qui est en mon pouvoir. J’espbre que le 
Eoi votre maitre m’aidera, et que nous ferons de 
concert des grandes choses pour la religion.’ ” Ba- 
rillon, 12th May, 1687. Fox MSS. 







MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


344 

could only be preserved by a force sufficient 
to bid defiance to the repugnance of the 
nation. An absolute monarchy, if not the 
first instrument of his purpose, must have 
been the last result of that series of victories 
over the people which the success of his 
design required. Such, indeed, were his 
conscientious opinions of the constitution, 
that he thought the Habeas Corpus Act in¬ 
consistent with it; and so strong was his 
conviction of the necessity of military force 
to his designs at that time, that in his dying 
advice to his son, written long afterwards, 
in secrecy and solitude, after a review of 
his own government, his injunction to the 
prince is,— “Keep up a considerable body 
of Catholic troops, without which you cannot 
be safe.”* The liberty of the people, and 
even the civil constitution, were as much the 
objects of his hostility as the religion of the 
great majority, and were their best security 
against ultimate persecution. 

The measures of the king’s domestic policy, 
indeed, consisted rather in encroachments on 
the Church than in measures of relief to the 
Catholics. He had, in May, 1686, granted 
dispensations to the curate of Putney, a 
convert to the Church of Rome, enabling 
him to hold his benefices, and relieving him 
from the performance of all the acts incon¬ 
sistent with his new religion, which a long 
series of statutes had required clergymen of 
the Church of England to perform.f By 
following this precedent, the king might have 
silently transferred to ecclesiastics of his own 
communion many benefices in every diocese 
in which the bishop had not the courage to 


* Life of James II., vol. ii. p. 621. 
f Gutch, Collectanea Curiosa, vol. i. p. 290. and 
Reresby, p.233. Selater publicly recanted the 
Romish religion on the 5th of May, 1689, — a 
pretty rapid retreat. Account of E. Sclater’s Re¬ 
turn to the Church of England, by Dr. Horneck. 
London, 1689. It is remarkable that Sancroft so 
far exercised his archiepiscopal jurisdiction as to 
authorise Sclater’s admission to the Protestant 
communion on condition of public recantation, at 
which Burnet preached; yet the pious Horneck 
owns that the juncture of time tempted him to 
smile. 


resist the dispensing power. The converted 
incumbents would preserve their livings 
under the protection of that prerogative, and 
Catholic priests might be presented to bene¬ 
fices without any new ordination; for the 
Church of England — although she treats 
the ministers of any other Protestant com¬ 
munion as being only in pretended holy 
orders — recognises the ordination of the 
Church of Rome, which she sometimes calls 
“idolatrous,” in order to maintain, even 
through 'such idolatrous predecessors, that 
unbroken connection with the apostles which 
she deems essential to the power of confer¬ 
ring the sacerdotal character. This obscure 
encroachment, however, escaped general 
observation. 

The first attack on the laws to which 
resistance was made was a royal recom¬ 
mendation of Andrew Popham, a Catholic, 
to the governors of the Charter House (a 
hospital school, founded by a merchant of 
London, named Sutton, on the site of a 
Carthusian monastery), to be received by 
them as a pensioner on their opulent esta¬ 
blishment, without taking the oaths required 
both by the general law and by a private 
statute passed for the government of that 
foundation.* Among the governors were 
persons of the highest distinction in Church 
and State. The chancellor, at their first 
meeting, intimated the necessity of imme¬ 
diate compliance with the king’s mandate. 
Thomas Burnet, the master, a man justly 
celebrated for genius, eloquence, and learn¬ 
ing, had the courage to maintain the autho¬ 
rity of the laws against an opponent so 
formidable. He was supported by the aged 
Duke of Ormonde, and Jeffreys’ motion was 
negatived. A second letter to the same 
effect was addressed to the governors, which 
they persevered in resisting; assigning their 
reasons in an answer to one of the secre¬ 
taries of state, which was subscribed by the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of 
London, Ormonde, Halifax, Nottingham, 


* Relation of the Proceedings at the Charter 
House, London, 1689. Carte, Life of Ormonde, 
vol. ii. p. 246. 

















REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF ]688. 345 


and Danby. This courageous resistance by 
a single clergyman, countenanced by such 
weighty names, induced the Court to pause 
till experiments were tried in other places, 
where politicians so important could not 
directly interfere. The attack on the Charter 
House was suspended, and never afterwards 
resumed. To Burnet, who thus threw him¬ 
self alone into the breach, much of the merit 
of the stand which followed justly belongs. 
He was requited like other public bene¬ 
factors : his friends forgot the service, and 
his enemies were excited by the remem¬ 
brance of it to defeat his promotion, on the 
pretext of his free exercise of reason in the 
interpretation of the Scriptures, — which 
the established clergy zealously maintained 
in vindication of their own separation from 
the Roman Church, but treated with little 
tenderness in those who dissented from their 
own creed. 

Measures of a bolder nature were re¬ 
sorted to on a more conspicuous stage. The 
two great universities of Oxford and Cam¬ 
bridge, the most opulent and splendid lite¬ 
rary institutions of Europe, were from their 
foundation under the government of the 
clergy, — the only body of men who then 
possessed sufficient learning to conduct edu¬ 
cation. Their constitution had not been 
much altered at the Reformation: the same 
reverence which spared their monastic re¬ 
gulations happily preserved their rich en¬ 
dowments from rapine; and though many 
of their members suffered at the close of 
the Civil War from their adherence to the 
vanquished party, the corporate property 
was undisturbed, and their studies flourished 
both under the Commonwealth and the Pro¬ 
tectorate. Their fame as seats of learning, 
their station as the ecclesiastical capitals of 
the kingdom, and their ascendant over the 
susceptible minds of all youth of family and 
fortune, now rendered them the chief scene 
of the decisive contest between James and 
the Established Church. Obadiah Walker, 
master of University College, Oxford, a man 
of no small note for ability and learning, 
and long a concealed Catholic, now obtained 
for himself, and two of his fellows, a dis¬ 


pensation from all those acts of participation 
in the Protestant worship which the laws 
since the Reformation required, together 
with a licence for the publication of books 
of Catholic theology.* He established a 
printing press and a Catholic chapel in his 
college, which was henceforth regarded as 
having fallen into the hands of the Catholics. 
Both these exertions of the prerogative had 
preceded the determination of the judges, 
which was supposed by the king to establish 
its legality. 

Animated by that determination, he (con¬ 
trary to the advice of Sunderland, who 
thought it safer to choose a well-affected 
Protestant) proceeded to appoint one Massey, 
a Catholic, who appears to have been a lay¬ 
man, to the high station of dean of Christ 
Church, by which he became a dignitary 
of the Church, as well as the ruler of the 
greatest college in the university. A dis¬ 
pensation and pardon had been granted to 
him on the 16th of December, 1686, dis¬ 
pensing with the numerous statutes standing 
in the way of his promotion, one of which 
was the Act of Uniformity, — the only 
foundation of the legal establishment of the 
Church, j* His refusal of the oath of supre¬ 
macy was recorded; but he was, notwith¬ 
standing, installed in the deanery without 
resistance or even remonstrance, by Aldrich, 
the sub-dean, an eminent divine of the High 
Church party, who, on the part of the college, 
accepted the dispensation as a substitute for 
the oaths required by law. Massey appears 
to have attended the chapter officially on 
several occasions, and to have presided at 
the election of a bishop of Oxford near two 
years afterwards. Thus did that celebrated 
society, overawed by power, or still misled 
by their extravagant principle of unlimited 
obedience, or, perhaps, not yet aware of the 
extent of the king’s designs, recognise the 
legality of his usurped power by the sur- 

* Gutch, Collectanea Curiosa, vol. i. p. 287. 
Athenae Oxoniensis, vol. iv. p. 438. Dodd, Church 
History, vol. iii. p. 454. 

t Gutch, vol. ii. p. 294. The Dispensation to 
Massey contained an ostentatious enumeration of 
the laws which it sets at defiance. 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


346 


render of an academical office of ecclesias¬ 
tical dignity into hands which the laws had 
disabled from holding it. It was no wonder, 
that the unprecedented vacancy of the arch¬ 
bishopric of York for two years and a half 
was generally imputed to the king’s in¬ 
tending it for Father Petre; — a supposition 
countenanced by his frequent application to 
Rome to obtain a bishopric and a cardinal’s 
hat for that Jesuit *: for if he had been a 
Catholic bishop, and if the chapter of York 
were as submissive as that of Christ Church, 
the royal dispensation would have seated 
him on the archiepiscopal throne. The Je¬ 
suits were bound by a vow f not to accept 
bishoprics unless compelled by a precept 
from the pope, so that his interference was 
necessary to open the gates of the English 
Church to Petre. 

An attempt was made on specious grounds 
to take possession of another college by a 
suit before the ecclesiastical commissioners, 
in which private individuals were the appa¬ 
rent parties. The noble family of Petre (of 
whom Father Edward Petre was one), in 
January, 1687, claimed the right of nomi¬ 
nation to seven fellowships in Exeter College, 
which had been founded there by Sir William 
Petre, in the reign of Elizabeth. It was 
acknowledged on the part of the college 
that Sir William and his son had exercised 
that power, though the latter, as they con¬ 
tended, had nominated only by sufferance. 
The Bishop of Exeter, the visitor, had, in 
the reign of James I., pronounced an opinion 
against the founder’s descendants; and a 
judgment had been obtained against them 
in the court of Common Pleas about the 
same time. Under the sanction of these 
authorities, the college had for seventy 
years nominated without disturbance to these 
fellowships. Allibone, the Catholic lawyer, 
contended, that this long usage, which would 


* Dodd, vol. iii. p. 511. D’Adda MSS. 
f Imposed by Ignatius, at the suggestion of 
Claude Le Jay, an original member of the order, 
who wished to avoid a bishopric, probably from 
humility; but the regulation afterwards prevented 
the Jesuits from looking for advancement any 
where but to Rome. 


otherwise have been conclusive, deserved 
little consideration in a period of such in¬ 
iquity towards Catholics that they were de¬ 
terred from asserting their civil rights. 
Lord Chief Justice Herbert observed, that 
the question turned upon the agreement 
between Sir William Petre and Exeter Col¬ 
lege, under which that body received the 
fellows on his foundation. Jeffreys, perhaps, 
fearful of violent measures at so early a 
stage, and taking advantage of the non- 
appearance of the Crown as an ostensible 
party, declared his concurrence with the 
chief justice; and the court determined that 
the suit was a civil case, dependent on the 
interpretation of a contract, and therefore 
not within their jurisdiction as commissioners 
of ecclesiastical causes. Sprat afterwards 
took some merit to himself for having con¬ 
tributed to save Exeter College from the 
hands of the enemy: but the concurrence of 
the chancellor and chief justice, and the 
technical ground of the determination, render 
the vigour and value of his resistance very 
doubtful.* 

The honour of opposing the illegal power 
of the Crown devolved on Cambridge, second 
to Oxford in rank and magnificence, but 
then more distinguished by zeal for liberty; 
— a distinction probably originating in the 
long residence of Charles I. at Oxford, and 
in the prevalence of the parliamentary party 
at the same period in the country around 
Cambridge. The experiment was made 
now on the whole university; but it was of 
a cautious and timid nature, and related to 
a case important in nothing but the prin¬ 
ciple which it would have established. Early 
in February of this year, the king had re¬ 
commended Alban Francis, a Benedictine 
monk (said to have been a missionary em¬ 
ployed to convert the young scholars to the 
Church of Rome, on whom an academical 
honour could hardly have been conferred 
without some appearance of countenancing 

* Sprat’s Letter to Lord Dorset, p. 12. This case 
is now published from the Records of Exeter Col¬ 
lege, for the first time, through the kind permission 
of Dr. Jones, the present [1826] rector of that 















REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 347 


his mission), to be admitted a master of arts, 
—which was a common act of kingly autho¬ 
rity ; and had granted him a dispensation 
from the oaths appointed by law to be taken 
on such an admission. * Peachell, the vice- 
chancellor, declared, that he could not tell 
what to do, — to decline his majesty’s letter 
or his laws. Men of more wisdom and 
courage persuaded him to choose the better 
part: and he refused the degree without 
the legal condition, f On the complaint of 
Francis he was summoned before the eccle¬ 
siastical commissioners to answer for his 
disobedience, and (though vigorously sup¬ 
ported by the university, who appointed 
deputies to attend him to the bar of the 
hostile tribunal), after several hearings, was 
deprived of his vice-chancellorship, and sus¬ 
pended from his office of master of Magdalen 
College. Among those deputies at the bar, 
and probably undistinguished from the rest 
by the ignorant and arrogant chancellor, 
who looked down upon them all with the 
like scorn, stood Isaac Newton, professor of 
mathematics in the university, then em¬ 
ployed in the publication of a work which 
will perish only with the world, but who 
showed on that, as on every other fit oppor¬ 
tunity in his life, that the most sublime 
contemplations and the most glorious dis¬ 
coveries could not withdraw him from the 
defence of the liberties of his country. 

Rut the attack on Oxford, which imme¬ 
diately ensued, was the most memorable of 
all. The presidency of Magdalen College, 
one of the most richly endowed communities 
of the English universities, had become 
vacant at the end of March, which gave 
occasion to immediate attempts to obtain 
from the king a nomination to that desirable 
office. Smith, one of the fellows, paid his 


* State Trials, vol. xi. p. 1350. Narcissus Lut- 
trell, April and May, 1687. MS. 

f Pepys, Memoirs, vol. ii. Correspondence, p. 79. 
He consistently pursued the doctrine of passive 
obedience. “If,” says he, “his majesty, in his 
wisdom, and according to his supreme power, con¬ 
trive other methods to satisfy himself, I shall be 
no murmurer or complainer, but can be no abettor.” 
Ibid. p. 81. 


court, with this view, to Parker, the treach¬ 
erous bishop of Oxford, who, after having 
sounded his friends at Court, warned him 
“that the king expected the person to be 
recommended should be favourable to his 
religion.” Smith answered by general ex¬ 
pressions of loyalty, which Parker assured 
him “would not do.” A few days after¬ 
wards, Bancroft anxiously asked Smith who 
was to be the president; to which he an¬ 
swered, “Not I; I never will comply with 
the conditions.” Some rumours of the pro¬ 
jects of James having probably induced the 
fellows to appoint the election for the 13th of 
April, on the 5 th of that month the king 
issued his letter mandatory, commanding 
them to make choice of Anthony Farmer *, — 
not a member of the college, and a recent con¬ 
vert to the Church of Rome, “ any statute 
or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.” 
On the 9th, the fellows agreed to a petition 
to the king, which was delivered the next 
day to Lord Sunderland, to be laid before 
his majesty, in which they alleged that 
Farmer was legally incapable of holding 
the office, and prayed either that they might 
be left to make a free election, or that the 
king would recommend some person fit to 
be preferred. On the 11th the mandate 
arrived, and on the 13th the election was 
postponed to the 15th,—the last day on 
which it could by the statutes be held, — to 
allow time for receiving an answer to the 
petition. On that day they were informed 
that the king “ expected to be obeyed.” A 
small number of the senior fellows proposed 
a second petition; but the larger and younger 
part rejected the proposal with indignation, 
and proceeded to the election of Mr. Hough, 
after a discussion more agreeable to the 
natural feelings of injured men than to the 
principles of passive obedience recently pro¬ 
mulgated by the university.f The fellows 


* State Trials, vol. xii. p. 1. 
f “Hot debates arose about the king’s letter, 
and horrible rude reflections were made upon his 
authority, that he had nothing to do in our affair, 
and things of a far worse nature and consequence. 
I told one of them that the spirit of Ferguson had 















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


348 


were summoned in June, before the eccle¬ 
siastical commission, to answer for their con¬ 
tempt of his majesty’s commands. On their 
appearance, Fairfax, one of their body, 
having desired to know the commission by 
which the court sat, Jeffreys said to him, 
“ What commission have you to be so im¬ 
pudent in court? This man ought to be 
kept in a dark room. Why do you suffer 
him without a guardian?”* On the 22d of 
the same month, Hough’s election was pro¬ 
nounced to be void, and the vice-president, 
with two of the fellows, were suspended. 
But proofs of such notorious and vulgar pro¬ 
fligacy had been produced against Farmer, 
that it was thought necessary to withdraw 
him in August; and the fellows were directed 
by a new mandate to admit Parker, bishop 
of Oxford, to the presidency. This man 
was as much disabled by the statutes of the 
college as Farmer; but as servility and 
treachery, though immoralities often of a 
deeper dye than debauchery, are neither 
so capable of proof nor so easily stripped of 
their disguises, the fellows were by this 
recommendation driven to the necessity of 
denying the dispensing power. Their in¬ 
ducements, however, to resist him, were 
strengthened by the impossibility of repre¬ 
senting them to the king. Parker, origin¬ 
ally a fanatical Puritan, became a bigoted 
Churchman at the Restoration, and disgraced 
abilities not inconsiderable by the zeal with 
which he defended the persecution of his 
late brethren, and by the unbridled ribaldry 
with which he reviled the most virtuous men 
among them. His labours for the Church 
of England were no sooner rewarded by the 
bishopric of Oxford, than he transferred his 
services, if not his faith, to the Church of 
Rome, which then began to be openly patron¬ 
ised by the Court, and seems to have re¬ 
tained his station in the Protestant hierarchy, 
in order to contribute more effectually to 


got into him.” Smith’s Diary, State Trials, vol. 
xii. p. 58. 

f In Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary, Jeffreys is made 
to sa} r of Fairfax, “ He is fitter to be in a mad¬ 
house.” 


its destruction. The zeal of those who are 
more anxious to recommend themselves than 
to promote their cause is often too eager; 
and the convivial enjoyments of Parker often 
betrayed him into very imprudent and un¬ 
seemly language.* Against such an intruder 
the college had the most powerful motives 
to make a vigorous resistance. They were 
summoned into the presence of the king, 
when he arrived at Oxford in September, and 
was received by the body of the university 
with such demonstrations of loyalty as to 
be boasted of in the Gazette. “ The king 
chid them very much for their disobedience,” 
says one of his attendants, “ and with a much 
greater appearance of anger than ever I 
perceived in his majesty; who bade them 
go away and choose the Bishop of Oxford, 
or else they should certainly feel the weight 
of their sovereign’s displeasure.” f They an¬ 
swered respectfully, but persevered. They 
further received private warnings, that it 
was better to acquiesce in the choice of a 
head of suspected religion, such as the 
bishop, than to expose themselves to be 
destroyed by the subservient judges, in pro¬ 
ceedings of quo warranto (for which the 
inevitable breaches of their innumerable 
statutes would supply a fairer pretext than 
was sufficient in the other corporations), or 
to subject themselves to innovations in their 
religious worship which might be imposed 
by the king in virtue of his undefined 
supremacy over the Church. J 

These insinuations proving vain, the king 
issued a commission to Cartwright, bishop 
of Chester, Chief Justice Wright, and 
Baron Jenner, to examine the state of the 
college, with full power to alter the sta¬ 
tutes and frame new ones, in execution of 
the authority which the king claimed as 
supreme visitor of cathedrals and colleges, 


* Athenae Oxonienses, vol. ii. p. 814. It appears 
that he refused on his death-bed to declare himself 
a Catholic, which Evelyn justly thinks strange. 
Memoirs, vol. i. p. 605. 

f Blathwayt, Secretary of War, Pepys, vol. ii. 
Correspondence, p. 86. 

X State Trials, vol. xii. p. 19. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 349 


and which was held to supersede the powers 
of their ordinary visitors. The commission¬ 
ers accordingly arrived at Oxford on the 
20th of October, for the purpose of this 
royal visitation; and the object of it was 
opened by Cartwright in a speech full of 
anger and menace. Hough maintained his 
own rights and those of his college with 
equal decorum and firmness. On being 
asked whether he submitted to the visit¬ 
ation, he answered, “We submit to it as 
far as it is consistent with the laws of the 
land and the statutes of the college, but no 
farther. There neither is nor can be a 
president as long as I live and obey the 
statutes.” The court cited five cases of 
nomination to the presidency by the Crown 
since the Reformation, of which he appears 
to have disputed only one. But he was un¬ 
shaken : he refused to give up possession of 
his house to Parker ; and when, on the se¬ 
cond day, they deprived him of the presi¬ 
dency, and struck his name off the books, 
he came into the hall, and protested 
“ against all they had done in prejudice of 
his right, as illegal, unjust, and null.” The 
strangers and young scholars loudly ap¬ 
plauded his courage, which so incensed the 
court, that the chief justice bound him to 
appear in the King’s Bench in a thousand 
pounds. Parker having been put into pos¬ 
session by force, a majority of the fellows 
were prevailed on to submit, “ as far as was 
lawful and agreeable to the statutes of the 
college.” The appearance of compromise, 
to which every man feared that his compa¬ 
nion might be tempted to yield, shook their 
firmness for a moment. Fortunately the 
imprudence of the king set them again at 
liberty. The answer with which the com¬ 
missioners were willing to be content did 
not satisfy him. He required a written 
submission, in which the fellows should 
acknowledge their disobedience, and express 
their sorrow for it. On this proposition 
they withdrew their former submission, and 
gave in a writing in which they finally de¬ 
clared “ that they could not acknowledge 
themselves to have done any thing amiss.” 
The Bishop of Chester, on the 16th of No¬ 


vember, pronounced the judgment of the 
court; by which, on their refusal to sub¬ 
scribe a humble acknowledgment of their 
errors, they were deprived and expelled 
from their fellowships. Cartwright, like 
Parker, had originally been a Puritan, and 
was made a Churchman by the Restoration; 
and running the same race, though with less 
vigorous powers, he had been made bishop 
of Chester for a sermon, inculcating the 
doctrine, that the promises of kings were not 
binding.* * * § Within a few months after these 
services at Oxford, he was rebuked by the 
king, for saying in his cups that Jeffreys 
and Sunderland would deceive him.j* Sus¬ 
pected as he was of more opprobrious vices, 
the merit of being useful in an odious pro¬ 
ject was sufficient to cancel all private guilt; 
and a design was even entertained of pro¬ 
moting him to the see of London, as soon as 
the contemplated deprivation of Compton 
should be carried into execution-! 

Early in December, the recusant fellows 
were incapacitated from holding any benefice 
or preferment in the Church by a decree of 
the ecclesiastical commissioners, which passed 
that body, however, only by a majority of 
one ; — the minority consisting of Lord Mul- 
grave, Lord Chief Justice Herbert, Baron 
Jenner, and Sprat, bishop of Rochester, 
who boasts, that he laboured to make the 
commission, which he countenanced by his 
presence, as little mischievous as he could. § 
This rigorous measure was probably adopted 
from the knowledge, that many of the nobi- 


* “ The king hath, indeed, promised to govern 
by law; but the safety of the people (of which he 
is judge) is an exception implied in every mo¬ 
narchical promise.” Sermon at Ripon, 6th Feb¬ 
ruary, 1686. See also his sermon on the 30th 
January, 1682, at Holyrood House, before the Lady 
Anne. 

f Narcissus Luttrell, February, 1688. MS. 

j Johnstone (son of Warriston) to Burnet, 8th 
December, 1687. Welbeck MS. Sprat, in his 
Letter to Lord Dorset, speaks of “ farther proceed¬ 
ings ” as being meditated against Compton. 

§ Johnstone, ibid. He does not name the ma¬ 
jority : they, probably, were Jeffreys, Sunderland, 
the Bishops of Chester and Durham, and Lord 
Chief Justice Wright. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


350 

lity and gentry intended to bestow livings 
on many of the ejected fellows.* * * § The king 
told Sir Edward Seymour, that he had heard 
that he and others intended to take some of 
them into their houses, and added that he 
should look on it as a combination against 
himself.j* But in spite of these threats con¬ 
siderable collections were made for them; 
and when the particulars of the transaction 
were made known in Holland, the Princess 
of Orange contributed two hundred pounds 
to their relief.^ It was probably by these 
same threats that a person so prudent as 
well as mild was so transported beyond her 
usual meekness as to say to D’Abbeville, 
James’s minister at the Hague, that if she 
ever became queen, she would signalise her 
zeal for the Church more than Elizabeth. 

The king represented to Barillon the ap¬ 
parently triumphant progress which he had 
just made through the south and west of 
England, as a satisfactory proof of the po¬ 
pularity of his person and government^ 
But that experienced statesman, not de¬ 
ceived by these outward shows, began from 
that moment to see more clearly the dangers 
which James had to encounter. An attack 
on the most opulent establishment for edu¬ 
cation of the kingdom, the expulsion of a 
body of learned men from their private pro¬ 
perty without any trial known to the laws, 
and for no other offence than obstinate ad¬ 
herence to their oaths, and the transfer of 
their great endowments to the clergy of the 
king’s persuasion, who were legally unable 
to hold them, even if he had justly acquired 
the power of bestowing them, were measures 
of bigotry and rapine, — odious and alarm¬ 
ing without being terrible,—by which the 
king lost the attachment of many friends 
without inspiring his opponents with much 
fear. The members of Magdalen College 
were so much the objects of general sym¬ 
pathy and respect, that though they justly 
obtained the honours of martyrdom, they 


* Johnstone, 17th Nov. MS. 

f Ibid. 8th Dec. MS, 

J Smith’s Diary, State Trials, vol. xii. p. 73. 

§ Barillon, 23d—29th Sept. Fox MSS. 


experienced little of its sufferings. It is 
hard to imagine a more unskilful attempt to 
persecute, than that which thus inflicted 
sufferings most easily relieved on men who 
were most generally respected. In corpo¬ 
rations so great as the university, the wrongs 
of every member were quickly felt and re¬ 
sented by the whole body ; and the preva¬ 
lent feeling was speedily spread over the 
kingdom, every part of which received from 
thence preceptors in learning and teachers 
of religion, — a circumstance of peculiar 
importance at a period when publication still 
continued to be slow and imperfect. A con¬ 
test for a corporate right has the advantage 
of seeming more generous than that for in¬ 
dividual interest; and corporate spirit itself 
is one of the most steady and inflexible 
principles of human action. An invasion of 
the legal possessions of the universities was 
an attack on the strong holds as well as 
palaces of the Church, where she was guarded 
by the magnificence of art, and the dignity 
and antiquity of learning, as well as by re¬ 
spect for religion. It was made on principles 
which tended directly to subject the whole 
property of the Church to the pleasure of 
the Crown; and as soon as, in a conspicuous 
and extensive instance, the sacredness of 
legal possession is intentionally violated, the 
security of all property is endangered. 
Whether such proceedings were reeoncile- 
able to law, and could be justified by the 
ordinary authorities and arguments of 
lawyers, was a question of very subordinate 
importance. 

At an early stage of the proceedings 
against the universities, the king, not con¬ 
tent with releasing individuals from obedi¬ 
ence to the law by dispensations in particu¬ 
lar cases, must have resolved on altogether 
suspending the operation of penal laws re¬ 
lating to religion by one general measure. 
He had accordingly issued, on the 4th of 
April, “ A Declaration for Liberty of Con¬ 
science;” which, after the statement of 
those principles of equity and policy on which 
religious liberty is founded, proceeds to 
make provisions in their own nature so wise 
and just that they want nothing but lawful 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 351 


authority and pure intention to render them 
worthy of admiration. It suspends the 
execution of all penal laws for noncon¬ 
formity, and of all laws which require cer¬ 
tain acts of conformity, as qualifications for 
civil or military office; it gives leave to all 
men to meet and serve God after their own 
manner, publicly and privately; it denounces 
the royal displeasure and the vengeance of 
the land against all who should disturb any 
religious worship; and, finally, “in order 
that his loving subjects may be discharged 
from all penalties, forfeitures, and disabili¬ 
ties, which they may have incurred, it grants 
them a free pardon for all crimes by them 
committed against the said penal laws.” 
This Declaration, founded on the supposed 
power of suspending laws, was, in several 
respects, of more extensive operation than 
the exercise of the power to dispense with 
them. The laws of disqualification only 
became penal when the Nonconformist was 
a candidate for office, and not necessarily 
implying immorality in the person dis¬ 
qualified, might, according to the doctrine 
then received, be the proper object of a dis¬ 
pensation. But some acts of nonconformity, 
which might be committed by all men, and 
which did not of necessity involve a con¬ 
scientious dissent, were regarded as in them¬ 
selves immoral, and to them it was acknow¬ 
ledged that the dispensing power did not 
extend. Dispensations, however multiplied, 
are presumed to be grounded on the special 
circumstances of each case. But every ex¬ 
ercise of the power of indefinitely suspend¬ 
ing a whole class of laws which must be 
grounded on general reasons of policy, with¬ 
out any consideration of the circumstances 
of particular individuals, is evidently a more 
undisguised assumption of legislative autho¬ 
rity. There were practical differences of 
considerable importance. No dispensation 
could prevent a legal proceeding from being 
commenced and carried on as far as the 
point where it was regular to appeal to the 
dispensation as a defence. But the decla¬ 
ration which suspended the laws stopped the 
prosecutor on the threshold; and in the 
case of disqualification it seemed to preclude 


the necessity of all subsequent dispensations 
to individuals. The dispensing power might 
remove disabilities, and protect from punish¬ 
ment ; but the exemption from expense, and 
the security against vexation, were com¬ 
pleted only by this exercise of the sus¬ 
pending power. 

Acts of a similar nature had been twice 
attempted by Charles II. The first was the 
Declaration in Ecclesiastical Affairs, in the 
year of his restoration; in which, after many 
concessions to Dissenters, which might be 
considered as provisional, and binding only 
till the negotiation for a general union in 
religion should be closed, he adds, “We 
hereby renew what we promised in our 
Declaration from Breda, that no man should 
be disquieted for difference of opinion in 
matters of religion which do not disturb the 
peace of the kingdom.”* * * § On the faith of 
that promise, the English Nonconformists 
had concurred in the Restoration; yet the 
Convention Parliament itself, in which the 
Presbyterians were powerful, if not predo¬ 
minant, refused, though by a small majority, 
to pass a bill to render this tolerant Decla¬ 
ration effectual.} But the next parliament, 
elected under the prevalence of a different 
spirit, broke the public faith by the Act of 
Uniformity, which prohibited all public wor¬ 
ship and religious instruction, except such 
as were conformable to the Established 
Church.} The zeal of that assembly had 
indeed, at its opening, been stimulated by 
Clarendon, the deepest stain on whose admi¬ 
nistration was the renewal of intolerance^ 


* Kennet, History, vol. iii. p. 242. 

•j- Commons’ Journals, 28th November, 1660. 
On the second reading the numbers were, ayes, 
157; noes, 183. Sir G. Booth, a teller for the 
ayes, was a Presbyterian leader. 

J 14 Car. II. c. iv. 

§ Speeches, 8th May, 1661, and 19th May, 1662. 
“ The Lords Clarendon and Southampton, together 
with the bishops, were the great opposers of the 
king’s intention to grant toleration to Dissenters 
according to the promise at Breda.” Life of 
James II. vol. i. p. 391. These, indeed, are not 
the words of the king; but for more than twelve 
years on this part of his Life, the compiler, Mr. 
Dicconson, does not quote James’s MSS. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


352 


Charles, whether most actuated by love of 
quiet, or by indifference to religion, or by a 
desire to open the gates to Dissenters, that 
Catholics might enter, made an attempt to 
preserve the public faith, which he had him¬ 
self pledged, by the exercise of his dispensing 
power. In the end of 1662 he had published 
another Declaration*, in which he assured 
peaceable Dissenters, who were only desirous 
modestly to perform their devotions in their 
own way, that he would make it his special 
care to incline the wisdom of parliament to 
concur with him in making some act which, 
he adds, “ may enable us to exercise, with a 
more universal satisfaction, the dispensing 
power, which we conceive to be inherent in 
us.” In the speech with which he opened 
the next session, he only ventured to say, 
“ I could heartily wish I had such a power 
of indulgence.” The Commons, however, 
better royalists or more zealous Churchmen 
than the king, resolved “ that it be repre¬ 
sented to his majesty, as the humble advice 
of this house, that no indulgence be granted 
to Dissenters from the Act of Uniformity |; ” 
and an address to that effect was presented 
to him, which had been drawn up by Sir 
Heneage Finch, his own solicitor-general. 
The king, counteracted by his ministers, 
almost silently acquiesced; and the parlia¬ 
ment proceeded, in the years which imme¬ 
diately followed, to enact that series of per¬ 
secuting laws which disgrace their memory, 
and dishonour an administration otherwise 
not without claims on our praise. It was 
not till the beginning of the second Dutch 
war that “ a Declaration for indulging Non¬ 
conformists in matters ecclesiastical” was 
advised by Sir Thomas Clifford, for the sake 
of Catholics, and embraced by Shaftesbury 
for the general interests of religious liberty, j 


* Kennet, Register, p. 850. The concluding pa¬ 
ragraph, relating to Catholics, is a model of that 
stately ambiguity under which the style of Cla¬ 
rendon gave him peculiar facilities of cloaking an 
unpopular proposal. 

f Journals, 25th Feb. 1663. 

X “ We think ourselyes obliged to make use of 
that supreme power in ecclesiastical matters which 
is inherent in us. We declare our will and plea- 


A considerable debate on this Declaration 
took place in the House of Commons, in 
which Waller alone had the boldness and 
liberality to contend for the toleration of the 
Catholics; but the principle of freedom of 
conscience, and the desire to gratify the king, 
yielded to the dread of prerogative and the 
enmity to the Church of Rome. An address 
was presented to the king, “ to inform him 
that penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical 
cannot be suspended but by Act of Parlia¬ 
ment ; ” to which the king returned an eva¬ 
sive answer. The house presented another 
address, declaring “ that the king was very 
much misinformed, no such power having 
been claimed or recognised by any of his 
predecessors; and, if admitted, might tend 
to altering the legislature, which has always 
been acknowledged to be in your majesty 
and your two Houses of Parliament; ” — in 
answer to which the king said, “ If any scruple 
remains concerning the suspension of the 
penal laws, I hereby faithfully promise that 
what hath been done in that particular shall 
not be drawn either into consequence or 
example.” The chancellor and Secretary 
Coventry, by command of the king, ac¬ 
quainted both houses separately on the same 
day, that he had caused the Declaration to 
be cancelled in his presence ; on which both 
houses immediately voted, and presented in 
a body, an unanimous address of thanks to 
his majesty, “ for his gracious, full, and sa¬ 
tisfactory answer.” * The whole of this 


sure, that the execution of all penal laws in matters 
ecclesiastical be suspended; and we shall allow a 
sufficient number of places of worship as they shall 
be desired, for the use of those who do not con¬ 
form to the Church of England: — without allow¬ 
ing public worship to Roman Catholics. Most 
English historians tell us that Sir Orlando Bridg¬ 
man refused to put the great seal to this Decla¬ 
ration, and that Lord Shaftesbury was made chan¬ 
cellor to seal it. The falsehood of this statement 
is proved by the mere inspection of the London 
Gazette, by which we see that the Declaration was 
issued on the 15th of March, 1672, when Lord 
Shaftesbury was not yet appointed. See Locke’s 
Letter from a Person of Quality, and the Life of 
Shaftesbury (unpublished), p. 247. 

* Journals, 8th March, 1673. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 353 


transaction undoubtedly amounted to a so¬ 
lemn and final condemnation of the preten¬ 
sion to a suspending power by the king in 
parliament: it was in substance not distin¬ 
guishable from a declaratory law; and the 
forms of a statute seem to have been dis¬ 
pensed with only to avoid the appearance of 
distrust or discourtesy towards Charles. We 
can discover, in the very imperfect accounts 
which are preserved of the debates of 1673, 
that the advocates of the Crown had laid 
main stress on the king’s ecclesiastical su¬ 
premacy ; it being, as they reasoned, evident 
that the head of the Church should be left 
to judge when it was wise to execute or 
suspend the laws intended for its protection. 
They relied also on the undisputed right of 
the Crown to stop the progress of each single 
prosecution which seemed to justify, by ana¬ 
logy, a more general exertion of the same 
power. 

James, in his Declaration of Indulgence, 
disdaining any appeals to analogy or to his 
supremacy, chose to take a wider and higher 
ground, and concluded the preamble in the 
tone of a master : — “We have thought fit, 
by virtue of our royal prerogative, to issue 
forth this our Declaration of Indulgence, 
making no doubt of the concurrence of our 
two houses of parliament, when we shall 
think it convenient for them to meet.” His 
Declaration was issued in manifest defiance 
of the parliamentary condemnation pro¬ 
nounced on that of his brother, and it was 
introduced in language of more undefined 
and alarming extent. On the other hand, 
his measure was countenanced by the deter¬ 
mination of the judges, and seemed to be 
only a more compendious and convenient 
manner of effecting what these perfidious 
magistrates had declared he might lawfully 
do. Their iniquitous decision might excuse 
many of those who were ignorant of the 
means, by which it was obtained; but the 
king himself, who had removed judges too 
honest to concur in it, and had neither con¬ 
tinued nor appointed any whose subserviency 
he had not first ascertained, could plead no 
such authority in mitigation. He had dic¬ 
tated the oracle which he affected to obey. 


It is very observable that he himself, or 
rather his biographer (for it is not just to 
impute this base excuse to himself), while 
he claims the protecting authority of the 
adjudication, is prudently silent on the un¬ 
righteous practices by which that show of 
authority was purchased.* 

The way had been paved for the English 
Declaration by a proclamation f, issued at 
Edinburgh on the 12th of February, couched 
in loftier language than was about to be 
hazarded in England: — “We, by our sove¬ 
reign authority, prerogative royal, and ab¬ 
solute power, do hereby give and grant our 
royal toleration. We allow and tolerate the 
moderate Presbyterians to meet in their pri¬ 
vate houses, and to hear such ministers as 
have been or are willing to accept of our 
indulgence; but they are not to build meet¬ 
ing-houses, but to exercise in houses. We 
tolerate Quakers to meet in their form in 
any place or places appointed for their wor¬ 
ship. We, by our sovereign authority, &c., 
suspend, stop, and disable all laws or acts of 
parliament made or executed against any of 
our Roman Catholic subjects, so that they 
shall be free to exercise their religion and to 
enjoy all; but they are to exercise in houses 
or chapels. And we cass, annul, and dis¬ 
charge all oaths by which our subjects are 
disabled from holding offices.” He concludes 
by confirming the proprietors of church lands 
in their possession, which seemed to be 
wholly unnecessary while the Protestant es¬ 
tablishment endured; and adds an assur¬ 
ance more likely to disquiet than to satisfy, 
“ that he will not use force against any man 
for the Protestant religion.” In a short time 
afterwards he had extended this indulgence 
to those Presbyterians who scrupled to take 
the Test or any other oath; and in a few 
months more, on the 5tli of July, all re¬ 
strictions on toleration had been removed, 
by the permission granted to all to serve 
God in their own manner, whether in private 


* Life of James II., vol. ii. p. 81. “ He,” says 
the biographer, “ had no other oracle to apply to 
for exposition of difficult and intricate points.” 
j- Wodrow, vol. ii. app. 


A A 








354 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


houses or chapels, or houses built or hired 
for the purpose*; or, in other words, he had 
established, by his own sole authority, the 
most unbounded liberty of worship and reli¬ 
gious instruction in a country where the laws 
treated every act of dissent as one of the 
most heinous crimes. There is no other 
example, perhaps, of so excellent an object 
being pursued by means so culpable, or for 
purposes in which evil was so much blended 
with good. 

James was equally astonished and incensed 
at the resistance of the Church of England. 
Their warm professions of loyalty, their ac¬ 
quiescence in measures directed only against 
civil liberty, their solemn condemnation of 
forcible resistance to oppression (the lawful¬ 
ness of which constitutes the main strength 
of every opposition to misgovernment), had 
persuaded him, that they would look pa¬ 
tiently on the demolition of all the bulwarks 
of their own wealth, and greatness, and 
power, and submit in silence to measures 
which, after stripping the Protestant religion 
of all its temporal aid, might at length leave 
it exposed to persecution. He did not dis¬ 
tinguish between legal opposition and violent 
resistance. He believed in the adherents of 
multitudes to professions poured forth in a 
moment of enthusiasm; and he was so igno¬ 
rant of human nature as to imagine, that 
speculative opinions of a very extravagant 
sort, even if they could be stable, were suffi¬ 
cient to supersede interest and habits, to 
bend the pride of high establishments, and 
to stem the passions of a nation in a state 
of intense excitement. Yet James had been 
admonished by the highest authority to be¬ 
ware of this delusion. Morley, bishop of 
Winchester, a veteran Royalist and Episco¬ 
palian, whose fidelity had been tried, but 
whose judgment had been informed in the 
civil war, almost with his dying breath de¬ 
sired Lord Dartmouth to warn the king, 
that if ever he depended on the doctrine of 
Nonresistance, he would find himself de¬ 
ceived, for that most of the Church would 
contradict it in their practice, though not in 


* Wodrow, Fount.ainhall, vol. i. p. 463. 
---- 


terms. It was to no purpose that Dartmouth 
frequently reminded James of Morley’s last 
message, for he answered, “ that the bishop 
was a good man, but grown old and timid.” * 
It must be owned, on the other hand, that 
there were not wanting considerations which 
excuse the expectation and explain the dis¬ 
appointment of James. Wiser men than he 
have been the dupes of that natural pre¬ 
judice which leads us to look for the same 
consistency between the different parts of 
conduct which is in some degree found to 
prevail among the different reasonings and 
opinions of every man of sound mind. It 
cannot be denied that the Church had done 
much to delude him: for they did not con¬ 
tent themselves with never controverting, nor 
even confine themselves to calmly preaching 
the doctrine of Nonresistance (which might 
be justified and perhaps commended), but it 
was constantly and vehemently inculcated. 
The more furious preachers treated all who 
doubted it with the fiercest scurrility f, and 
the most pure and gentle were ready to in¬ 
troduce it harshly and unreasonably J; and 
they all boasted of it, perhaps with reason, 
as a peculiar characteristic which distin¬ 
guished the Church of England from other 
Christian communities. Nay, if a solemn 
declaration from an authority second only to 
the Church, assembled in a national council, 


* Burnet (Oxford, 1823), vol. ii. p. 428. Lord 
Dartmouth’s note. 

f South, passim. 

j Tillotson, On the Death of Lord Russell. About 
a year before the time to which the text alludes, 
in a visitation sermon preached before Sancroft by 
Kettlewell, an excellent man, in whom nothing 
was stem but this doctrine, it is inculcated to such 
an extent as, according to the usual interpretation 
of the passage in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 
(xiii. 2.), to prohibit resistance to Nero; “ who,” 
says nevertheless the preacher, “ invaded honest 
men’s estates to supply his own profusion, and em- 
brued his hands in the blood of any he had a pique 
against, without any regard to law or justice.” 
The Homily, or exhortation to obedience, composed 
under Edward VI., in 1547, by Cranmer, and sanc¬ 
tioned by authority of the Church, asserts it to be 
“ the calling of God’s people to render obedience to 
governors, although they be wicked or wrong¬ 
doers, and in no case to resist.” 










REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION" OF 1688. 355 


could have been a security for their conduct, 
the judgment of the University of Oxford, 
in their convocation of 1683, may seem to 
warrant the utmost expectations of the king. 
For among other positions condemned by 
that learned body, one was, “ that if lawful 
governors become tyrants, or govern other¬ 
wise than by the laws of God or man they 
ought to do, they forfeit the right they had 
unto their government.* * Now, it is mani¬ 
fest that, according to this determination, if 
the king had abolished parliaments, shut the 
courts of justice, and changed the laws ac¬ 
cording to his pleasure, he would neverthe¬ 
less retain the same rights as before over all 
his subjects ; that any part of them who re¬ 
sisted him would still contract the full guilt 
of rebellion; and that the co-operation of 
the sounder portion to repress the revolt 
would be a moral duty and a lawful service. 
How, then, could it be reasonable to with¬ 
stand him in far less important assaults on 
his subjects, and to turn against him laws 
which owed their continuance solely to his 
good pleasure ? Whether this last mode of 
reasoning be proof against all objections or 
not, it was at least specious enough to satisfy 
the king, when it agreed with his passions 
and supposed interest. Under the influence 
of these natural delusions, we find him filled 
with astonishment at the prevalence of the 
ordinary motives of human conduct over an 
extravagant dogma, and beyond measure 
amazed that the Church should oppose the 
crown after the king had become the enemy 
of the Church. “ Is this your Church of 
England loyalty?” he cried to the fellows 
of Magdalen College; while in his con¬ 
fidential conversations, he now spoke with 
the utmost indignation of this inconsistent 
and mutinous Church. Against it, he told 
the nuncio that he had by his Declaration 
struck a blow which would resound through 
the country, — ascribing their unexpected 
resistance to a consciousness that, in a gene¬ 
ral liberty of conscience, “ the Anglican 
religion would be the first to decline.” f 


* Collier, Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 902. 
f D’Adda, 21st March, 1687; “un colpo strepi- 


Sunderland, in speaking of the Church to 
the same minister, exclaimed, “Where is 
now their boasted fidelity ? The Declaration 
has mortified those who have resisted the 
king’s pious and benevolent designs. The 
Anglicans are a ridiculous sect, who affect a 
sort of moderation in heresy, by a compound 
and jumble of all other persuasions, and 
who, notwithstanding the attachment which 
they boast of having maintained to the mo¬ 
narchy and the royal family, have proved on 
this occasion the most insolent and contu¬ 
macious of men.” * After the refusal to 
comply with his designs, on the ground of 
conscience, by Admiral Herbert, a man of 
loose life, loaded with the favours of the 
Crown, and supposed to be as sensible of 
the obligations of honour as he was negli¬ 
gent of those of religion and morality, James 
declared to Barillon that he never could put 
confidence in any man, however attached to 
him, who affected the character of a zealous 
Protestant.f 

The Declaration of Indulgence, however, 
had one important purpose beyond the as¬ 
sertion of prerogative, the advancement of 
the Catholic religion, or the gratification of 
anger against the unexpected resistance of 
the Church: it was intended to divide Pro¬ 
testants, and to obtain the support of the 
Nonconformists. The same policy had, in¬ 
deed, failed in the preceding reign; but it 
was not unreasonably hoped by the Court, 
that the sufferings of twenty years had ir- 
reconcileably inflamed the dissenting sects 
against the Establishment, and had at length 
taught them to prefer their own personal 
and religious liberty to vague and speculative 
opposition to the Papacy,—the only bond 
of union between the discordant commu¬ 
nities who were called Protestants. It was 
natural enough to suppose, that they would 
show no warm interest in universities from 
which they were excluded, or for prelates 
who had excited persecution against them; 


toso.” “Perche la religione Anglicana sarebbe 
stata la prima a declinare in questa mutazione.” 

* Ibid. 4th—18th April, 
t Barillon, 24th March. Fox MSS. 


A A 2 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


356 


and that they would thankfully accept the 
blessings of safety and repose, without 
anxiously examining whether the grant of 
these advantages was consistent with the 
principles of a constitution which treated 
them as unworthy of all trust or employment. 
Certainly the penal law from which the De¬ 
claration tendered relief, was not such as to 
dispose them to be very jealous of the mode 
of its removal. 

An act in the latter years of Elizabeth * * * * § 
had made refusal to attend the established 
worship, or presence at that of Dissenters, 
punishable by imprisonment, and, unless 
atoned for by conformity within three months, 
by perpetual banishment f, enforced by death 
if the offender should return. Within three 
years after the solemn promise of liberty of 
conscience from Breda, this barbarous law, 
which had been supposed to be dormant, 
was declared to be in force, by an act j which 
subjected every one attending any but the 
established worship, where more than five 
were present, on the third offence, to trans¬ 
portation for seven years to any of the colo¬ 
nies (except New England and Virginia, — 
the only ones where they might have been 
consoled by their fellow-religionists, and 
where labour in the fields was not fatal to 
an European) ; and which doomed them in 
case of their return, — an event not very 
probable, after having laboured for seven 
years as the slaves of their enemies under 
the sun of Barbadoes, — to death. Almost 
every officer, civil or military, was empowered 
and encouraged to disperse their congrega¬ 
tions as unlawful assemblies, and to arrest 
their ringleaders. A conviction before two 
magistrates, and in some cases before one, 
without any right of appeal or publicity of 
proceeding, was sufficient to expose a help¬ 
less or obnoxious Nonconformist to these 
tremendous consequences. By a refinement 
in persecution, the gaoler was instigated to 


* 35 Eliz. c. 1. (1593). 

•j- A sort of exile, called, in our old law, abjuring 
the realm,” in which the offender was to banish 
himself. 

x 16 Car. II. c. 4. 


disturb the devotions of his prisoners; being 
subject to a fine if he allowed any one who 
was at large to join them in their religious 
worship. The pretext for this statute, which 
was however only temporary, consisted in 
some riots and tumults in Ireland and in 
Yorkshire, evidently viewed by the minis¬ 
ters themselves with more scorn than fear.* 
A permanent law, equally tyrannical, was 
passed in the next'session.f By it every 
dissenting clergyman was forbidden from 
coming within five miles of his former con¬ 
gregation, or of any corporate town or par¬ 
liamentary borough, under a penalty of forty 
pounds, unless he should take the following 
oath: — “I swear that it is not lawful, upon 
any pretence whatsoever, to take up arms 
against the king, or those commissioned by 
him, and that I will not at any time endea¬ 
vour any alteration of government in Church 
or State.” In vain did Lord Southampton 
raise his dying voice against this tyrannical 
act, though it was almost the last exercise 
of the ministerial power of his friend and 
colleague Clarendon; — vehemently con¬ 
demning the oath, which, royalist as he was, 
he declared that neither he nor any honest 
man could take.J A faint and transient 
gleam of indulgence followed the downfal of 
Clarendon. But, in the year 1670, another 
act was passed, reviving that of 1664, with 
some mitigations of punishment, and with 
amendments in the form of proceeding §; 
but with several provisions of a most unusual 
nature, which, by their manifest tendency to 
stimulate the bigotry of magistrates, rendered 
it a sharper instrument of persecution. Of 
this nature was the declaration, that the sta¬ 
tute was to be construed most favourably 
for the suppression of conventicles, and for 
the encouragement of those engaged in car¬ 
rying it into effect; the malignity of which 
must be measured by its effect in exciting 

* Ralph, History of England, vol. ii. p.97. “As 
these plots,” says that writer, “ were contemptible 
or formidable, we must acquit or condemn this 
reign.” 

f 17 Car. II. c. 2. 

X Locke, Letter from a Person of Quality. 

§ 22 Car. II. c. 1. 












REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 357 


all public officers, especially the lowest, to 
constant vexation and frequent cruelty to¬ 
wards the poorer Nonconformists, marked 
by such language as the objects of the fear 
and hatred of the legislature. 

After the defeat of Charles’s attempt to 
relieve all Dissenters by his usurped prero¬ 
gative, the alarms of the House of Commons 
had begun to be confined to the Catholics; 
and they had conceived designs of union 
with the more moderate of their Protestant 
brethren as well as of indulgence towards 
those whose dissent was irreconcileable. But 
these designs proved abortive: the Court re¬ 
sumed its animosity against the Dissenters, 
when it became no longer possible to em¬ 
ploy them as a shelter for the Catholics. 
The laws were already sufficient for all prac¬ 
tical purposes of intolerance, and their ex¬ 
ecution was in the hands of bitter enemies, 
from the lord chief justice to the pettiest 
constable. The temper of the established 
clergy was such, that even the more liberal 
of them gravely reproved the victims of 
such laws for complaining of persecution.* 
The inferior gentry, who constituted the 
magistracy, — ignorant, intemperate, and 
tyrannical, — treated dissent as rebellion, 
and in their conduct to Puritans were ac¬ 
tuated by no principles but a furious hatred 
of those whom they thought the enemies of 
the monarchy. The whole jurisdiction, in 
cases of nonconformity, was so vested in that 
body, as to release them in its exercise from 
the greater part of the restraints of fear and 
shame. With the sanction of the legislature, 
and the countenance of the government, 
what indeed could they fear from a pro¬ 
scribed party, consisting chiefly of the 
humblest and poorest men? From shame 
they were effectually secured, since that which 
is not public cannot be made shameful. 
The particulars of the conviction of a Dis¬ 
senter might be unknown beyond his vil¬ 
lage ; the evidence against him, if any, 
might be confined to the room where he was 
convicted : and in that age of slow cornmu- 


* Stillingfleet, Sermon on the Mischief of Sepa^ 
ration. 


nication, few men would incur the trouble 
or obloquy of conveying to their corre¬ 
spondents the hardships inflicted, with the 
apparent sanction of law, in remote and 
ignorant districts, on men at once obscure 
and odious, and often provoked by their 
sufferings into intemperance and -extra¬ 
vagance. 

Imprisonment is, of all punishments, the 
most quiet and convenient mode of perse¬ 
cution. The prisoner is silently hid from 
the public eye; his sufferings, being un¬ 
seen, speedily cease to excite pity or indig¬ 
nation : he is soon doomed to oblivion. As 
it is always the safest punishment for an 
oppressor to inflict, so it was in that age, in 
England, perhaps the most cruel. Some 
estimate of the suffering from cold, hunger, 
and nakedness, in the dark and noisome 
dungeons, then called prisons, may be 
formed from the remains of such buildings, 
which industrious benevolence has not yet 
every where demolished. Being subject to 
no regulation, and without means for the 
regular sustenance of the prisoners, they 
were at once the scene of debauchery and 
famine. The Puritans, the most severely 
moral men of any age, were crowded in cells 
with the profligate and ferocious criminals 
with whom the kingdom then abounded. 
We learn from the testimony of the legis¬ 
lature itself, that “needy persons com¬ 
mitted to gaol many times perished before 
their trial.” * We are told by Thomas Ell- 
wood, the Quaker, a friend of Milton, that 
when a prisoner in Newgate for his religion, 
he saw the heads and quarters of men who 
had been executed for treason kept for some 
time close to the cells, and the heads tossed 
about in sport by the hangman and the 
more hardened malefactors f; and the de- 


* 18 & 19 Car. II. c. 9. Evidence more conclu¬ 
sive, from its being undesignedly dropped, of the 
frequency of such horrible occurrences in the gaol 
of Newgate, transpires in a controversy between a 
Catholic and Protestant clergyman, about the re¬ 
ligious sentiments of a dying criminal, and is pre¬ 
served in a curious pamphlet, called “ The Phari¬ 
see Unmasked,” published in 1687. 
f “ This prison, where are so many, suffocateth 












358 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


scription given by George Fox, the founder 
of the Quakers, of his own treatment when 
a prisoner at Launceston, too clearly ex¬ 
hibits the unbounded power of his gaolers, 
and its most cruel exercise.* It was no 
wonder that, when prisoners were brought 
to trial at the assizes, the contagion of gaol 
fever should often rush forth with them from 
these abodes of all that was loathsome and 
hideous, and sweep away judges, and jurors, 
and advocates, with its pestilential blast. 
The mortality of such prisons must have 
surpassed the imaginations of more civilised 
times; and death, if it could be separated 
from the long sufferings which led to it, 
might perhaps be considered as the most 
merciful part of the prison discipline of that 
age. It would be exceedingly hard to esti¬ 
mate the amount of this mortality, even if 
the difficulty were not enhanced by the pre¬ 
judices which led either to its extenuation 
or aggravation. Prisoners were then so for- 
gotten, that a record of it was not to be ex¬ 
pected ; and the very nature of the atrocious 
wickedness which employs imprisonment as 
the instrument of murder, would, in many 
cases,. render it impossible distinctly and 
palpably to show the process by which cold 
and hunger beget mortal disease. But com¬ 
putations have been attempted, and, as was 
natural, chiefly by the sufferers. William 
Penn, a man of such virtue as to make his 
testimony weighty, even when borne to the 
sufferings of his own party, publicly affirmed 
at the time, that since the Restoration 
“ more than five thousand persons had died 
in bonds for matters of mere conscience 
to God.” j* Twelve hunded Quakers were 
enlarged by James, j The calculations of 
Neale, the historian of the Nonconformists, 
would carry the numbers still farther; and 


the spirits of aged ministers.” Life of Baxter (Cala- 
my’s Abridgment), part iii. p. 200. 

* Journal, p. 186., where the description of the 
dungeon called “ Doomsdale ” surpasses all imagin¬ 
ation. 

f Good Advice to the Church of England. 

X Address of the Quakers to James II. Clark¬ 
son, Life of William Penq, vol. i. p. 492. London 
Gazette, 23rd and 26th May, 1687. 


he does not appear, on this point, to be con¬ 
tradicted by his zealous and unwearied an¬ 
tagonist.* But if we reduce the number of 
deaths to one half of Penn’s estimate, and 
suppose that number to be the tenth of the 
prisoners, it will afford a dreadful measure 
of the sufferings of twenty-five thousand 
prisoners; and the misery within the gaols 
will too plainly indicate the beggary*}', 
banishment, disquiet, vexation, fear, and 
horror, which were spread among the whole 
body of Dissenters. 

The sufferings of two memorable men 
among them, differing from each other still 
more widely in opinions and disposition than 
in station and acquirement, may be selected 
as proofs that no character was too high to 
be beyond the reach of this persecution, and 
no condition too humble to be beneath its 
notice. Richard Baxter, one of the most 
acute and learned as well as pious and 
exemplary men of his age, was the most 
celebrated divine of the Presbyterian per¬ 
suasion. He had been so well known for 
his moderation as well as his general merit, 
that at the Restoration he had been made 
chaplain to the king, and a bishopric had 
been offered to him, which he declined, not 
because he deemed it unlawful, but because 
it might engage him in severities against the 
conscientious, and because he was unwilling 
to give scandal to his brethren by accepting 
preferment in the hour of their affliction. J 
He joined in the public worship of the 
Church of England, but himself preached to 
a small congregation at Acton, where he 
soon became the friend of his neighbour, 
Sir Matthew Hale, who, though then a ma¬ 
gistrate of great dignity, avoided the society 
of those who might be supposed to influence 
him, and from his jealous regard to in¬ 
dependence, chose a privacy as simple and 
frugal as that of the pastor of a persecuted 

* Grey, Examination of Neale. 

f “ Fifteen thousand families ruined.” Good 
Advice, &c. In this tract, very little is said of the 
dispensing power; the far greater part consisting 
of a noble defence of religious liberty, applicable to 
all ages and communions. 

J Life of Baxter, part iii. p. 281. 










REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


flock. Their retired leisure was often em¬ 
ployed in high reasoning on those sublime 
subjects of metaphysical philosophy to which 
both had been conducted by their theo¬ 
logical studies, and which, indeed, few con¬ 
templative men of elevated thought have 
been deterred by the fate of their forerunners 
from aspiring to comprehend. Honoured 
as he was by such a friendship, esteemed 
by the most distinguished persons of all 
persuasions, and consulted by the civil and 
ecclesiastical authorities in every project of 
reconciliation and harmony, Baxter was five 
times in fifteen years dragged from his re¬ 
tirement, and thrown into prison as a male¬ 
factor. In 1669 two subservient magis¬ 
trates, one of whom was the steward of the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, summoned him 
before them for preaching at a conventicle; 
at hearing of which, Hale, too surely fore¬ 
knowing the event, could scarcely refrain 
from tears. He was committed to prison 
for six months, but, after the unavailing 
intercession of -his friends with the king, 
was at length enlarged in consequence of 
informalities in the commitment.* Twice 
1 afterwards he escaped by irregularities into 
which the precipitate zeal of ignorant per¬ 
secutors had betrayed them; and once, when 
his physician made oath that imprisonment 
would be dangerous to his life, he owed his 
enlargement to the pity or prudence of 
Charles II. At last, in the year 1685, he 
was brought to trial for some supposed 
libels, before Jeffreys, in the Court of King’s 
Bench, in which his venerable friend had 
once presided, — where two chief justices, 
within ten years, had exemplified the ex¬ 
tremities of human excellence and depravity, 
and where he whose misfortunes had almost 
drawn tears down the aged cheeks of Hale 
was doomed to undergo the most brutal 
indignities from Jeffreys. 

The history and genius of Bunyan were 
as much more extraordinary than those of 
Baxter as his station and attainments were 
inferior. He is probably at the head of 
unlettered men of genius ; and perhaps there 


* Life of Baxter, part. iii. pp. 47—51. 


359 

is no other instance of any man reaching 
fame from so abject an origin. For other 
extraordinary men who have become famous 
without education, though they were without 
what is called “learning,” have had much 
reading and knowledge, and though they 
were repressed by poverty, were not, like 
him, sullied by a vagrant and disreputable 
occupation. By his trade of a travelling 
tinker, he had been from his earliest years 
placed in the midst of profligacy, and on the 
verge of dishonesty. He was for a time a 
private in the parliamentary army, — the 
only military service which was likely to 
elevate his sentiments and amend his life. 
Having embraced the opinions of the Bap¬ 
tists, he was soon admitted to preach in a 
community which did not recognise the 
distinction between the clergy and the laity.* 
Even under the Protectorate he had been 
harassed by some busy magistrates, who 
took advantage of a parliamentary ordinance, 
excluding from toleration those who main¬ 
tained the unlawfulness of infant baptism, f 
But this officiousness was checked by the 
spirit of the government; and it was not till 
the return of intolerance with Charles II. 
that the sufferings of Bunyan began. With¬ 
in five months after the Restoration, he 
was apprehended under the statute 35th 
of Elizabeth, and was thrown into a prison, 
or rather dungeon, at Bedford, where he 
remained for twelve years. The narratives 
of his life exhibit remarkable specimens of 
the acuteness and fortitude with which he 
withstood the threats and snares of the ma¬ 
gistrates, and clergymen, and attorneys who 


* See Grace Abounding. 

f Scobell’s Ordinances, chap. 114. This excep¬ 
tion is omitted in a subsequent Ordinance against 
blasphemous opinions (9th August, 1650), directed 
chiefly against the Antinomians, who were charged 
with denying the obligation of morality, — the 
single case where the danger of nice distinction is 
the chief objection to the use of punishment against 
the promulgation of opinions. Beligious liberty 
was afterwards carried much nearer to its just 
limits by the letter of Cromwell’s constitution, and 
probably to its full extent by its spirit. See 
Humble Petition and Advice, sect. xi. 















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


360 


beset him, — foiling them in every contest 
of argument, especially in that which relates 
to the independence of religion on civil 
authority, which he expounded with clear¬ 
ness and exactness; for it was a subject on 
which his naturally vigorous mind was better 
educated by his habitual meditations than 
it could have been by the most skilful in¬ 
structor. In the year after his apprehension, 
he had made some informal applications for 
release to the judges of assize, in a petition 
presented by his wife, who was treated by 
one of them, Twisden, with brutal insolence. 
Ilis colleague, Sir Matthew Hale, listened 
to her with patience and goodness, and with 
consolatory compassion pointed out to her 
the only legal means of obtaining redress. 
It is a singular gratification thus to find a 
human character, which, if it be met in the 
most obscure recess of the history of a bad 
time, is sure to display some new excellence. 
The conduct of Hale on this occasion can 
be ascribed only to strong and pure bene¬ 
volence ; for he was unconscious of Bunyan’s 
genius, he disliked preaching mechanics, and 
he partook the general prejudice against 
Anabaptists. In the long years which fol¬ 
lowed, the time of Bunyan was divided 
between the manufacture of lace, which he 
learned in order to support his family, and 
the composition of those works which have 
given celebrity to his sufferings. He was 
at length released, in 1672, by Barlow, 
bishop of Lincoln; but not till the timid 
prelate had received an injunction from the 
lord chancellor* to that effect. He availed 
himself of the Indulgence of James II. 
without trusting it, and died unmolested in 
the last year of that prince’s government. 
His Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegorical repre¬ 
sentation of the Calvinistic theology, at first 
found readers only among those of that per¬ 
suasion, but, gradually emerging from this 

* Probably Lord Shaftesbury, who received the 
great seal in November, 1672. The exact date of 
Bunyan’s complete liberation is not ascertained; 
but he was twelve years a prisoner, and had been 
apprehended in November, 1660. Ivimey (Life 
of Bunyan, p. 289.) makes his enlargement to be 
about the close of 1672. 


narrow circle, by the natural power of 
imagination over the uncorrupted feelings 
of the majority of mankind, has at length 
rivalled Robinson Crusoe in popularity. The 
bigots and persecutors have sank into 
oblivion; the scoffs of wits * and worldlings 
have been unavailing; while, after the lapse 
of a century, the object of their cruelty and 
scorn has touched the poetical sympathy, as 
well as the piety, of Cowper; his genius has 
subdued the opposite prejudices of Johnson 
and of Franklin; and his name has been 
uttered in the same breath with those of 
Spenser and Dante. It should seem, from 
this statement, that Lord Castlemaine, him¬ 
self a zealous Catholic, had some colour for 
asserting, that the persecution of Protestants 
by Protestants, after the Restoration, was 
more violent than that of Protestants by 
Catholics under Mary; and that the per¬ 
secution then raging against the Presby¬ 
terians in Scotland was not so much more 
cruel, as it was more bloody, than that which 
silently consumed the bowels of England. 

Since the differences between Churchmen 
and Dissenters, as such, have given way to 
other controversies, a recital of them can 
have no other tendency than that of disposing 
men to pardon each other’s intolerance, and 
to abhor the fatal error itself, which all 
communions have practised, and of which 
some malignant roots still lurk among all. 
Without it, the policy of the king, in his 
attempt to form an alliance with the latter, 
could not be understood. The general 
body of Nonconformists were divided into 
four parties, on whom the Court acted 
through different channels, and who were 
variously affected by its advances. 

The Presbyterians, the more wealthy and 
educated sect, were the descendants of the 
ancient Puritans, who had been rather de¬ 
sirous of reforming the Church of England 
than of separating from it; and though the 
breach was widened by the civil war, they 
might have been reunited at the Restoration 
by moderate concession in the form of wor¬ 
ship, and by limiting the episcopal authority 

* Hudibras, part i. canto ii. Grey’s notes. 












REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


agreeably to the project of the learned Usher, 
and to the system of superintendency esta¬ 
blished among the Lutherans. Gradually, 
indeed, they learned to prefer the perfect 
equality of the Calvinistic clergy; but they 
did not profess that exclusive zeal for it 
which actuated their Scottish brethren, who 
had received their reformation from Geneva. 
Like men of other communions, they had 
originally deemed it the duty of the magis¬ 
trate to establish true religion, and to punish 
the crime of rejecting it. In Scotland they 
continued to be sternly intolerant, while in 
England they reluctantly acquiesced in im¬ 
perfect toleration. Their object was now 
what was called a “ comprehension,” or such 
an enlargement of the terms of communion 
as might enable them to unite with the 
Church — a measure which would have 
broken the strength of the Dissenters, as a 
body, to the eminent hazard of civil liberty. 
From them the king had the least hopes. 
They were undoubtedly much more hostile 
to the Establishment after twenty-five years’ 
persecution ; but they were still connected 
with the tolerant clergy; and as they con¬ 
tinued to aim at something besides mere 
toleration, they considered the royal De¬ 
claration, even if honestly meant, as only a 
temporary advantage. 

The Independents, or Congregationalists, 
were so called from their adoption of the 
opinion, that every congregation or assembly 
for worship was a church perfectly inde¬ 
pendent of all others, choosing and changing 
their own ministers, maintaining with others 
a fraternal intercourse, but acknowledging 
no authority in all the other churches of 
Christendom to interfere with its internal 
concerns. Their churches were merely vo¬ 
luntary associations, in which the office of 
teacher might be conferred and withdrawn 
by the suffrages of the members. These 
members were equal, and the government 
was perfectly democratical, if the term “ go¬ 
vernment” may be applied to assemblies 
which endured only as long as the members 
agreed in judgment, and which, leaving all 
coercive power to the civil magistrate, exer¬ 
cised no authority but that of admonition, 


361 

censure, and exclusion. They disclaimed 
the qualification of “ national” as repugnant 
to the nature of “ a church.” * The religion 
of the Independents, therofore, could not, 
without destroying its nature, be established 
by law. They never could aspire to more 
than religious liberty ; and they accordingly 
have the honour of having been the first, 
and long the only, Christian community who 
collectively adopted that sacred principle.'!' 
It is true, that in the beginning they adopted 
the pernicious and inconsistent doctrine of 
limited toleration, excluding Catholics as 
idolaters, and in New England (where the 
great majority were of their persuasion) 
punishing, even capitally, dissenters from 
what they accounted as fundamental opi¬ 
nions. | But, as intolerance could promote 
no interest of theirs, real or imaginary, their 
true principles finally worked out the stain 
of these dishonourable exceptions. The 
government of Cromwell, more influenced 
by them than by any other persuasion, made 
as near approaches to general toleration as 
public prejudice would endure; and Sir 
Henry Vane, an Independent, was probably 
the first who laid down, with perfect pre¬ 
cision, the inviolable rights of conscience, 
and the exemption of religion from all civil 
authority. Actuated by these principles, 
and preferring the freedom of then’ worship 


* “ There is no true visible church of Christ but 
a particular ordinary congregation only. Every 
ordinary assembly of the faithful hath power to 
elect and ordain, deprive and depose, their minis¬ 
ters. The pastor must have others joined with 
him by the congregation, to exercise ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction; neither ought he and they to per¬ 
form any material act without the free consent of 
the congregation.” Christian Offer of a Conference 
tendered to Archbishops, Bishops, &c. (London, 
1606). 

f An Humble Supplication for Toleration and 
Liberty to James I. (London, 1609): — a tract 
which affords a conspicuous specimen of the ability 
and learning of the ancient Independents, often 
described as unlettered fanatics. 

J The Way of the Churches in New England, 
by Mr. J. Cotton (London, 1645) ; and the Way of 
Congregational Churches, by Mr. J. Cotton, Lon¬ 
don, 1618); — in answer to Principal Baillie. 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


362 

even to political liberty, it is not wonderful 
that many of this persuasion gratefully ac¬ 
cepted the deliverance from persecution 
which was proffered by the king. 

Similar causes produced the like dispo¬ 
sitions among the Baptists — a simple and 
pious body of men, generally unlettered, 
obnoxious to all other sects for their rejec¬ 
tion of infant baptism, as neither enjoined 
by the New Testament nor consonant to 
reason, and in some degree, also, from being 
called by the same name with the fierce 
fanatics who had convulsed Lower Germany 
in the first age of the Reformation. Under 
Edward VI. and Elizabeth, many had suf¬ 
fered death for their religion. At the Re¬ 
storation they had been distinguished from 
other Nonconformists by a brand in the pro¬ 
vision of a statute*, which excluded every 
clergyman who had opposed infant baptism 
from re-establishment in his benefice; and 
they had during Charles’s reign suffered 
more than any other persuasion. Publicly 
professing the principles of religious liberty f, 
and, like the Independents, espousing the 
cause of Republicanism, they appear to have 
adopted also the congregational system of 
ecclesiastical polity. More incapable of union 
with the Established Church, and having less 
reason to hope for toleration from its ad¬ 
herents than the Independents themselves, 
many, perhaps at first most of them, eagerly 
embraced the Indulgence. Thus, the sects 
who maintained the purest principles of re¬ 
ligious liberty, and had supported the most 
popular systems of government, were the 
most disposed to favour a measure which 
would have finally buried toleration under 
the ruins of political freedom. 

But of all sects, those who needed the 
royal Indulgence most, and who could accept 
it most consistently with their religious prin¬ 
ciples, were the Quakers. Seeking perfec¬ 
tion by renouncing pleasures, of which the 
social nature promotes kindness, and by con¬ 
verting self-denial, a means of moral disci¬ 


* 12 Car. II. c. 17. 

f Crosby, History of English Baptists, &c., 
vol. ii. pp. 100—144. 


pline, into one of the ends of life, it was 
their more peculiar and honourable error, 
that by a literal interpretation of that affec¬ 
tionate and ardent language in which the 
Christian religion inculcates the pursuit of 
peace and the practice of beneficence, they 
struggled to extend the sphere of these most 
admirable of virtues beyond the boundaries 
of nature. They adopted a peculiarity of 
language, and an uniformity of dress, indi¬ 
cative of humility and equality, of brotherly 
love — the sole bond of their pacific union, 
and of the serious minds of men who lived 
only for the performance of duty — taking 
no part in strife, renouncing even defensive 
arms, and utterly condemning the punish¬ 
ment of death. 

George Fox had, during the Civil War, 
founded this extraordinary community. At 
a time when personal revelation was generally 
believed, it was a pardonable self-delusion 
that he should imagine himself to be com¬ 
missioned by the Deity to preach a system 
which could only be objected to as too pure 
to be practised by man.* This belief, and 
an ardent temperament, led him and some 
of his followers into unseasonable attempts 
to convert their neighbours, and into un¬ 
seemly intrusions into places of worship for 
that purpose, which excited general hostility 
against them, and exposed them to frequent 
and severe punishments. One or two of 
them, in the general fermentation of men’s 
minds at that time, had uttered what all 
other sects considered as blasphemous opi¬ 
nions ; and these peaceable men became the 
objects of general abhorrence. Their rejec¬ 
tion of most religious rites, their refusal to 
sanction testimony by a judicial oath, or to 
defend their country in the utmost danger, 
gave plausible pretexts for representing them 
as alike enemies to religion and the common¬ 
wealth ; and the fantastic peculiarities of 


* Journal of the Life of George Fox, by him¬ 
self : — one of the most extraordinary and instruc¬ 
tive narratives in the world, which no reader of 
competent judgment can peruse without revering 
the virtue of the writer, pardoning his self-delu¬ 
sion, and ceasing to smile at his peculiarities 


1 









REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


their language and dress seemed to be the 
badge of a sullen and morose secession from 
human society. Proscribed as they were by 
law and prejudice, the Quakers gladly re¬ 
ceived the boon held out by the king. They 
indeed were the only consistent professors 
of passive obedience: as they resisted no 
wrong, and never sought to disarm hostility 
otherwise than by benevolence, they natu¬ 
rally yielded with unresisting submission to 
the injustice of tyrants. Another circum¬ 
stance also contributed, still more, perhaps, 
than these general causes, to throw them 
into the arms of James. Although their 
sect, like most other sects, had sprung from 
among the humbler classes of society—who, 
from their numbers and simplicity, are alone 
susceptible of those sudden and simultaneous 
emotions which change opinions and insti¬ 
tutions— they had early been joined by a 
few persons of superior rank and education, 
who, in a period of mutation in government 
and religion, had long contemplated their 
benevolent visions with indulgent compla¬ 
cency, and had at length persuaded them¬ 
selves that this pure system of peace and 
charity might be realised, if not among all, 
at least among a few of the wisest and best 
of men. Such a hope would gradually teach 
the latter to tolerate, and in time to adopt, 
the peculiarities of their simpler brethren, 
and to give the most rational interpretation 
to the language and pretensions of their 
founders, — consulting reason in their doc¬ 
trines, and indulging enthusiasm only in 
their hopes and affections.* * * * § Of the first who 
thus systematised, and perhaps insensibly 
softened, their creed, was Barclay, whose 
Apology for the Quakers — a masterpiece of 
ingenious reasoning, and a model of argu¬ 
mentative composition — extorted praise 
from Bayle, one of the most acute and least 
fanatical of men.f 

But the most distinguished of their con¬ 
verts was William Penn, whose father, Ad- 


* Mr. Swinton, a Scotch judge during the Pro¬ 
tectorate, was one of the earliest of these converts. 

j- Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, Avril, 
1684, 


363 

miral Sir William Penn, had been a personal 
friend of the king, and one of his instruc¬ 
tors in naval affairs. This admirable person 
had employed his great abilities in support 
of civil as well as religious liberty, and had 
both acted and suffered for them under 
Charles II. Even if he had not founded 
the commonwealth of Pennsylvania as an 
everlasting memorial of his love of freedom, 
his actions and writings in England would 
have been enough to absolve him from the 
charge of intending to betray the rights of 
his countrymen. But though, as the friend 
of Algernon Sidney, he had never ceased to 
intercede, through his friends at court, for 
the persecuted*, still an absence of two 
years in America, and the consequent dis¬ 
traction of his mind, had probably loosened 
his connection with English politicians, and 
rendered him less acquainted with the prin¬ 
ciples of the government. On the acces¬ 
sion of James he was received by that 
prince with favour; and hopes of indulgence 
to his suffering brethren were early held out 
to him. He was soon admitted to terms of 
apparent intimacy, and was believed to pos¬ 
sess such influence that two hundred sup¬ 
pliants were often seen at his gates, im¬ 
ploring his intercession with the king. That 
it really was great, appears from his obtain¬ 
ing a promise of pardon for his friend Mr. 
Locke, which that illustrious man declined, 
because he thought that the acceptance of 
it would have been a confession of crimi¬ 
nality.f Penn appears In 1679, through his 
influence with James when in Scotland, to 
have obtained the release of all the Quakers 
who were imprisoned there and he sub¬ 
sequently obtained the release of many hun¬ 
dred English ones § ; as well as procured 
letters to be addressed by Lord Sunderland 


* Clarkson, Life of William Penn, vol. i. p. 248. 

f Ibid. pp. 433. 438. Mr. Clarkson is among the 
few writers from whom I should venture to adopt 
a fact for which the original authority is not 
mentioned. By his own extraordinary services to 
mankind he has deserved to be the biographer of 
William Penn. 

J Address of Scotch Quakers, 1687. 

§ George Fox, Journal, p. 550. 









364 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


to the various lord lieutenants in England 
in favour of his persuasion * *, several months 
before the Declaration of Indulgence. It 
was no wonder that he should have been 
gained over by this power of doing good. 
The very occupations in which he was en¬ 
gaged brought daily before his mind the 
general evils of intolerance, and -the suffer¬ 
ings of his own unfortunate brethren. 
Though well stored with useful and orna¬ 
mental knowledge, he was unpractised in 
the wiles of courts; and his education had 
not trained him to dread the violation of 
principle so much as to pity the infliction of 
suffering. It cannot be doubted that he 
believed the king’s object to be universal 
liberty in religion, and nothing further: 
and as his own sincere piety taught him to 
consider religious liberty as unspeakably 
the highest of human privileges, he was too 
just not to be desirous of bestowing on all 
other men that which he most earnestly 
sought for himself. One who refused to 
employ force in the most just defence, must 
have felt a singular abhorrence of its exer¬ 
tion to prevent good men from following the 
dictates of their conscience. Such seem to 
have been the motives which induced this 
excellent man to lend himself to the mea¬ 
sures of the king. Compassion, friendship, 
liberality, and toleration, led him to support 
a system the success of which would have 
undone his country; and he afforded a re¬ 
markable proof that, in the complicated 
combinations of political morality, a virtue 
misplaced may produce as much immediate 
mischief as a vice. The Dutch minister 
represents “the arch-quaker” as travelling 
over the kingdom to gain proselytes to the 
dispensing powerf; while Duncombe, a 
banker in London, and (it must in justice, 
though in sorrow, be added) Penn, are stated 
to have been the two Protestant counsellors 
of Lord Sunderland.^ Henceforward, it 


* State Paper Office, November and December, 
1686. 

t Van Citters to the States General, 14th Oct. 
1687. 

t Johnstone, 25th November, 1687. MS. John- 


became necessary for the friends of liberty 
to deal with him as with an enemy, — to be 
resisted when his associates possessed, and 
watched after they had lost power. 

Among the Presbyterians, the king’s 
chief agent was Alsop, a preacher at West¬ 
minster, who was grateful to him for having 
spared the life of a son convicted of treason. 
Baxter, their venerable patriarch, and 
Howe, one of their most eminent divines, 
refused any active concurrence in the king’s 
projects. But Lobb, one of the most able 
of the Independent divines, warmly sup¬ 
ported the measures of James: he was fa¬ 
vourably received at Court, and is said to 
have been an adviser as well as an advocate 
of the king.* An elaborate defence of the 
dispensing power, by Philip Nye, a still 
more eminent teacher of the same persua¬ 
sion, who had been disabled from accepting 
office at the Restoration, written on occasion 
of Charles’s Declaration of Indulgence in 
1672, was now republished by his son, with 
a dedication to James.f Kiffin, the pastor 
of the chief congregation of the Baptists, 
and at the same time an opulent merchant 
in London, who, with his pastoral office, had 
held civil and military stations under the 
Parliament, withstood the prevalent dispo¬ 
sition of his communion towards compliance. 
The few fragments of his life that have 
reached us illustrate the character of the 
calamitous times in which he lived. Soon 


stone’s connections afforded him considerable means 
of information. Mrs. Dawson, an attendant of the 
queen, was an intimate friend of his sister, Mrs. 
Baillie of Jerviswood: another of his sisters was 
the wife of General Drummond, who was deeply 
engaged in the persecution of the Scotch Presby¬ 
terians, and the Earl of Melfort’s son had married 
his niece. His letters were to or for Burnet, his 
cousin, and intended to be read by the Prince of 
Orange, to both of whom he had the strongest 
inducements to give accurate information. He 
had frequent and confidential intercourse with 
Halifax, Tillotson, and Stillingfleet. 

* Wilson, History and Antiquities of Dissenting 
Churches, &c. (London, 1808), vol. iii. p. 436. 

f Ibid. p. 71. The Lawfulness of the Oath of 
Supremacy asserted, &c. by Philip Nye. (London, 
1687.) 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 365 


after the Restoration, he had obtained a 
pardon for twelve persons of his persuasion, 
who were condemned to death at the same 
assize at Aylesbury, under the atrocious 
statute of the 35th of Elizabeth, for refusing 
either to abjure the realm, or to conform to 
the Church of England.* * * * § Attempts, were 
made to ensnare him into treason by anony¬ 
mous letters, inviting him to take a share 
in plots which had no existence ; and he was 
harassed by false accusations, some of which 
made him personally known to Charles II. 
and also to Clarendon. The king applied 
to him personally for the loan of forty 
thousand pounds: this he declined, offer¬ 
ing the gift of ten thousand, and on its 
being accepted, congratulated himself on 
having saved thirty thousand pounds. Two 
of his grandsons, although he had offered 
3000Z. for their preservation, suffered death 
for being engaged in Monmouth’s revolt; 
and Jeffreys, on the trial of one of them, 
had declared, that had their grandfather 
been also at the bar, he would have equally 
deserved death. James, at one of their in¬ 
terviews, persuaded him, partly through his 
fear of incurring a ruinous fine in case of 
refusal, in spite of his pleading his inability 
through age (he was then seventy years old, 
and could not speak of his grandsons with¬ 
out tears) to accept the office of an alderman 
under the protection of the dispensing and 
suspending power. 

Every means were employed to excite the 
Nonconformists to thank the king for his 
indulgence. He himself assured D’Adda 
that it would be of the utmost service to 
trade and population, by recalling the nu¬ 
merous emigrants “who had been driven 
from their country by the persecution of the 
Anglicans j"; ” and his common conversation 
now turned on the cruelty of the Church of 
England towards the Dissenters, which he 
declared that he would have closed sooner, 
had he not been restrained by those who 
promised favour to his own religion, if they 


* Orme, Life of Kiffin, p. 120. Crosby, vol. ii. 
p. 181, &c. 

-j- D’Adda, 11th April, 1G87. MS. 


were still suffered to vex the latter.* This 
last declaration was contradicted by the 
parties whom he named; and their denial 
might be credited with less reserve, had not 
one of the principal leaders of the Episcopal 
party in Scotland owned that his friends 
would have been contented if they could 
have been assured of retaining the power to 
persecute Presbyterians.f The king even 
ordered an inquiry to be instituted into the 
suits against Dissenters in ecclesiastical 
courts, and the compositions which they 
paid, in order to make a scandalous dis¬ 
closure of the extortion and venality prac¬ 
tised under cover of the penal laws J, — 
assuring (as did also Lord Sunderland) the 
nuncio, that the established clergy traded 
in such compositions^ The most just prin¬ 
ciples of unbounded freedom in religion 
were now the received creed at St. James’s. 
Even Sir Roger L’Estrange endeavoured to 
save his consistency by declaring, that though 
he had for twenty years resisted religious 
liberty as a right of the people, he acquiesced 
in it as a boon from the king. 

On the other hand, exertions were made 
to warn the Dissenters of the snare which 
was laid for them; while the Church began 
to make tardy efforts to conciliate them, 
especially the Presbyterians. The king 
was agitated by this canvass, and frequently 
trusted the nuncio || with his alternate hopes 
and fears about it. Burnet, then at the 
Hague, published a letter of warning, in 
which he owns and deplores “ the persecu¬ 
tion,” acknowledging “ the temptation under 
which the Nonconformists are to receive 
every thing which gives them present ease 
with a little too much kindness,” blaming 


* Burnet (Oxford, 1823), vol. iii. p. 175. 

+ “ If it had not been for the fears of encouraging 
by such a liberty the fanatics, then almost entirely 
ruined, few would have refused to comply with all 
your Majesty’s demands.” Balcarras, Account of 
the Affairs of Scotland, p. 8. 

J Burnet, suprit. 

§ D’Adda, 18th April. MS. — Ministri Anglicani 
che facevano mercanzia sopra le leggi fatti contro 
le Nonconformist. 

|| Ibid. 2nd May, 4th April. MS. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


366 


more severely the members of the Church 
who applauded the Declaration, but entreat¬ 
ing the former not to promote the designs of 
the common enemy.* The residence and 
connections of the writer bestowed on this 
publication the important character of an 
admonition from the Prince of Orange. He 
had been employed by some leaders of the 
Church party to procure the prince’s inter¬ 
ference with the Dissenting body f; and 
Dykveldt, the Dutch minister, assured both 
of his master’s resolution to promote union 
between them, and to maintain the common 
interest of Protestants. Lord Halifax also 
published, on the same occasion, a letter to 
a Dissenter, — the most perfect model, per¬ 
haps, of a political tract,—which, although 
its whole argument, unbroken by diversion 
to general topics, is brought exclusively to 
bear with concentrated force upon the ques¬ 
tion, the parties, and the moment, cannot be 
read, after an interval of a century and a 
half, without admiration at its acuteness, 
address, terseness, and poignancy, j 

The Nonconformists were thus acted upon 
by powerful inducements and dissuasives. 
The preservation of civil liberty, the interest 
of the Protestant religion, the secure enjoy¬ 
ment of freedom in their own worship, were 
irresistible reasons against compliance. Gra¬ 
titude for present relief, remembrance of 
recent wrongs, and a strong sense of the 
obligation to prefer the exercise of religion 
to every other consideration, were very 
strong temptations to a different conduct. 
Many of them owed their lives to the king, 
and the lives of others were still in his 
hands. The remembrance of Jeffreys’s 
campaign was so fresh as perhaps still rather 
to produce fear than the indignation and 
distrust which appear in a more advanced 
stage of recovery from the wounds inflicted 
by tyranny. The private relief granted to 
some of their ministers by the Court on 


* State Tracts from Restoration to Revolution 
(London, 1689), vol. ii. p. 289. 

t Burnet, Reflections on a Book called “ Rights, 
&e. of a Convocation,” p. 16. 

X Halifax, Miscellanies, p. 233. 


former occasions afforded a facility for exer¬ 
cising adverse influence through these per¬ 
sons, — the more dangerous because it might 
be partly concealed from themselves under 
the disguise of gratitude. The result of the 
action of these conflicting motives seems 
to have been, that the far greater part of all 
denominations of Dissenters availed them¬ 
selves of the Declaration so far as to resume 
their public worship *; that the most dis¬ 
tinguished of their clergy, and the majority 
of the Presbyterians, resisted the solicitations 
of the Court to sanction the dispensing 
power by addresses of thanks for this exer¬ 
tion of it; and that all the Quakers, the 
greater part of the Baptists, and perhaps 
also of the Independents, did not scruple to 
give this perilous token of their misguided 
gratitude, though many of them confined 
themselves to thanks for toleration, and 
solemn assurances that they would not 
abuse it. 

About a hundred and eighty of these 
addresses were presented within a period of 
ten months, of which there are only seventy- 
seven exclusively and avowedly from Non¬ 
conformists. If to these be added a fair pro¬ 
portion of such as were at first secretly and 
at last openly corporators and grand jurors, 
and a larger share of those who addressed 
under very general descriptions, it seems 
probable that the numbers were almost 
equally divided between the Dissenting 
communions and the Established Churcli.f 
We have a specimen of these last mentioned 


* Bates’s Life of Philip Henry, in Wordsworth’s 
Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. vi. p. 290. “ They 
rejoiced with trembling .” Henry refused to give in a 
return of the money levied on him in his sufferings, 
having, as he said, “ long since from his heayt for¬ 
given all the agents in that matter.” “ Mr. Bun- 
yan clearly saw through the designs of the Court, 
though he accepted the Indulgence with a holy 
fear.” Ivimey, Life of Bunyan, p. 297. 

t The addresses from bishops and their clergy 
were seven; those from corporations and grand 
juries seventy-five; those from inhabitants, &c., 
fourteen; two from Catholics, and two from the 
Middle and Inner Temple. If six addresses from 
Presb} r terians and Quakers in Scotland, Ireland, 
and New England be deducted, as it seems that 









REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 367 

by Evelyn, in the address of the Churchmen 
and Dissenters of Coventry *, and of a small 
congregation in the Isle of Ely, called the 
“Family of Love.” His complaintf that 
the declaration had thinned his own parish 
church of Deptford, and had sent a great 
concourse of people to the meeting-house, 
throws light on the extent of the previous 
persecution, and the joyful eagerness to 
profit by their deliverance. 

The Dissenters were led astray not only 
by the lights of the Church, but by the pre¬ 
tended guardians of the laws. Five bishops, 
Crew, of Durham, with his chapter, Cart¬ 
wright, of Chester, with his chapter, Bar- 
low, of Lincoln, Wood, of Lichfield, and 
Watson, of St. David’s, with the clergy of 
their dioceses, together with the dean and 
chapter of Ripon, addressed the king, in 
terms which were indeed limited to his as¬ 
surance of continued protection to the 
Church, but at a time which rendered their 
addresses a sanction of the dispensing power; 
Croft, of Hereford, though not an addresser, 
was a zealous partisan of the measures of 
the Court; while the profligate Parker was 
unable to prevail on the chapter or clergy of 
Oxford to join him, and the accomplished 
Sprat was still a member of the Eccle¬ 
siastical Commission, in which character he 
held a high command in the adverse ranks : 
— so that a third of the episcopal order 
refused to concur in the coalition which the 
Church was about to form with public 
liberty. A bold attempt was made to ob¬ 
tain the appearance of a general concurrence 

of lawyers also in approving the usurpa¬ 
tions of the Crown. From two of the four 
societies, called “ Inns of Court,” who have 
the exclusive privilege of admitting ad¬ 
vocates to practise at the bar, the Middle 
and Inner Temple, addresses of approbation 
were published; though, from recent ex¬ 
amination of the records of these bodies, 
they do not appear to have been ever voted 
by either. That of the former, eminent 
above the others for fulsome servility, is 
traditionally said to have been the clan¬ 
destine production of three of the benchers, 
of whom Chauncy, the historian of Hertford¬ 
shire, was one. That of the Inner Temple 
purports to have been the act of certain 
students and the “ comptroller,” — an office 
of whose existence no traces are discover¬ 
able. As Roger North had been treasurer 
of the Middle Temple three years before, 
and as the crown lawyers were members of 
these societies, it is scarcely possible that 
the Government should not have been ap¬ 
prised of the imposture which they coun¬ 
tenanced by their official publication of 
these addresses.* The necessity of recur¬ 
ring to such a fraud, and the silence of the 
other law societies, may be allowed to afford 
some proof that the independence of the 
Bar was not yet utterly extinguished. The 
subserviency of the Bench was so abject 
as to tempt the Government to interfere 
with private suits, which is one of the last 
and rarest errors of statesmen under abso¬ 
lute monarchies. An official letter is still 
extant f from Lord Sunderland, as secre¬ 
tary of State, to Sir Francis Watkins, a 
judge of assize, recommending him to show 
all the favour to Lady Shaftesbury, in the 
despatch of her suit, to be tried at Salisbury, 
which the justice of her cause should de¬ 
serve :—so deeply degraded were the judges 
in the eyes of the ministers themselves. 

they ought to be, the proportion of Dissenting ad¬ 
dresses was certainly less than one half. Some of 
them, we know, were the produce of a sort of per¬ 
sonal canvass, when the king made his progress 
in the autumn of 1687, “ to court the compliments 
of the people; ” and one of them, in which Philip 
Henry joined, “ was not to offer lives and fortunes 
to him, but to thank him for the liberty^ and to 
promise to demean themselves quietly in the use 
of it.” Wordsworth, vol. vi. p. 292. Address of 
Dissenters of Nantwich, Wem, and Whitchurch. 
London Gazette, 29th August. 

* Evelyn, vol. i. Diary, 16 th June. 

j- Ibid. 10th April. 

* London Gazette, June 9th. 
f 24th February. State Paper Office. 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


368 


CHAPTER VI. 

D’Adda publicly received as the Nuncio. — Disso¬ 
lution of Parliament. — Final Breach. — Pre¬ 
parations for a new Parliament. — New Charters. 
— Removal of Lord Lieutenants. — Patronage of 
the Crown. — Moderate Views of Sunderland. — 
House of Lords. — Royal Progress.—Pregnancy 
of the Queen. — London has the Appearance of 
a Catholic City. 

The war between religious parties had not 
yet so far subsided as to allow the avowed 
intercourse of princes of Protestant com¬ 
munions with the see of Rome. In the first 
violence of hostility, indeed, laws were passed 
in England forbidding, under pain of death, 
the indispensable correspondence of Ca¬ 
tholics with the head of their Church, and 
even the bare residence of their priests 
within the realm.* * * * § These laws, never to be 
palliated except as measures of retaliation 
in a warfare of extermination, had been 
often executed without necessity and with 
slight provocation. It was most desirable 
to prevent their execution and to procure 
their repeal. But the object of the king in 
his embassy to Rome was to select these 
odious enactments, as the most specious case, 
in which he might set an example of the 
ostentatious contempt with which he was 
resolved to trample on every law which 
stood in the way of his designs. A nearer 
and more signal instance than that embassy 
was required by his zeal, or his political 
projects. D’Adda was accordingly obliged 
to undergo a public introduction to the king 
at Windsor as apostolic nuncio from the 
pope; and his reception, — being an overt 
act of high treason, — was conducted with 
more than ordinary state, and announced to 
the public like that of any other foreign 
minister.j* The Bishops of Durham and 
Chester were perhaps the most remarkable 
attendants at the ceremonial. The Duke of 
Somerset, the second peer of the kingdom, 
was chosen from the lords of the bedchamber 


* 13 Eliz. c. 2. — 35 Eliz. c. 1. 
t D’Adda, 11th July. MS. London Gazette, 4th 
to 7th July. 


as the introducer; and his attendance in 
that character had been previously notified 
to the nuncio by the Earl of Mulgrave, 
lord chamberlain: but, on the morning of 
the ceremony, the duke besought his Majesty 
to excuse him from the performance of an 
act which might expose him to the most 
severe animadversion of the law.* The kins 

o 

answered, that he intended to confer an 
honour upon him, by appointing him to in¬ 
troduce the representative of so venerable 
a potentate; and that the royal power of 
dispensation had been solemnly determined 
to be a sufficient warrant for such acts. The 
king is said to have angrily asked, “Do you 
not know that I am above the law ? ” f; to 
which the duke is represented by the same 
authorities to have replied, “ Your Majesty 
is so, but I am not; ” — an answer which 
was perfectly correct, if it be understood as 
above punishment by the law. The Duke 
of Grafton introduced the nuncio; and it 
was observed, that while the ambassadors of 
the emperor, and of the crowns of France 
and Spain, were presented by earls, persons 
of superior dignity were appointed to do the 
same office to the papal minister; — a sin¬ 
gularity rather rendered alarming than ac¬ 
ceptable by the example of the Court of 
France, which was appealed to by the cour¬ 
tiers on this occasion. The same cere¬ 
monious introduction to the queen dowager 
immediately followed. The king was very 
desirous of the like presentation being made 
to the Princess Anne, to whom it was cus¬ 
tomary to present foreign ministers; but 
the nuncio declined a public audience of an 
heretical princess |: and though we learn 
that, a few days after, he was admitted by 
her to what is called “ a public audience,” § 
yet, as it was neither published in the 
Gazette, nor adverted to in his own letter, 
it seems probable that she only received him 
openly as a Roman prelate, who was to be 


* Van Citters, 15th July. MS. 

t Perhaps saying, or meaning to say, “in this 
respect.” 

t D’Adda, 16th July. MS. 

§ Van Citters, 22nd July. MS. 









REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 369 

treated with the respect due to his rank, and 
with whom it was equally politic to avoid 
the appearance of clandestine intercourse 
and of formal recognition. The king said to 
the Duke of Somerset, “As you have not 
chosen to obey my commands in this case, I 
shall not trouble you with any other and 

immediately removed him from his place in 
the household, from his regiment of dra¬ 
goons, and the lord-lieutenancy of his 
county, — continuing for some time to speak 
with indignation of this act of contumacy, 
and telling the nuncio, that the duke’s 
nearest relations had thrown themselves at 
his feet, and assured him, that they detested 
the disobedience of their kinsman.* The 
importance of the transaction consisted in 
its being a decisive proof of how little esti¬ 
mation were the judicial decisions in favour 
of the dispensing power in the eyes of the 
most loyal and opulent of the nobility, f 

The most petty incidents in the treatment 
of the nuncio were at this time jealously 
watched by the public. By the influence of 
the new members placed by James in the 
corporation, he had been invited to a fes¬ 
tival annually given by the city of London, 
at which the diplomatic body were then, as 
now, accustomed to be present. Fearful of 
insult, and jealous of his precedence, he 
consulted Lord Sunderland, and afterwards 
the king, on the prudence of accepting the 
invitation.} The king pressed him to go, 
also signifying to all the other foreign mi¬ 
nisters that their attendance at the festival 
would be agreeable to him. The Dutch § 
and Swedish ministers were absent. The 
nuncio was received unexpectedly well by 
the populace, and treated with becoming 
courtesy by the magistrates. But though 
the king honoured the festival with his pre¬ 
sence, he could not prevail even on the 
aldermen of his own nomination to forbear 

from the thanksgiving, on the 5th of No¬ 
vember, for deliverance from the Gun¬ 
powder Plot.* On the contrary, Sir John 
Shorter, the Presbyterian mayor, made hast 2 
to atone for the invitation of D’Adda, by 
publicly receiving the communion according 
to the rites of the Church of England f ; — 
a strong mark of distrust in the dispensing 
power, and of the determination of the 
Presbyterians to adhere to the common 
cause of Protestants.} 

Another occasion offered itself, then 
esteemed a solemn one, for the king, in his 
royal capacity, to declare publicly against 
the Established Church. The kings of Eng- 
land had, from very ancient times, pretended 
to a power of curing scrofula by touching 
those who were afflicted by that malady; 
and the Church had retained, after the Re¬ 
formation, a service for the occasion, in 
which her ministers officiated. James, na¬ 
turally enough, employed the mass book, 
and the aid of the Roman Catholic clergy, 
in the exercise of this pretended power of 
his crown, according to the precedents in 
the reign of Mary.§ As we find no com¬ 
plaint from the established clergy of the 
perversion of this miraculous prerogative, 
we are compelled to suspect that they had 
no firm faith in the efficacy of a ceremony 
which they solemnly sanctioned by their 
prayers. || 

* Narcissus Luttrell, Nov. 1087. MS. 
t Van Citters, 24th Nov. MS. 
j Catherine Shorter, the daughter and heiress of 
this Fresbyterian mayor, became, long after, the 
wife of Sir Robert Walpole. 

§ Van Citters, 7th June, 1686. MS. 

|| It is well known that Dr. Samuel Johnson was, 
when a child, touched for the scrofula by Queen 
Anne. The princes of the House of Brunswick 
relinquished the practice. Carte, the historian, 
was so blinded by his zeal for the House of Stuart, as 
to assure the public that one Lovel, a native of 
Bristol, who had gone to Avignon to be touched 
by the son of James II. in 1716, was really cured 
by that prince. A small piece of gold was tied 
round the patient’s neck, which explains the num¬ 
ber of applications. The gold sometimes amounted 
to 3000Z. a year. Louis XIV. touched 1600 patients 
on Easter Sunday, 1686. See Barrington’s Ob- 

* D’Adda, suprk. 
f Barillon, 21st July. Fox MSS. 

X D’Adda, 7th—14th Nov. MS. 

§ According to the previous instructions of the 
States General, and the practice of their ministers 
at the congresses of Munster and Nimeguen. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


370 


On the day before the public reception of 
the nuncio, the dissolution of Parliament had 
announced a final breach between the 
Crown and the Church. All means had 
been tried to gain a majority in the House 
of Commons: persuasion, influence, cor¬ 
ruption, were inadequate; the example of 
dismissal failed to intimidate, — the hope of 
preferment to allure. Neither the command 
obtained by the Crown over the corpora¬ 
tions, nor the division among Protestants 
excited by the Toleration, had sufficiently 
weakened the opposition to the measures of 
the Court. It was useless to attempt the 
execution of projects to subdue the resist¬ 
ance of the Peers by new creations, till the 
other House was either gained or removed. 
The unyielding temper manifested by an 
assembly formerly so submissive, seems, at 
first sight, unaccountable. It must, how¬ 
ever, be borne in mind, that the elections 
had taken place under the influence of the 
Church party; that the interest of the Church 
had defeated the ecclesiastical measures of 
the king in the two former sessions; and 
that the immense influence of the clergy 
over general opinion, now seconded by the 
zealous exertions of the friends of liberty, 
was little weakened by the servile ambition 
of a few of their number, who, being within 
the reach of preferment, and intensely acted 
upon by its attraction, too eagerly sought 
their own advancement to regard the dis¬ 
honour of deserting their body. England 
was then fast approaching to that state in 
which an opinion is so widely spread, and 
the feelings arising from it are so ardent, 
that dissent is accounted infamous, and con¬ 
sidered by many as unsafe. It is happy 
when such opinions (however inevitably al¬ 
loyed by base ingredients, and productive of 
partial injustice) are not founded in de¬ 
lusion, but on principles, on the whole, be¬ 
neficial to the community. The mere in¬ 
fluence of shame, of fear, of imitation, or of 
sympathy, is, at such moments, sufficient to 


servations on Ancient Statutes, pp. 108, 109. 
Lovel relapsed after Carte had seen him. General 
Biographical Dictionary, article “ Carte.” 


give to many men the appearance of an in¬ 
tegrity and courage little to be hoped from 
their ordinary conduct. 

The king had, early in the summer, ascer¬ 
tained the impossibility of obtaining the con¬ 
sent of a majority of the House of Com¬ 
mons to a repeal of the Test and penal laws, 
and appears to have shown a disposition to 
try a new Parliament.* * * § His more moderate 
counsellors j - , however, headed, as it ap¬ 
pears, by the Earl of Sunderland j, did not 
fail to represent to him the mischiefs and 
dangers of that irrevocable measure. “It 
was,” they said, “ a perilous experiment to 
dissolve the union of the Crown with the 
Church, and to convert into enemies an 
order which had hitherto supported un¬ 
limited authority, and inculcated unbounded 
submission. The submission of the Par¬ 
liament had no bounds except the rights or 
interests of the Church. The expense of 
an increasing army would speedily require 
parliamentary aid ; the possible event of the 
death of the King of Spain without issue 
might involve all Europe in war § : for these 


* Van Citters, 13th June. MS. 

f Barillon, 12th June. Fox MSS. 

i D’Adda, 7th—22nd August. MS. 

§ The exact coincidence, in this respect, of Sun¬ 
derland’s public defence, nearly two years after¬ 
wards, with the nuncio’s secret despatches of the 
moment, is worthy of consideration: — 

“ 1 hindered the dissolution several weeks, by 
telling the King that the Parliament would do 
every thing he could desire but the taking off the 
tests; that another parliament would probably 
not repeal these laws; and, if they did, would do 
nothing else for the support of Government. I said 
often, if the King of Spain died, his Majesty could 
not preserve the peace of Europe; that he might 
be sure of all the help and service he could wish 
from the present parliament; but if he dissolved it, 
he must give up all thoughts of foreign affairs, for 
no other would ever assist him but on such terms 
as wouid ruin the monarchy.” Lord Sunderland’s 
Letter, licensed 23d March, 1689. 

“ Dali’ altra parte si poteva promettere S. M. 
del medesimo parlamento ogni assistenza maggiore 
de denaro, si S. M. fosse obligato di entrare in una 
guerra straniera, ponderando il caso possibile della 
morte del Re di Spagna senza successione. Questi 
e simili vantaggi non doverse attendere d’un nuovo 
parlamento composto di Noneonformisti, nutrendo, 









REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


purposes, and for every other that con¬ 
cerned the honour of the Crown, this loyal 
Parliament were ready to grant the most 
liberal supplies. Even in ecclesiastical mat¬ 
ters, though they would not at once yield 
all, they would in time grant much : when 
the king had quieted the alarm and irrita¬ 
tion of the moment, they would, without 
difficulty, repeal all the laws commonly 
called “ penal.” The king’s dispensations, 
sanctioned by the decisions of the highest 
authority of the law, obviated the evil of the 
laws of disability ; and it would be wiser for 
the Catholics to leave the rest to time and 
circumstances, than to provoke severe reta¬ 
liation by the support of measures which the 
immense majority of the people dreaded as 
subversive of their religion and liberty. 
What hope of ample supply or steady sup¬ 
port could the king entertain from a Par¬ 
liament of Nonconformists, the natural 
enemies of kingly power ? What faith 
could the Catholics place in these sectaries, 
the most Protestant of Protestant com¬ 
munions, of whom the larger part looked on 
relief from persecution, when tendered by 
Catholic hands, with distrust and fear; and 
who believed that the friendship of the 
Church of Rome for them would last no 
longer than her inability to destroy them ? ” 
To this it was answered, “ that it was now 
too late to inquire whether a more wary 
policy might not have been at first more 
advisable; that the king could not stand 
where he was; that he would soon be com¬ 
pelled to assemble a Parliament; and that, 
if he preserved the present, their first act 
would be to impeach the judges, who had 
determined in favour of the dispensing 
power. To call them together, would be to 
abandon to their rage all the Catholics who 
had accepted office on the faith of the royal 
prerogative. If the Parliament were not to 
be assembled, they were at least useless; 
and their known disposition would, as long 
as they existed, keep up the spirit of auda- 


per li principi, sentimenti totalmente contrarii alia 
monarchia. 

“ D’Adda.” 


371 

cious disaffection : if they were assembled, 
they would, even during the king’s life, tear 
away the shield of the dispensing power, 
which, at all events, never would be 
stretched out to cover Catholics by the 
hand of the Protestant successor. All the 
power gained by the monarchy over cor¬ 
porations having been used in the last elec¬ 
tion by Protestant Tories, was now acting 
against the Crown : by extensive changes in 
the government of counties and corpora¬ 
tions, a more favourable House of Com¬ 
mons, and if an entire abrogation should 
prove impracticable, a better compromise, 
might be obtained.” 

Sunderland informed the nuncio that the 
king closed these discussions by a declara¬ 
tion that, having ascertained the determina¬ 
tion of the present Parliament not to con¬ 
cur in his holy designs, and having weighed 
all the advantages of preserving it, he con¬ 
sidered them as far inferior to his great 
object, which was the advancement of the 
Catholic religion. Perhaps, indeed, this de¬ 
termination, thus apparently dictated by 
religious zeal, was conformable to the 
maxims of civil prudence, unless the king 
was prepared to renounce his encroach¬ 
ments, and content himself with that mea¬ 
sure of toleration for his religion which the 
most tolerant states then dealt out to their 
dissenting subjects. 

The next object was so to influence the 
elections as to obtain a more yielding ma¬ 
jority. At an early period, Sunderland 
had represented two hundred members of 
the late House “ as necessarily dependent on 
the Crown ; ” * —- probably not so much a 
sanguine hope as a political exaggeration, ; 
which, if believed, might realise itself. He 
was soon either undeceived or contradicted : 
the king desired all bound to him, either by 
interest or attachment, to come singly to 
private audiences in his closet f, that he 
might ask their support to his measures; 
and the answers which he received were 
regarded by bystanders as equivalent to a 


* D’Adda, 10th Oct. 168G.—7th Feb. 1687. MS. 
f Ibid. 24th Jan. MS. 


BB 2 









372 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


general refusal.* This practice, then called 
“ closeting ,” was, it must be owned, a very 
unskilful species of canvass, where the 
dignity of the king left little room for more 
than a single question and answer, and 
where other parties were necessarily fore¬ 
warned of the subject of the interview, 
which must have soon become so generally 
known as to expose the more yielding part 
of them to the admonitions of their more 
courageous friends. It was easy for an 
eager monarch, on an occasion which al¬ 
lowed so little explanation, to mistake eva¬ 
sion, delay, and mere courtesy, for an assent 
to his proposal. But the new influence, 
and, indeed, power, which had been already 
gained by the Crown over the elective 
body seemed to be so great as to afford the 
strongest motives for assembling a new 
Parliament. 

In the six years which followed the first 
judgments of forfeiture, two hundred and 
forty-two new charters of incorporation had 
passed the seals to replace those which had 
been thus judicially annulled or voluntarily 
resigned.! From this number, however, 
must be deducted those of the plantations 
on the continent and islands of America, 
some new incorporations on grounds of ge¬ 
neral policy J, and several subordinate cor¬ 
porations in cities and towns, — though 
these last materially affected parliamentary 
elections. The House then consisted of five 
hundred and five members, of whom two 
hundred and forty-four were returned on 
rights of election altogether or in part cor¬ 
porate ; this required only a hundred and 
twenty-two new charters. But to many 
corporations more than one charter had 
been issued, after the extorted surrenders of 
others, to rivet them more firmly in their 
dependency ; and if any were spared, it can 
only have been because they were con¬ 
sidered as sufficiently enslaved, and some 


* Van Citters, 24th Jan. MS. 
f Lords’ Journals, 20th Dec. 1689. 
j Of these, those of the College of Physicians 
and the town of Bombay are mentioned by Nar¬ 
cissus Luttrell. 


show of discrimination was considered as 
politic. In six years, therefore, it is evident, 
that by a few determinations of servile 
judges, the Crown, had acquired the direct, 
uncontrolled, and perpetual nomination of 
nearly one half of the House of Commons : 
and when we recollect the independent and 
ungovernable spirit manifested by that as¬ 
sembly in the last fifteen years of Charles 
II., we may be disposed to conclude that 
there is no other instance in history of so 
great a revolution effected in so short a time 
by the mere exercise of judicial authority. 
These charters, originally contrived so as to 
vest the utmost power in the Crown, might, 
in any instance where experience showed 
them to be inadequate, be rendered still 
more effectual, as a power of substituting 
others was expressly reserved in each.* In 
order to facilitate the effective exercise of 
this power, commissioners were appointed to 
be “regulators” of corporations, with full 
authority to remove and appoint freemen 
and corporate officers at their discretion. 
The Chancellor, the Lords Powis, Sunder¬ 
land, Arundel, and Castlemaine, with Sir 
Nicholas Butler and Father Petre, were re¬ 
gulators of the first class, who superintended 
the whole operation.! Sir Nicholas Butler 
and Duncombe, a banker, “ regulated” the 
corporation of London, from which they 
removed nineteen hundred freemen; and 
yet Jeffreys incurred a reprimand, from his 
impatient master, for want of vigour in 
changing the corporate bodies, and humbly 
promised to repair his fault: for “ every 
Englishman who becomes rich,” said Ba- 
rillon, “ is more disposed to favour the 
popular party than the designs of the king.” | 
These regulators were sent to every part of 
the country, and were furnished with letters 
from the secretary of State, recommending 


* Reign of James II. p. 21. Parliamentum Paci- 
ficum (London, 1688), p. 29! The latter pamphlet 
boasts of these provisions. The Protestant Tories, 
says the writer, cannot question a power by which 
many of themselves were brought into the House. 
! Lords’ Journals, supra, 
j Barillon, 8th Sept. MS. 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 373 

them to the aid of the lord lieutenants of 
counties.* 

When the election was supposed to be 
near, circular letters were sent to the lord 
lieutenants, and other men of influence, in¬ 
cluding even the chief justice of the King’s 
Bench, recommending them to procure the 
election of persons mentioned therein by 
name, to the number of more than a hun¬ 
dred. Among them were eighteen mem¬ 
bers for counties, and many for those towns 
which, as their rights of election were not 
corporate, were not yet subjected to the 
Crown by legal judgments.f In this list we 
find the unexpected name of John Somers, 
probably selected from a hope that his zeal 
for religious liberty might induce him to 
support a government which professed so 
comprehensive a toleration: but it was 
quickly discovered that he was too wise to 
be ensnared, and the clerk of the privy 
council was six days after judiciously sub¬ 
stituted in his stead. It is due to James 
and his minister to remark, that these letters 
are conceived in that official form which ap¬ 
pears to indicate established practice: and, 
indeed, most of these practices were not 
only avowed, but somewhat ostentatiously 
displayed as proofs of the king’s confidence 
in the legitimacy and success of his mea¬ 
sures. Official letters^ had also been sent 
to the lord lieutenants, directing them to 
obtain answers from the deputy-lieutenants 
and justices of the peace of their respective 
counties, to the questions, — Whether, if 
any of them were chosen to serve in Par¬ 
liament, they would vote for the repeal of 
the penal laws and the Test ? and Whether 
they would contribute to the election of 
other members of the like disposition ? and 
also to ascertain what corporations in each 
county were well affected, what individuals 
had influence enough to be elected, and 
what Catholics and Dissenters were quali- 

fied to be deputy-lieutenants or justices of 
the peace. 

Several refused to obey so unconstitu¬ 
tional a command: their refusal had been 
foreseen; and so specious a pretext as that 
of disobedience was thus found for their re¬ 
moval from office.* Sixteen lieutenancies f, 
held by fourteen lieutenants, were imme¬ 
diately changed ; the majority of whom were 
among the principal noblemen of the king¬ 
dom, to whom the government of the most 
important provinces had, according to an¬ 
cient usage, been entrusted. The removal 
of Lord Scarsdale J from his lieutenancy of 
Derbyshire displayed the disposition of the 
Princess Anne, and furnished some scope 
for political dexterity on her part and on 
that of her father. Lord Scarsdale holding 
an office in the household of Prince George, 
the princess sent Lord Churchill to the king 
from herself and her husband, humbly de¬ 
siring to know his majesty’s pleasure how 
they should deal with one of the prince’s 
servants who had incurred the king’s dis¬ 
favour. The king, perceiving that it was 
intended to throw Scarsdale’s removal from 
their household upon him, and extremely 
solicitous that it should appear to be his 
daughter’s spontaneous act, and thus seem a 
proof of her hearty concurrence in his mea¬ 
sures, declared his reluctance to prescribe to 
them in the appointment or dismissal of 
their officers. The princess (for Prince 
George was a cipher) contented herself with 
this superficial show of respect, and resolved 
that the sacrifice of Scarsdale, if ever made, 
should appear to be no more than the bare 
obedience of a subject and a daughter. 
James was soon worsted in this conflict of 
address, and was obliged to notify his plea¬ 
sure that Scarsdale should be removed, to 
avoid the humiliation of seeing his daughter’s 
court become the refuge of those whom he 
had displaced.§ The vacant lieutenancies 

* Dated 21st July. State Paper Office, 
f Lord Sunderland’s Letters, Sept. Ibid. 
x Dated 5th Oct. State Paper Office. Van 
Citters’ account exactly corresponds with the ori¬ 
ginal document.. 

* Barillon, 8th Dec. MS. “ 11 alloit faire cette 
tentative pour avoir un pre'texte de les changer.” 
f Ibid. 18th Dec. 
f Ibid. 15th Dec. 

§ Ibid. 30th August, Fox MSS. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


374 


were bestowed on Catholics, with the excep¬ 
tion of Mulgrave (who had promised to 
embrace the king’s faith, but whose delays 
begot suspicions of his sincerity), and of 
Jeffreys, Sunderland, and Preston; who, 
though they continued to profess the Pro¬ 
testant religion, were no longer members of 
the Protestant party. Five colonels of ca¬ 
valry, two of infantry, and four governors of 
fortresses (some of whom were also lord 
lieutenants, and most of them of the same 
class of persons), were removed from their 
commands. Of thirty-nine new sheriffs, 
thirteen were said to be Roman Catholics.* 
Although the proportion of gentry among 
the Nonconformists was less, yet their num¬ 
bers being much greater, it cannot be 
doubted that a considerable majority of 
these magistrates were such as the king 
thought likely to serve his designs. 

Even the most obedient and zealous lord- 
lieutenants appear to have been generally 
unsuccessful: the Duke of Beaufort made 
an unfavourable report of the principality 
of Wales; and neither the vehemence of 
Jeffreys, nor the extreme eagerness of 
Rochester, made any considerable impres¬ 
sion in their respective counties. Lord 
Waldegrave, a Catholic, the king’s son-in- 
law, found insurmountable obstacles in 
Somersetshire f; Lord Molyneux, also a 
Catholic, appointed to the lieutenancy of 
Lancashire, made an unfavourable report 
even of that county, then the secluded 
abode of an ancient Catholic gentry; and 
Dr. Leyburn, who had visited every part of 
England in the discharge of his episcopal 
duty, found little to encourage the hopes 
and prospects of the king. The most general 
answer appears to have been, that if chosen 


* The names are marked in a handwriting ap¬ 
parently contemporary, on the margin of the list, 
in a copy of the London Gazette now before me. 
Van Citters (14th Nov.) makes the sheriffs almost 
all either Roman Catholics or Dissenters, — pro¬ 
bably an exaggeration. In his despatch of 16th 
Dec., he states the sheriffs to be thirteen Catho¬ 
lics, thirteen Dissenters, and thirteen submissive 
Churchmen. 

f D’Adda, 12th Dec. MS. . 


to serve in parliament, the individuals to 
whom the questions were put would vote 
according to their consciences, after hearing 
the reasons on both sides; that they could 
not promise to vote in a manner which their 
own judgment after discussion might con¬ 
demn ; that if they entered into so unbe¬ 
coming an engagement, they might incur 
the displeasure of the House of Commons 
for betraying its privileges; and that they 
would justly merit condemnation from all 
good men for disabling themselves from 
performing the duty of faithful subjects by 
the honest declaration of their judgment on 
those arduous affairs on which they were to 
advise and aid the king. The Court was 
incensed by these answers; but to cover 
their defeat, and make their resolution more 
known, it was formally notified in the Lon¬ 
don Gazette *, that “ His Majesty, being 
resolved to maintain the Declaration of 
Liberty of Conscience, and to use the utmost 
endeavours that it may pass into a law, 
and become an established security for after 
ages, has thought fit to review the lists of 
deputy-lieutenants and justices of the peace; 
that those may continue who are willing to 
contribute to so good and necessary a work, 
and such others be added from whom he 
may reasonably expect the like concur¬ 
rence.” 

It is very difficult to determine in what 
degree the patronage of the Crown, military, 
civil, and ecclesiastical, at that period, 
influenced parliamentary elections. The 
colonies then scarcely contributed to it.f 
No offices in Scotland, and few in Ireland, 
were bestowed for English purposes. The 
revenue was small compared with that of 
after times', even after due allowance is made 
for the subsequent change in the value of 
money: but it was collected at such a need¬ 
less expense as to become, from the mere 
ignorance and negligence of the Govern¬ 
ment, a source of influence much more than 
proportioned to its amount. The Church was 


* Of the 11th Dec. 

f Chamberlayne, Present State of England. 
(London, 1674.) 



















REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 375^ 


probably guarded for the moment by the zeal 
and honour of its members, against the usual 
effects of royal patronage; and even the 
mitre lost much of its attractions, while the 
see of York was believed to be kept vacant 
for a Jesuit. A standing army of 30,000 
men presented new means of provision and 
objects of ambition to the young gentry, 
who then monopolised military appointments. 
The revenue, small as it now seems, had 
increased in proportion to the national 
wealth, more in the preceding half century 
than in any equal period since; and the 
army had within that time come into ex¬ 
istence. It is not easy to decide whether 
the novelty and rapid increase of these 
means of bestowing gratification increased 
at the same time their power over the mind, 
or whether it was not necessarily more 
feeble, until long experience had directed 
the eyes of the community habitually to¬ 
wards the Crown as the sourco of income 
and advancement. It seems reasonable to 
suppose that it might at first produce more 
violent movements, and in the sequel more 
uniform support. All the offices of pro¬ 
vincial administration were then more 
coveted than they are now. Modern legis¬ 
lation and practice had not yet withdrawn 
any part of that administration from lieuten¬ 
ants, deputy-lieutenants, sheriffs, coroners, 
which had been placed in their hands by 
the ancient laws. A justice of the peace 
exercised a power over his inferior never 
controlled by public opinion, and for the 
exercise of which he could hardly be said to 
be practically amenable to law. The influ¬ 
ence of Government has abated as the 
powers of these offices have been contracted, 
or their exercise more jealously watched. 
Its patronage cannot be justly estimated, 
unless it be compared with the advantage to 
be expected from other objects of pursuit. 
The professions called “ learned ” had then 
fewer stations and smaller incomes than in 
subsequent periods: in commerce, the dis¬ 
proportion was immense; there could hardly 
be said to be any manufactures; and agri¬ 
culture was unskilful, and opulent farmers 
unheard of. Perhaps the whole amount of 


income and benefits at the disposal of the 
Crown bore a larger proportion to that 
which might be earned in all the other 
pursuits raised above mere manual labour 
than might at first sight be supposed: how 
far the proportion was less than at present 
it is hard to say. But patronage in the 
hands of James was the auxiliary of great 
legal power through the lord-lieutenants, 
and of the direct nomination of the members 
for the corporate towns. The grossest spe¬ 
cies of corruption had been practised among 
members * ; and the complaints which were 
at that time prevalent of the expense of 
elections, render it very probable that 
bribery was spreading among the electors. 
Expensive elections have, indeed, no other 
necessary effect than that of throwing the 
choice into the hands of wealthy candidates; 
but they afford too specious pretexts for the 
purchase of votes, not to be employed in 
eager contests, as a disguise of that practice. 

The rival, though sometimes auxiliary, 
influence of great proprietors, seems to have 
been at that time, at least, as considerable 
as at any succeeding moment. The direct 
power of nominating members must have 
been vested in many of them by the same 
state of suffrage and property which confer 
it on them at present f, while they were not 
rivalled in more popular elections by a 
monied interest. The power of landholders 
over their tenants was not circumscribed; 
and in all county towns they were the only 
rich customers of tradesmen who had then 
only begun to emerge from indigence and 
dependence. The majority of these land¬ 
holders were Tories, and now adhered to 
the Church: the minority, consisting of the 
most opulent and noble, were the friends of 
liberty, who received with open arms their 
unwonted allies. 

From the naturally antagonist force of 
popular opinion little was probably dreaded 
by the Court. The Papal, the French, and 
the Dutch ministers, as well as the king and 
Lord Sunderland, in their unreserved con¬ 
ferences with the first two, seem to have 


* Pension Parliament. f 1826 .—Ed. 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


376 


pointed all tlieir expectations and solicitudes 
towards the uncertain conduct of powerful 
individuals. The body of the people could 
not read: one portion of them had little 
knowledge of the sentiments of another ; no 
publication was tolerated, on a level with 
the information then possessed even by the 
middle classes; and the only channel through 
which they could be acted upon was the 
pulpit, which the king had vainly, though 
perfidiously, endeavoured to shut up. Con¬ 
siderable impediments stood in the way of 
the king’s direct power over elections, in the 
difficulty of finding candidates for Parlia¬ 
ment not altogether disreputable, and cor¬ 
porators whose fidelity might be relied on. 
The moderate Catholics reluctantly con¬ 
curred in the precipitate measures of the 
Court. They were disqualified, by long 
exclusion from business, for those offices to 
which their rank and fortune gave them a 
natural claim ; and their whole number was 
so small, that they could contribute no 
adequate supply of fit persons for inferior 
stations.* The number of the Noncon¬ 
formists were, on the other hand, consider¬ 
able ; amounting, probably, to a sixteenth 
of the whole people, without including the 
compulsory and occasional Conformists, 
whom the Declaration of Indulgence had 
now encouraged to avow their real senti¬ 
ments. *j* Many of them had acquired 
wealth by trade, which under the Republic 
and the Protectorate began to be generally 
adopted as a liberal pursuit; but they were 
confined to the great towns, and were chiefly 
of the Presbyterian persuasion, who were 
ill affected to the Court. Concerning the 
greater number who were to form the cor- 


* By Sir William Petty’s computation, which 
was the largest, the number of Catholics in Eng¬ 
land and Wales, about the accession of James, was 
32,000. The’survey of bishops in 1676, by order 
of Charles II., made it 27,000. Barlow (Bishop 
of Lincoln), Genuine Remains (London, 1693), 
p.312. “George Fox,” said Petty, “made five 
times more Quakers in forty-four years than the 
Pope, with all his greatness, has made Papists.” 

f Barlow, supra. — About 250,000, when the 
population was little more than four millions. 


porations throughout the country, it was 
difficult to obtain accurate information, and 
hard to believe that, in the hour of contest, 
they could forget their enthusiastic animosity 
against the Church of Rome. As the project 
of introducing Catholics into the House of 
Commons by an exercise of the dispensing 
power had been abandoned, nothing could 
be expected from them but aid in elections ; 
and if one eighth — a number so far sur¬ 
passing their natural share — of the members 
should be Nonconformists, they would still 
bear a small proportion to the whole body. 
These intractable difficulties, founded in the 
situation, habits, and opinions of men, over 
which measures of policy or legislation have 
no direct or sudden power, early suggested to 
the more wary of the king’s counsellors the 
propriety of attempting some compromise, 
by which he might immediately gain more 
advantage and security for the Catholics 
than could have been obtained from the 
Episcopalian Parliament, and open the way 
for further advances in a more favourable 
season. 

Shortly after the dissolution, Lord Sun¬ 
derland communicated to the nuncio his 
opinions on the various expedients by which 
the jealousies of the Nonconformists might 
be satisfied.* “ As we have wounded the 
Anglican party,” said he, “ we must destroy 
it, and use every means to strengthen as 
well as conciliate the other, that the whole 
nation may not be alienated, and that the 
army may not discover the dangerous secret 
of the exclusive reliance of the Government 
upon its fidelity.” “ Among the Noncon¬ 
formists were,” he added, “ three opinions 
relating to the Catholics : that of those who 
would repeal all the penal laws against re¬ 
ligious worship, but maintain the disabilities 
for office and Parliament; that of those who 
would admit the Catholics to office, but con¬ 
tinue their exclusion from both Houses of 
Parliament; and that of a still more indul¬ 
gent party, who would consent to remove 
the recent exclusion of the Catholic peers, 
trusting to the oath of supremacy in the 

* D’Adda, 7th August. MS. 













REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


reign of Elizabeth, as a legal, though it had 
not proved in practice a constant, bar against 
their entrance into the House of Commons : 
— to say nothing of a fourth project, enter¬ 
tained by zealous Catholics and thorough 
courtiers, that Catholic peers and commoners 
should claim their seats in both Houses by 
virtue of royal dispensations, which would 
relieve them from the oaths and declarations 
against their religion required by law, — an 
attempt which the king himself had felt to 
be too hazardous, as being likely to excite a 
general commotion on the first day of the 
session, to produce an immediate rupture 
with the new Parliament, and to forfeit all 
the advantage which had been already 
gained by a determination of both Houses 
against the validity of the dispensations.” 
He further added, that “ he had not hitherto 
conferred on these weighty matters with any 
but the king, that he wished the nuncio to 
consider them, and was desirous to govern 
his own conduct by that prelate’s decision.” 
At the same time lie gave D’Adda to under¬ 
stand, that he was inclined to some of the 
above conciliatory expedients, observing, 
“ that it was better to go on step by step, 
than obstinately to aim at all with the risk 
of gaining nothing;” and hinting, that this 
pertinacity was peculiarly dangerous, where 
all depended on the life of James. Sunder¬ 
land’s purpose was to insinuate his own 
opinions into the mind of the nuncio, who 
was the person most likely to reconcile the 
king and his priests to only partial advan¬ 
tages. But a prelate of the Roman Court, 
however inferior to Sunderland in other 
respects, was more than his match in the art 
of evading the responsibility which attends 
advice in perilous conjunctures. With many 
commendations of his zeal, D’Adda professed 
“ his incapacity of judging in a case which 
involved the opinions and interests of so 
many individuals and classes; but he de¬ 
clared, that the fervent prayers of his 
Holiness, and his own feeble supplications, 
would be offered to God, for light and 
guidance to his Majesty and his ministers 
in the prosecution of their wise and pious 
designs.” 


377 

William Penn proposed a plan different 
from any of the temperaments mentioned 
above; which consisted in the exclusion of 
Catholics from the House of Commons, and 
the division of all the public offices into 
three equal parts, one of which should belong 
to the Church, another should be open to 
the Nonconformists, and a third to the 
Catholics *; — an extremely unequal distri¬ 
bution, if it implied the exclusion of the 
members of the Church from two-thirds of 
the stations in the public service; and not 
very moderate, if it should be understood 
only as providing against the admission of 
the dissidents to more than two-thirds of 
these offices. Eligibility to one-third would 
have be<}n a more equitable proposition, and 
perhaps better than any but that which alone 
is perfectly reasonable, — that the appoint¬ 
ment to office should be altogether independ¬ 
ent of religious opinion. An equivalent 
for the Test was held out at the same time, 
which had a very specious and alluring 
appearance. It was proposed that an act 
for the establishment of religious liberty 
should be passed; that all men should be 
sworn to its observance; that it should be 
made a part of the coronation oath, and 
rank among the fundamental laws, as the 
Magna Charta of Conscience; and that any 
attempt to repeal it should be declared to 
be a capital crime.f 

The principal objections to all these 
mitigated or attractive proposals arose from 
distrust in the king’s intention. It did not 
depend on the conditions offered, and was 
as fatal to moderate compromise as to un¬ 
distinguishing surrender. The nation were 
now in a temper to consider every concession 
made to the king as an advantage gained by 
an enemy, which mortified their pride, as 
well as lessened their safety : they regarded 
negotiation as an expedient of their ad¬ 
versaries to circumvent, disunite, and dis¬ 
hearten them. 

The state of the House of Lords was a 
very formidable obstacle. Two lists of the 


* Johnstone, 18th Jan. 1G88. MS. 
t “ Good Advice.” “ Parliamentum Pacificnm.” 














MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


378 


probable votes in that assembly on the Test 
and penal laws were sent to Holland, and 
one to France, which are still extant.* 
These vary in some respects from each other, 
according to the information of the writers, 
and probably according to the fluctuating 
disposition of some peers. The greatest 
division adverse to the Court which they 
present, is ninety-two against the repeal of 
the penal and disabling laws to thirty-five 
for it, besides twenty whose votes are called 
“doubtful,” and twenty-three disabled as 
Catholics: the least is eighty-six to thirty- 
three, besides ten doubtful and twenty-one 
Catholic. Singular as it may seem, Roches¬ 
ter, the leader of the Church party, is 
represented in all the lists as being for the 
repeal. From this agreement, and from his 
officious zeal as lord-lieutenant of Hertford¬ 
shire, it cannot be doubted that he had 
promised his vote to the king; and though 
it is hard to say whether his promise was 
sincere, or whether treachery to his party or 
insincerity to his old master would be most 
deserving of blame, he cannot be acquitted 
of a grave offence either against political or 
personal morality. His brother Clarendon, 
a man of less understanding and courage, is 
numbered in one list as doubtful, and repre¬ 
sented by another as a supporter of the 
Court. Lord Churchill is stated to be for 
the repeal, — probably from the confidence 
of the writers that gratitude would in him 
prevail over every other motive; for it 
appears that on this subject he had the merit 
of- not having dissembled his sentiments to 
his royal benefactor.^ Lord Godolphin, 
engaged rather in ordinary business than in 
political councils, was numbered in the ranks 
of official supporters. As Lord Dartmouth, 


* The reports sent to Holland were communi¬ 
cated to me by the Duke of Portland. One of 
them purports to be drawn by Lord Willoughby. 
That sent by Barillon is from the Depot des Affaires 
Etrangfcres at Paris. 

f Coxe, Memoirs, &c. vol. i. pp. 23—29., where 
the authorities are collected, to which may be 
added the testimony of Johnstone: — “ Lord 
Churchill swears he will not do what the king 
requires from him.” Letter, 12th Jan. 1688. MS. 


Lord Preston, and Lord Feversham never 
fluctuated on religion, they deserve the 
credit of being rather blinded by personal 
attachment, than tempted by interest or 
ambition, in their support of the repeal.* 
Howard of Escrick and Grey de Werke, 
who had saved their own lives by contribut¬ 
ing to take away those of their friends, 
appear in the minority as slaves of the 
Court. Of the bishops only four had gone 
so far as to be counted in all the lists as 
voters for the king.f Wood of Lichfield 
appears to be .with the four in one list, and 
doubtful in another. The compliancy of 
Sprat had been such as to place him perhaps 
unjustly in the like situation. Old Barlow 
of Lincoln was thought doubtful. The 
other aged prelate, Crofts of Hereford, 
though he deemed himself bound to obey 
the king as a bishop, claimed the exercise of 
his own judgment as a lord of Parliament. 
Sunderland, who is marked as a disabled 
Catholic in one of the lists, and as a doubt¬ 
ful voter in another, appears to have obtained 
the royal consent to a delay of his public 
profession of the Catholic religion, that he 
might retain his ability to serve it by his 
vote in Parliament. j Mulgrave was pro¬ 
bably in the same predicament. If such a 
majority was to continue immovable, the 
counsels of the king must have become des¬ 
perate, or he must have had recourse to open 
force : but this perseverance was improbable. 
Among the doubtful there might have been 


* Johnstone, however, who knew them, did not 
qscribe their conduct to frailties so generous: “ Lord 
Feversham and Lord Dartmouth are desirous of 
acting honourably: but the first is mean-spirited; 
and the second has an empty purse, yet arms at 
living grandly. Lord Preston desires to be an 
honest man; but if he were not your friend and 
my relation, I should say that he is both Fever¬ 
sham and Dartmouth.” Ibid. 

f Durham (Crew), Oxford (Parker), Chester 
(Cartwright), and St. David’s (Watson). 

I “ Ministers and others about the king, who 
have given him grounds to expect that they will 
turn Papists, say, that if they change before the 
Parliament, they cannot be useful to H. M. in 
Parliament, as the test will exclude them.” John¬ 
stone, 8th Dec. 1687. MS. 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 379 


some who concealed a determined resolution 
under the exterior of silence or of hesitation. 
Such, though under a somewhat different 
disguise, was the Marquis of Winchester, 
who indulged and magnified the eccentrici¬ 
ties of an extravagant character; counter¬ 
feited, or rather affected a disordered mind, 
as a security in dangerous times, like the 
elder Brutus in the legendary history of 
Rome; and travelling through England in 
the summer of 1687, with a retinue of four 
coaches and a hundred horsemen, slept dur¬ 
ing the day, gave splendid entertainments in 
the night, and by torch-light, or early dawn, 
pursued the sports of hunting and hawking.* 
But the majority of the doubtful must have 
been persons who assumed that character to 
enhance their price, or who lay in wait for 
the turns of fortune, or watched for the safe 
moment of somewhat anticipating her deter¬ 
mination : of such men the powerful never 
despair. The example of a very few would 
be soon followed by the rest, and if they or 
many of them were gained, the accession of 
strength could not fail to affect the timid 
and mercenary who are to be found in all 
bodies, and whose long adherence to the 
Opposition was already wonderful. 

But the subtle genius of Lord Sunder¬ 
land, not content with ordinary means of 
seduction and with the natural progress of 
desertion, had long meditated an expedient 
for quickening the latter, and for supplying 
in some measure the place of both. He had 
long before communicated to the nuncio a 
plan for subduing the obstinacy of the 
Upper House by the creation of the requisite 
number of new peers f devoted to his Ma¬ 
jesty’s measures. He proposed to call up by 
writ the elder sons of friendly lords ; which 
would increase his present strength without 
the incumbrance of new peerages, whose 
future holders might be independent. Some 
of the Irish j, and probably of the Scotch 
nobility, whbse rank made their elevation to 
the English peerage specious, and whose 


* Reresby, p. 247. 
f D’Adda, ILth Oct. 1686. MS. 

J Johnstone, 27th Feb. 1688. MS. 


fortunes disposed them to dependency on 
royal bounty, attracted his attention, as they 
did that of those ministers who carried his 
project into execution twenty-five years 
afterwards. He was so enamoured of this 
plan, that in a numerous company, where 
the resistance of the Upper House was said 
to be formidable, he cried out to Lord 
Churchill, “ O silly i why, your troop of 
guards shall be called to the House of 
Lords ! ” * On another occasion (if it be 
not a different version of the same anecdote) 
he declared, that sooner than not gain a 
majority in the House of Lords, he would 
make all Lord Feversham’s troop peers.f 
The power of the Crown was in this case 
unquestionable. The constitutional purpose 
for which the prerogative of creating peers 
exists is, indeed, either to reward public 
service, or to give dignity to important 
offices, or to add ability and knowledge to a 
part of the legislature, or to repair the 
injuries of time, by the addition of new 
wealth to an aristocracy which may have 
decayed. But no law limits its exercise. J 
By the bold exercise of the prerogative of 
creating peers, and of the then equally un¬ 
disputed right of granting to towns the 
privilege of sending members to Parliament, 
it is evident that the king possessed the 
fullest means of subverting the constitution 
by law. The obstacles to the establishment 
of despotism consisted in his own irresolution 
or unskilfulness, in the difficulty of finding 
a sufficient number of trustworthy agents, 
and in such a determined hostility of the 
body of the people as led sagacious observers 
to forbode an armed resistance. § The 


* Burnet (Oxford, 1823), vol. iii. p. 249.; Lord 
Dartmouth’s note. 

j- Halifax MSS. The turn of expression would 
seem to indicate different conversations. At all 
events, Halifax affords a strong corroboration. 

X It is, perhaps, not easy to devise such a limita¬ 
tion, unless it should be provided that no newly 
created peer should vote till a certain period after 
his creation; which in cases of signal service 
would be ungracious, and in those of official dignity 
inconvenient. 

§ On suivra ici le pr'ojet d’avoir un parliament 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


380 


firmness of the lords has been ascribed to 
their fears of a resumption of the Church 
property confiscated at the Reformation: 
but at the distance of a century and a half, 
and after the dispersion of much of that 
property by successive sales, such fears were 
too groundless to have had a considerable 
influence. But though they ceased to be 
distinctly felt, and to act separately, it can¬ 
not be doubted that the remains of appre¬ 
hensions once so strong, still contributed to 
fortify that dread of Popery, which was an 
hereditary point of honour among the great 
families aggrandised and enriched under the 
Tudors. 

At the same time the edge of religious 
animosity among the people at large was 
sharpened by the controversy then revived 
between the divines of the two Churches. 
A dispute about the truth of their religion 
was insensibly blended with contests con¬ 
cerning the safety of the Establishment; 
and complete toleration brought with it 
that hatred which is often fiercer, and 
always more irreconcilcable, against the 
opponents of our religious opinions than 
against the destroyers of our most important 
interests. The Protestant Establishment 
and the cause of liberty owed much, it must 
be owned, to this dangerous and odious 
auxiliary ; while the fear, jealousy, and 
indignation of the people were more legiti¬ 
mately excited against a Roman Catholic 
government by the barbarous persecution 
of the Protestants in France, and by the 
unprovoked invasion of the valleys of Pied¬ 
mont ; — both acts of a monarch of whom' 
their own sovereign was then believed to 


tant qu’il ne paroitra pas impraticable; mais s’il 
ne reussit pas, le Eoi d’Angleterre pretenclra faire 
par son autorite ce qu’il n’aura pas obtenu par 
la voie d’un parliament. C’est en ce cas la qu’il 
aura besoin de ses amis au dedans et au dehors, et 
il recevra alors des oppositions qui approcheront 
fort d’une rebellion ouverte. On ne doit pas 
douter qu’elle ne soit soutenue par M. lc Prince 
d’Orangc, et que beaucoup de gens qui paroissent 
attaches au Eoi d’Angleterre ne lui manquent au 
besoin; cette epreuve sera fort perilleuse.” 13a- 
rillon, Windsor, 9th Oct. 1687. MS. 


be, as he is now known to have been, the 
creature. 

The king had, in the preceding year, tried 
the efficacy of a progress through a part of 
the kingdom, to conciliate the nobility by 
personal intercourse, and to gratify the 
people by a royal visit to their remote 
abodes; which had also afforded an oppor¬ 
tunity of rewarding compliance by smiles, 
and of marking the contumacious. With 
these views he had again this autumn medi¬ 
tated a journey to Scotland, and a coronation 
in that kingdom : but he confined himself to 
an excursion through some southern and 
western counties, beginning at Portsmouth, 
and proceeding through Bath (at which 
place the queen remained during his journey) 
to Chester, where he had that important 
interview with Tyrconnel, of which we have 
already spoken. James was easily led to 
consider the courtesies of the nobility due 
to his station, and the acclamations of the 
multitude naturally excited by his presence, 
as symptoms of an inflexible attachment to 
his person, and of a general acquiescence in 
his designs. These appearances, however, 
were not considered as of serious import¬ 
ance, either by the Dutch minister, who 
dreaded the king’s popularity, or by the 
French ambassador, who desired its increase, 
or by the Papal nuncio, who was so friendly 
to the ecclesiastical policy of the Court, and 
so adverse to its foreign connections as to 
render him in some measure an impartial 
observer. The journey was attended by no 
consequences more important than a few 
addresses extorted from Dissenters by the 
importunity of personal canvass, and the 
unseemly explosion of royal anger at Oxford 
against the fellows of Magdalen College, * 


* “ The king has returned from his progress so 
far as Oxford, on his way to the Bath, and we do 
not hear that his observations or his journey can 
give him any great encouragement. Besides the 
considerations of conscience and the public interest, 
it is grown into a point of honour universally re¬ 
ceived by the nation not to change their opinions, 
which will make all attempts to the contrary in¬ 
effectual.” Halifax to the Prince of Orange, 1st 
Sept. Dalrymple, app. to book v. 











REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 381 

Scarcely any of the king’s measures seem to 
have had less effect on general opinion, and 
appear less likely to have influenced the 
election for which he was preparing. 

But the Royal Progress was speedily 
followed by an occurrence which strongly 
excited the hopes and fears of the public, 
and at length drove the opponents of the 
king to decisive resolutions. Soon after the 
return of the Court to Whitehall *, it began 
to be whispered that the queen was pregnant. 
This event in the case of a young princess, 
and of a husband still in the vigour of life, 
might seem too natural to have excited sur¬ 
prise. But five years had elapsed since her 
last childbirth, and out of eleven children 
who were born to James by both his wives, 
only two had outlived the years of infancy. 
Of these, the Princess of Orange was child¬ 
less, and the Princess Anne, who had had 
six children, lost five within the first year of 
their lives, while the survivor only reached 
the age of eleven. Such an apparent pecu¬ 
liarity of constitution, already transmitted 
from parent to child, seemed to the credulous 
passions of the majority, unacquainted as 
they were with the latitude and varieties of 
nature, to be a sufficient security against 
such an accession to the royal progeny as 
should disturb the order of succession to 
the crown. The rumour of the queen’s 
condition suddenly dispelled this security. 
The Catholics had long and fervently prayed 
for the birth of a child, who being educated 
in their communion, might prolong the 
blessings which they were beginning to 
enjoy. As devotion, like other warm emo¬ 
tions, is apt to convert wishes into hopes, 
they betrayed a confidence in the efficacy of 
their prayers, which early excited suspicions 
among their opponents that less pure means 
might be employed for the attainment of 
the object. Though the whole importance 
of the pregnancy depended upon a contin- 

gency so utterly beyond the reach of human 
foresight as the sex of the child, the passions 
of both parties were too much excited to 
calculate probabilities ; and the fears of the 
Protestants as well as the hopes of the 
Catholics anticipated the birth of a male 
heir. The animosity of the former imputed 
to the Roman Catholic religion that unscru¬ 
pulous use of any means for the attainment 
of an object earnestly desired, which might 
more justly be ascribed to inflamed zeal for 
any religious system, or with still greater 
reason to all those ardent passions of human 
nature, which, when shared by multitudes, 
are released from the restraints of fear or 
shame. In the latter end of November 
a rumour that the queen had been pregnant 
for two months became generally prevalent *; 
and early in December, surmises of impos¬ 
ture began to circulate at Court, f Time 
did not produce its usual effect of removing 
uncertainty, for, in the middle of the same 
month, the queen’s symptoms were repre¬ 
sented by physicians as still ambiguous, in 
letters, which the careful balance of facts 
on both sides, and the cautious abstinence 
from a decisive opinion, seem to exempt 
from the suspicion of bad faith. J On the 
23rd of December, a general thanksgiving 
for the hope of increasing the royal family 
was ordered; but on the 15 th of the next 
month, when that thanksgiving was observed 
in London, Lord Clarendon remarked with 
wonder, “ that not above two or three in the 
church brought the form of prayer with 
them; and that it was strange to see how 
the queen’s pregnancy was every where 
ridiculed, as if scarce any body believed it 
to be true.” The nuncio early expressed 
his satisfaction at the pregnancy, as likely 
to contribute “to the re-establishment of 
the Catholic religion in these kingdoms §; ” 
and in the following month, he pronounced 

* Narcissus Luttrell, 28th Nov. MS. 

f Johnstone, 8th Dec. MS. 

X Ibid. 16th Dec. MS. — containing a statement 
of the symptoms by Sir Charles Scarborough, and 
another physician whose name I have been unable 
to decipher. 

§ D’Adda, 2nd Dec. MS. 

* James rejoined the queen at Bath, on the 6 th 
September. On the 16th he returned to Windsor, 
where the queen came on the 6th October. On 
the 11th of that month they went to Whitehall 
London Gazettes. 










382 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


to her Majesty the solemn benediction of the 
sovereign pontiff, on a pregnancy so auspi¬ 
cious to the Church. * * * § * * Of the other ministers 
most interested in this event, Barillon, a 
veteran diplomatist, too cool and experienced 
to be deluded by his wishes, informed his 
master, “ that the pregnancy was not be¬ 
lieved to be true in London; and that in 
the country, those who spread the intel¬ 
ligence were laughed at f; ” while the 
Republican minister, Van Citters, coldly 
communicated the report, with some of the 
grounds of it, to the States-general, without 
hazarding an opinion on a matter so delicate. 
The Princess Anne, in confidential letters j 
to her sister at the Hague, when she had no 
motive to dissemble, signified her unbelief, 
which continued even after the birth of the 
child, and was neither subdued by her 
father’s solemn declarations, nor by the 
testimony which he produced. § On the 
whole, the suspicion, though groundless and 
cruel, was too general to be dishonest: 
there is no evidence that the rumour origin¬ 
ated in the contrivance of any individuals; 
and it is for that reason more just, as well 
as perhaps in itself more probable, to con¬ 
clude that it arose spontaneously in the 
minds of many, influenced by the circum¬ 
stances and prejudices of the time. The 
currency of the like rumours, on a similar 
occasion, five years before, favours the 
opinion that they arose from the obstinate 
prejudices of the people rather than from 
the invention of designing politicians. || 


* D’Adda, 20th Feb. 1688. MS. 

t Barillon, 11th Dec. MS. 

X March 14th—20th, 1688. Dalrymple, app. to 
book v. “ Her being so positive it will be a son, 
and the principles of that religion being such that 
they will stick at nothing, be it ever so wicked, if 
it will promote their interest, give some cause to 
fear that there is foul play intended.” On the 
18th June, she says, “Except they give very plain 
demonstration, which seems almost impossible 
now, I shall ever be of the number of unbelievers.” 
Even the candid and loyal Evelyn (Diary, 10th 
and 17th June) very intelligibly intimates his 
suspicions. 

§ Clarendon, Diary, 31st Oct. 

(| “ If it had pleased God to have given his 


The imprudent confidence of the Catholics 
materially contributed to strengthen sus¬ 
picion. When the king and his friends 
ascribed the pregnancy to his own late 
prayers at St. Winifred’s well *, or to the 
vows while living, and intercession after 
death of the Duchess of Modena, the Pro¬ 
testants suspected that effectual measures 
would be taken to prevent the interposition 
of Heaven from being of no avail to the 
Catholic cause; and their jealous appre¬ 
hensions were countenanced by the expecta¬ 
tion of a son, which was indicated in the 
proclamation for thanksgiving f, and unre¬ 
servedly avowed in private conversation. 
As straws show the direction of the wind, 
the writings of the lowest scribblers may 
sometimes indicate the temper of a party; 
and one such writing, preserved by chance, 
may probably be a sample of the multitudes 
which have perished. Mrs. Behn, a loose 
and paltry poetastress of that age, was bold 
enough in the title-page of what she calls 
“ A Poem to their Majesties,” to add, “ on 
the hopes of all loyal persons for a Prince 
of Wales,” and ventures in her miserable 
verses already to hail the child of unknown 
sex, as “ Royal Boy.” J The lampooners 
of the opposite party, in verses equally 
contemptible, showered down derision on 
the Romish imposture, and pointed the 
general abhorrence and alarm towards the 
new Perkin Warbeck, whom the Jesuits 
were preparing to be the instrument of their 
designs. 

While these hopes and fears agitated the 
multitude of both parties, the ultimate ob¬ 
jects of the king became gradually more 


Highness the blessing of a son, as it proved a 
daughter, you were prepared to make a Perkin of 
him.” L’Estrange, Observator, 23rd August, 1682. 

* Life of James II., vol. ii. p. 129. 
f The object of the thanksgiving was indicated 
more plainly in the Catholic form of prayer on 
that occasion : — “ Concede propitius ut famula 
tua regina nostra Maria partu felici prolem edat 
tibi fideliter servituram.” 

X State Poems, vol. iii. and iv .; a collection at 
once the most indecent and unpoetical probably 
extant in any language. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 383 


definite, while he at the same time delibe¬ 
rated, or, perhaps, rather decided, about the 
choice of his means. His open policy as¬ 
sumed a more decisive tone: Castlemaine, 
who in his embassy had acted with the most 
ostentatious defiance of the laws, and Petre, 
the most obnoxious clergyman of the Church 
of Rome, were sworn of the Privy Council.* * * § * 
The latter was even promoted to an eccle¬ 
siastical office in the household of a prince, 
who still exercised all the powers of the su¬ 
preme head of a Protestant Church. Corker, 
an English Benedictine, the superior of a 
monastery of that order in London, had an 
audience of the king in his ecclesiastical 
habits, as envoy from the Elector of Co¬ 
logne f, doubtless by a secret understanding 
between James and that prince ; — an act, 
which Louis XIV. himself condemned as 
unexampled in Catholic countries, and as 
likely to provoke heretics, whose prejudices 
ought not to be wantonly irritated.| As the 
animosity of the people towards the Catholic 
religion increased, the designs of James for 
its re-establishment became bolder and more 
open. The monastic orders, clad in gar¬ 
ments long strange and now alarming to the 
people, filled the streets; and the king pre¬ 
maturely exulted that his capital had the 
appearance of a Catholic city §,—little aware 
of the indignation with which that obnoxious 
appearance inspired the body of his Pro¬ 
testant subjects. He must now have felt 
that his contest had reached that point in 
which neither party would submit without a 
total defeat. 

The language used or acquiesced in by him 
in the most confidential intercourse, does not 
leave his intention to be gathered by infer¬ 
ence. For though the words, “ to establish 
the Catholic religion,” may denote no more 
than to secure its free exercise, another ex¬ 
pression is employed on this subject for a 


* London Gazette, 25th Sept, and 11th Nov. 
1687; in the last Petre is styled “Clerk of the 
Closet.” 

j- Narcissus Luttrell, Jan. 1688. MS. 

X The King to Barillon, 26th Feb. MS. 

§ D’Adda, 9th March. MS. 


long time, and by different persons, in cor¬ 
respondence with him, which has no equivo¬ 
cal sense, and allows no such limitation. On 
the 12th of May, 1687, Barillon had assured 
him, that the most Christian king “ had 
nothing so much at heart as to see the suc¬ 
cess of his exertions to re-establish the 
Catholic religion.” Far from limiting this 
important term, James adopted it in its full 
extent, answering, “ You see that I omit 
nothing in my power; ” and not content 
with thus accepting the congratulation in its 
utmost latitude, he continued, “ I hope the 
king your master will aid me ; and that we 
shall, in concert, do great things for reli¬ 
gion.” In a few months afterwards, when 
imitating another part of the policy of Louis 
XIV., he had established a fund for reward¬ 
ing converts to his religion, he solicited pe¬ 
cuniary aid from the pope for that very am¬ 
biguous purpose. The nuncio, in answer, 
declared the sorrow of his Holiness, at being 
disabled by the impoverished state of his 
treasury from contributing money, notwith¬ 
standing “ his paternal zeal for the promot¬ 
ing, in every way, the re-establishment of 
the Catholic religion in these kingdoms; ” * 
as he had shortly before expressed his hope, 
that the queen’s pregnancy would ensure 
“ the re-establishment of the true religion 
in these kingdoms.” f Another term in 
familiar use at Court for the final object of 
the royal pursuit was “ the great work,” — 
a phrase, borrowed from the supposed trans¬ 
mutation of metals by the alchemists, which 
naturally signified a total change, and which 
never could have been applied to mere 
toleration by those who were in system, if 
not in practice, the most intolerant of an in¬ 
tolerant age. The king told the nuncio, that 
Holland was the main obstacle to the es¬ 
tablishment of the Catholic religion in these 
kingdoms; and D’Abbeville declared, that 
without humbling the pride of that republic, 
there could be no hope of the success “ of 
the great work.” J Two years afterwards, 


* D’Adda, 2nd Jan. 1688. MS. 
f Ibid. 2nd Dec. 1687. MS. 

| Ibid. 22nd August, 1687. MS. 
















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


384 


James, after reviewing liis whole policy and 
its consequences, deliberately and decisively 
avows the extent of his own designs : — 
“ Our subjects opposed our government, 
from the fear that we should introduce the 
orthodox faith, which we were, indeed, la¬ 
bouring to accomplish, when the storm be¬ 
gan, and which we have done in our king¬ 
dom of Ireland.” * Mary of Este, during 
the absence of her husband in Ireland, 
exhorts the papal minister, “ to earn the 
glorious title of restorer of the faith in the 
British kingdoms,” and declares, that she 
“ hopes much from his administration for 
the re-establishment both of religion and 
the royal family.” | Finally, the term, “ re¬ 
establish,” which can refer to no time sub¬ 
sequent to the accession of Elizabeth, had 
so much become the appropriate term, that 
Louis XIV. assured the pope of his deter¬ 
mination to aid “ the King of England, and 
to re-establish the Catholic religion in that 
island.” J 

None of the most discerning friends or 
opponents of the king seem at this time to 
have doubted that he meditated no less than 
to transfer to his own religion the privileges 
of an established church. Gourville, one 
of the most sagacious men of his age, being 
asked by the Duchess of Tyrconnel, when 
about to make a journey to London, what 
she should say to the king if he inquired 
about the opinion of his old friend Gour¬ 
ville, of his measures for the “ re-establish¬ 
ment ” of the Catholic religion in England, 
begged her to answer, — “ If I were pope, I 
should have excommunicated him for ex¬ 
posing all the English Catholics to the risk 
of being hanged. I have no doubt, that 
what he sees done in France is his model, 
but the circumstances are very different. In 
my opinion, he ought to be content with 
favouring the Catholics on every occasion, 
in order to augment their number, and he 


* James II. to Cardinal Ottoboni. Dublin, loth 
Feb. 1690. Papal MSS. 

f Mary to Ottoboni, St. Germain’s, 4th—loth 
Dec. 1689. Papal MSS. 

X Louis to the Pope, 17th Feb. 1689. MS. 


should leave to his successors the care of 
gradually subjecting England altogether to 
the authority of the pope.”* Bossuet, the 
most learned, vigorous, and eloquent of 
controversialists, ventured at this critical 
time to foretell, that the pious efforts of 
James would speedily be rewarded by the 
reconciliation of the British islands to the 
Universal Church, and their filial submission 
to the Apostolic See. f 

If Gourville considered James an inju¬ 
dicious imitator of Louis XIV., it is easy to 
imagine what was thought on the subject in 
England, at a time when one of the mild¬ 
est, not to say most courtly, writers, in the 
quietness and familiarity of his private diary, 
speaks of “ the persecution raging in France,” 
and so far forgets his own temper, and the 
style suitable to such writings, as to call 
Louis “ the French tyrant.” j Lord Hali¬ 
fax, Lord Nottingham, and Lord Danby, 
-the three most important opponents of the 
king’s measures, disagreeing as they did very 
considerably in opinion and character, evi¬ 
dently agreed in their apprehension of the 
extent of his designs. § They advert to them 
as too familiar to themselves and their cor¬ 
respondent to require proof, or even deve¬ 
lopment; they speak of them as being far 
more extensive than the purposes avowed; 
and they apply terms to them which might 
be reasonable in the present times, when 
many are willing to grant and to be con¬ 
tented with religious liberty, but which are 


* Memoires de Gourville, Vol. ii. p. 254. 

t Histoire des Variations des Eglises Protes¬ 
tants, liv. vii. 

X Evelyn, vol. i. Diary, 3rd Sept. 1687—23rd 
Feb. 1688. 

§ Lord Halifax to the Prince of Orange, 7th 
Dec. 1686—18th Jan.—31st May, 1687. « Though 
there appears the utmost vigour to pursue the ob¬ 
ject which has been so long laid, there seemeth to 
be no less firmness in the nation and aversion to 
change.” — “Every day will give more light to 
what is intended; though it is already no more a 
mystery.” Lord Nottingham to the Prince, 2d 
Sept. 1687:— “For though the end at which they 
aim is very plain and visible, the methods of ar¬ 
riving at that end have been variable and uncer¬ 
tain.” Dalrymple, app. to book v. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 385 


entirely foreign to the conceptions of an age 
when toleration (a term then synonymous 
with connivance) was the ultimate object of 
no great party in religion, but was sometimes 
sought by Dissenters as a step towards es¬ 
tablishment, and sometimes yielded by the 
followers of an established church under the 
pressure of a stern necessity. Some even of 
those who, having been gained over by the 
king, were most interested in maintaining 
his sincerity, were compelled at length to 
yield to the general conviction. Colonel 
Titus, a veteran politician, who had been 
persuaded to concur in the repeal of the 
penal laws (a measure agreeable to his gene¬ 
ral principles), declared “ that he would 
have no more to do with him; that his ob¬ 
ject was only the repeal of the penal laws; 
that his design was to bring in his religion 
right or wrong,— to model the army in order 
to effect that purpose; and, if that was not 
sufficient, to obtain assistance from France.”* 
The converts to the religious or political 
party of the king were few and discreditable. 
Lord Lorn, whose predecessors and succes¬ 
sors were the firmest supporters of the re¬ 
ligion and liberty of his country, is said to 
have been reduced by the confiscation of his 
patrimony to the sad necessity of professing 
a religion which he must have regarded with 
feelings more hostile than those of mere un- 
belief.f Lord Salisbury, whose father had 
been engaged with Russell and Sydney in 
the consultation called the “Rye-housePlot,” 
and whose grandfather had sat in the House 
of Commons after the abolition of the mo¬ 
narchy and the peerage, embraced the Ca¬ 
tholic religion, and adhered to it during his 
life. The offices of attorney and solicitor- 
general, which acquire a fatal importance in 
this country under governments hostile to 
liberty, were newly filled. Sawyer, who had 
been engaged in the worst prosecutions of 
the preceding ten years, began to tremble 
for his wealth, and retired from a post of 
dishonourable danger. He was succeeded 


* Johnstone, 16th Feb. MS. 
f Narcissus Luttrell, 1st April. MS.:—“arrested 
for 3000/., declares himself a Catholic.” 


by Sir Thomas Powis, a lawyer of no known 
opinions or connections in politics, who acted 
on the unprincipled maxim, that, having had 
too little concern for his country to show any 
preference for public men or measures, he 
might as lawfully accept office under any 
government, as undertake the defence of any 
client. Sir William Williams, the confiden¬ 
tial adviser of Lord Russell, on whom a fine 
of 10,000/. had been inflicted, for having 
authorised, as Speaker of the House of Com¬ 
mons, a publication, though solemnly pledged 
both to men and measures in the face of the 
public, now accepted the office of solicitor- 
general, without the sorry excuse of any of 
those maxims of professional ethics by which 
a powerful body countenance each other in 
their disregard of public duty. A project 
was also in agitation for depriving the Bishop 
of London by a sentence of the Ecclesiastical 
Commissioners for perseverance in his con¬ 
tumacy *; but Cartwright, of Chester, his 
intended successor, having, in one of his 
drunken moments, declared the chancellor 
and Lord Sunderland to be scoundrels who 
would betray the king (which he first denied 
by his sacred order, but was at last reduced 
to beg pardon for in tears f), the plan of 
raising him to the see was abandoned. Crew, 
bishop of Durham, was expected to become 
a Catholic, and Parker of Oxford—the only 
prelate whose talents and learning, seconded 
by a disregard of danger and disgrace, qua¬ 
lified him for breaking the spirit of the clergy 
of the capital—though he had supported the 
Catholic party during his life, refused to con¬ 
form to their religion on his death-bed J; 
leaving it doubtful, by his habitual alienation 
from religion and honour, to the lingering 
remains or the faint revival of which of these 
principles the unwonted delicacy of his dying 
moments may be most probably ascribed. 


* Johnstone, 8th Dec. 1687. MS. 
f Ibid. 27th Feb. MS. Narcissus Luttrell, 11th 
Feb. MS. 

X Evelyn, vol. i. Diary, 23d March. 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


386 


CHAPTER VII. 

Remarkable Quiet. — Its peculiar Causes. — Coali¬ 
tion of Nottingham and Halifax. — Fluctuating 
Counsels of the Court. — “ Parliamentum Pacifi- 
ficum.” — Bill for Liberty of Conscience. — Con¬ 
duct of Sunderland. — Jesuits. 

England perhaps never exhibited an ex¬ 
ternal appearance of more undisturbed and 
profound tranquillity than in the momentous 
seven months which elapsed from the end of 
the autumn of 1687 to the beginning of the 
following summer. Not a speck in the hea¬ 
vens seemed to the common eye to forebode 
a storm. None of the riots now occurred 
which were the forerunners of the civil war 
under Charles I.: nor were there any of 
those numerous assemblies of the people 
which affright by their force, when they do 
not disturb by their violence, and are some¬ 
times as terrific in disciplined inaction, as 
in tumultuous outrage. Even the ordinary 
marks of national disapprobation, which 
prepare and announce a legal resistance to 
power, were wanting. There is no trace of 
any public meetings having been held in 
counties or great towns where such demon¬ 
strations of public opinion could have been 
made. The current of flattering addresses 
continued to flow towards the throne, unin¬ 
terrupted by a single warning remonstrance 
of a more independent spirit, or even of a 
mere decent servility. It does not appear 
that in the pulpit, where alone the people 
could be freely addressed, political topics 
were discussed; though it must be acknow¬ 
ledged that the controversial sermons against 
the opinions of the Church of Rome, which 
then abounded, proved in effect the most 
formidable obstacle to the progress of her 
ambition. 

Various considerations will serve to lessen 
our wonder at this singular state of silence 
and inactivity. Though it would be idle to 
speak gravely of the calm which precedes 
the storm, and thus to substitute a trite 
illustration for a reason, it is nevertheless 
true, that there are natural causes which 
commonly produce an interval, sometimes, 


indeed, a very short one, of more than or¬ 
dinary quiet between the complete operation 
of the measures which alienate a people, and 
the final resolution which precedes a great 
change. Amidst the hopes and fears which 
succeed each other in such a state, every 
man has much to conceal; and it requires 
some time to acquire the boldness to disclose 
it. Distrust and suspicion, the parents of 
silence, which easily yield to sympathy in 
ordinary and legal opposition, are called into 
full activity by the first secret consciousness 
of a disposition to more daring designs. It 
is natural for men in such circumstances to 
employ time in watching their opponents, 
as well as in ascertaining the integrity and 
courage of their friends. When human 
nature is stirred by such mighty agents, the 
understanding, indeed, rarely deliberates; 
but the conflict and alternation of strong 
emotions, which assume the appearance and 
receive the name of deliberation, produce 
naturally a disposition to pause before irre¬ 
vocable action. The boldest must occa¬ 
sionally contemplate their own danger with 
apprehension; the most sanguine must often 
doubt their success; those who are alive to 
honour must be visited by the sad reflection, 
that if they be unfortunate they may be 
insulted by the multitude for whom they sa¬ 
crifice themselves; and good men will be 
frequently appalled by the inevitable cala¬ 
mities to which they expose their country 
for the uncertain chance of deliverance. 
When the fluctuation of mind has termi¬ 
nated in bold resolution, a farther period of 
reserve must be employed in preparing the 
means of co-operation and maturing the 
plans of action. 

But there were some circumstances pecu¬ 
liar to the events now under consideration, 
which strengthened and determined the 
operation of general causes. In 1640, the 
gentry and the clergy had been devoted to 
the Court, while the higher nobility and the 
great towns adhered to the Parliament. The 
people distrusted their divided superiors, 
and the tumultuous display of their force 
(the natural result of their angry suspicions) 
served to manifest their own inclinations, 






REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688, 387 


while it called forth their friends, and inti¬ 
midated their enemies among the higher 
orders. In 1688, the state of the country 
was reversed. The clergy and gentry were 
for the first time discontented with the 
Crown; and the majority of the nobility, 
and the growing strength of the commercial 
classes, reinforced by these unusual auxili¬ 
aries, and by all who either hated Popery 
or loved liberty, were fully as much dis¬ 
affected to the king as the great body of the 
people. The nation trusted their natural 
leaders, who, perhaps, gave, more than they 
received, the impulse on this occasion. No 
popular chiefs were necessary, and none 
arose to supply the place of their authority 
with the people, who reposed in quiet and 
confidence till the signal for action was made. 
This important circumstance produced an¬ 
other effect: the whole guidance of the 
opposition fell gradually into fewer and 
fewer hands ; it became every day easier to 
carry it on more calmly; popular commotion 
could only have disturbed counsels where 
the people did not suspect their chiefs of 
lukewarmness, and the chiefs were assured 
of the prompt and zealous support of the 
people. It was as important now to restrain 
the impetuosity of the multitude, as it might 
be necessary, in other circumstances, to in¬ 
dulge it. Hence arose the facility of caution 
and secrecy at one time, of energy and speed 
at another, of concert and co-operation 
throughout, which are indispensable in en¬ 
terprises so perilous. It must not be forgot¬ 
ten that a coalition of parties was necessary 
on this occasion. It was long before the 
Tories could be persuaded to oppose the 
monarch; and there was always some reason 
to apprehend that he might, by timely con¬ 
cessions, recall them to their ancient standard: 
it was still longer before they could so far 
relinquish their avowed principles as to con¬ 
template, without horror, any resistance by 
force, however strictly defensive. Two par¬ 
ties, who had waged war against each other 
in the contest between monarchy and popular 
government, during half a century, even 
when common danger taught them the ne¬ 
cessity of sacrificing their differences, had 


still more than common reason to examine 
each other’s purposes before they at last de¬ 
termined on resolutely and heartily acting 
together ; and it required some time after a 
mutual belief in sincerity, before habitual 
distrust could be so much subdued as to 
allow reciprocal communication of opinion. 
In these moments of hesitation, the friends 
of liberty must have been peculiarly de¬ 
sirous not to alarm the new-born zeal of 
their important and unwonted confederates 
by turbulent scenes or violent counsels. The 
state of the succession to the Crown had also 
a considerable influence, as will afterwards 
more fully appear. Suffice it for the present 
to observe, that the expectation of a Pro¬ 
testant successor restrained the impetuosity 
of the more impatient Catholics, and disposed 
the more moderate Protestants to an ac¬ 
quiescence, however sullen, in evils which 
could only be temporary. The rumour of 
the queen’s pregnancy had roused the pas¬ 
sions of both parties; but as soon as the first 
shock had passed, the uncertain result pro¬ 
duced an armistice, distinguished by the 
silence of anxious expectation, during which 
each eagerly, but resolutely, waited for the 
event, which might extinguish the hopes of 
one, and release the other from the restraint 
of fear. 

It must be added, that to fix the precise 
moment when a wary policy is to be ex¬ 
changed for bolder measures, is a problem so 
important, that a slight mistake in the at¬ 
tempt to solve it may be fatal, and yet so 
difficult, that its solution must generally de¬ 
pend more on a just balance of firmness and 
caution in the composition of character, than 
on a superiority of any intellectual faculties. 
The two eminent persons who were now at 
the head of the coalition against the Court, 
afforded remarkable examples of this truth. 
Lord Nottingham, who occupied that leading 
station among the Tories, which the timidity, 
if not treachery, of Rochester had left vacant, 
was a man of firm and constant character, 
but solicitous to excess for the maintenance 
of that uniformity of measures and language 
which, indeed, is essential to the authority 
of a decorous and grave statesman. Lord 


C c 2 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


388 


Halifax, sufficiently pliant, or perhaps fickle, 
though the boldest of politicians in specu¬ 
lation, became refined, sceptical, and irre¬ 
solute, at the moment of action. Both 
hesitated on the brink of a great enterprise: 
Lord Nottingham pleaded conscientious 
scruples, and recoiled from the avowal of 
the principles of resistance which he had 
long reprobated; Lord Halifax saw diffi¬ 
culty too clearly, and continued too long to 
advise delay. Those who knew the state of 
the latter’s mind, observed “ the war between 
his constitution and his judgment;”* in 
which, as usual, the former gained the as¬ 
cendant for a longer period than, in the 
midst of the rapid progress of great events, 
was conducive to his reputation. 

Some of the same causes which restrained 
the manifestation of popular discontent, con¬ 
tributed also to render the counsels of the 
Government inconstant. The main subject 
of deliberation, regarding the internal affairs 
of the kingdom, continued to be the possi¬ 
bility of obtaining the objects sought for by 
a compliant Parliament, or the pursuit of 
them by means of the prerogative and the 
army. On these questions a more than 
ordinary fluctuation prevailed. Early in 
the preceding September, Bonrepos, who, 
on landing, met the king at Portsmouth, 
had been surprised at the frankness with 
which he owned, that the repairs and en¬ 
largements of that important fortress were 
intended to strengthen it against his sub¬ 
jects f; and at several periods the king and 
his most zealous advisers had spoken of the 
like projects with as little reserve. In Oc¬ 
tober it was said, “ that if nothing could 
be done by parliamentary means, the king 
would do all by his prerogative; ” — ; an at¬ 
tempt from which Barillon expected that 
insurrection would ensuo.j Three months 
after, the bigoted Romanists, whether more 
despairing of a Parliament or more con¬ 
fident in their own strength, and incensed at 


* Johnstone, 4th April. MS. 
j Bonrepos to Seignelai, 4th Sept. Fox MSS. 

X Barillon, 10th Oct. Bonrepos to Seignelai, 
same date. Fox MSS. 


resistance, no longer concealed their con¬ 
tempt for the Protestants of the Royal 
Family, and the necessity of recurring to 
arms.* The same temper showed itself at 
the eve of the birth of a prince. The king 
then declared, that, rather than desert, he 
should pursue his objects without a Par¬ 
liament, in spite of any laws which might 
stand in his way; — a project which Louis 
XIV., less bigoted and more politic, con¬ 
sidered “ as equally difficult and danger¬ 
ous.” f But the sea might as well cease to 
ebb and flow, as a council to remain for so 
many months at precisely the same point in 
regard to such hazardous designs. In the 
interval between these plans of violence, 
hopes were sometimes harboured of obtain¬ 
ing from the daring fraud of returning 
officers, such a House of Commons as could 
not be hoped for from the suffrages of any 
electors; but the prudence of the Catholic 
gentry, who were named sheriffs, appears 
to have speedily disappointed this expecta¬ 
tion, j Neither do the Court appear to have 
even adhered for a considerable time to the 
bold project of accomplishing their pur¬ 
poses without a Parliament. In moments of 
secret misgiving, when they shrunk from 
these desperate counsels, they seem fre¬ 
quently to have sought refuge in the flatter¬ 
ing hope, that their measures to fill a House 
of Commons with their adherents, though 
hitherto so obstinately resisted, would in 
due time prove successful. The meeting of 
a Parliament was always held out to the 


* Johnstone, 29th Jan. MS. Lady Melfort over¬ 
heard the priests speak to her husband of “ blood,” 
probably with reference to foreign war, as well as 
to the suppression of the disaffected at home.— 
“ Sidney vous fera savoir qu’aprfes des grandes con¬ 
testations en est enfin resolu de faire leurs affaires 
sans un parlement.” 

f Barillon, 6th May. The King to Barillon, 
14th May. Fox MSS. — “ Le projet que fait la 
Cour ou vous etes de renverser toutes les lois d’An- 
gleterre pour parvenir au but qu’elle se propose? 
me paroit d’une difficile et perilleuse execution.” 

X Johnstone, 8th Dec. MS. “Many of the 
Popish sheriffs have estates, and declare that 
whoever expects false returns from them will be 
deceived.” 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


public, and was still sometimes regarded as 
a promising expedient * : while a consider¬ 
able time for sounding and moulding the 
public temper yet remained before the three 
years within which the Triennial Act re¬ 
quired that assembly to be called together, 
would elapse; and it seemed needless to 
cut off all retreat to legal means till that 
time should expire. The queen’s preg¬ 
nancy affected these consultations in various 
modes. The boldest considered it as likely 
to intimidate their enemies, and to afford 
the happiest opportunity for immediate 
action. A parliament might, they said, be 
assembled, that would either yield to the 
general joy at the approaching birth of a 
prince, or by their sullen and mutinous 
spirit justify the employment of more de¬ 
cisive measures. The more moderate, on 
the other hand, thought, that if the birth of 
a prince was followed by a more cautious 
policy, and if the long duration of a Ca¬ 
tholic government were secured by the par¬ 
liamentary establishment of a regency, there 
was a better chance than before of gaining 
all important objects in no very long time 
by the forms of law and without hazard 
to the public quiet. Penn desired a parlia¬ 
ment, as the only mode of establishing tole¬ 
ration without subverting the laws, and la¬ 
boured to persuade the king to spare the 
Tests, or to offer an equivalent for such 
parts of them as he wished to take away.f 
Halifax said to a friend, who argued for the 
equivalent, “ Look at my nose, it is a very 
ugly one, but I would not take one five 
hundred times better as an equivalent, be¬ 
cause my own is fast to my face; ” | and 
made a more serious attack on these dan¬ 
gerous and seductive experiments, in his 
masterly tract, entitled “The Anatomy of 
an Equivalent.” Another tract was pub¬ 
lished to prepare the way for what was 
called “A Healing Parliament,” which, in 
the midst of tolerant professions and con¬ 
ciliatory language, chiefly attracted notice 


* Johnstone, 21st Feb. MS. 
f Ibid. 6th Feb. MS. 

X Ibid. 12th March. MS. 


389 

by insult and menace. In this publication, 
which, being licensed by Lord Sunderland *, 
was treated as the act of the Government, 
the United Provinces were reminded, that 
“ their commonwealth was the result of an 
absolute rebellion, revolt, and defection, 
from their prince; ” and they were apprised 
of the respect of the king for the inviola¬ 
bility of their territory, by a menace thrown 
out to Burnet, that he “ might be taken out 
of their country, and cut up alive in Eng¬ 
land,” in imitation of a supposed example 
in the reign of Elizabeth j*; — a threat the 
more alarming because it was well known 
that the first part of such a project had 
been long entertained, and that attempts 
had already been made for its execution. 
Van Citters complained of this libel in vain : 
the king expressed wonder and indignation, 
that a complaint should be made of the 
publication of an universally acknowledged 
truth, — confounding the fact of resistance 
with the condemnation pronounced upon it 
by the opprobrious terms, which naturally 
imported and were intended to affirm that 
the resistance was criminal.^ Another pam¬ 
phlet, called “ A New Test of the Church of 
England’s Loyalty,” § exposed with scur¬ 
rility the inconsistency of the Church’s re¬ 
cent independence with her long professions 
and solemn decrees of non-resistance, and 
hinted that “His Majesty would withdraw 
his royal protection, which was promised 
upon the account of her constant fidelity.” 
Such menaces were very serious, at a mo¬ 
ment when D’Abbeville, James’s minister at 
the Hague, told the Prince of Orange, that 
“ upon some occasions princes must forget 
their promises; ” and being “ reminded by 
William, that the king ought to have more 
regard to the Church of England, which was 
the main body of the nation,” answered, 
“ that the body called the ‘ Church of Eng¬ 
land ’ would not have a being in two years.” || 


* 15th Feb. 

| Parliamentum Pacificum, p. 57. 
X Barillon, 19th April. MS. 

§ Somers’ Tracts, vol. ix. p. 195. 

|| Burnet, vol. iii. p. 207. 

















390 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


The great charter of conscience was now 
drawn up, in the form of a bill, and pre¬ 
pared to be laid before Parliament. It was 
entitled “ An Act for granting of Liberty of 
Conscience, without imposing of Oaths and 
Tests.” The preamble thanks the king for 
the exercise of hi3 dispensing power, and 
recognises it as legally warranting his sub¬ 
jects to enjoy their religion and their offices 
during his reign : but, in order to perpe¬ 
tuate his pious and Christian bounty to his 
people, the bill proceeds to enact, that all 
persons professing Christ may assemble 
publicly or privately, without any licence, 
for the exercise of their religious worship, 
and that all laws against nonconformity and 
recusancy, or exacting oaths, declarations, 
or tests, or imposing disabilities or penalties 
on religion, shall be repealed; and more 
especially in order “ that his Majesty may 
not be debarred of the service of his sub¬ 
jects, which by the law of nature is inse¬ 
parably annexed to his person, and over 
which no act of Parliament can have any 
control, any further than he is pleased to 
allow of the same,” f it takes away the 
oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the 
tests and declarations required by the 25th 
and 30th of the late king, as qualifications 
to hold office, or to sit in either House of 
Parliament. It was, moreover, provided 
that meetings for religious worship should 
be open and peaceable; that notice of the 
place of assembly should be given to a jus¬ 
tice of the peace; that no seditious sermons 


* This language seems to have been intention¬ 
ally equivocal. The words “ allow of the same ” 
may in themselves mean till he gives his royal 
assent to the act. But in this construction the 
paragraph would be an unmeaning boast, since no 
bill can become an act of Parliament till it re¬ 
ceives the royal assent; and, secondly, it would 
be inconsistent with the previous recognition 
of the legality of the king’s exercise of the dis¬ 
pensing power, Charles II. having given his as¬ 
sent to the acts dispensed with. It must there¬ 
fore be understood to declare, that acts of Par¬ 
liament disabling individuals from serving the 
public, restrain the king only till he dispenses 
with them. 


should be preached in them; and that in 
cathedral and collegiate churches, parish 
churches, and chapels, no persons shall 
officiate but such as are duly authorised 
according to the Act of Uniformity, and no 
worship be used but what is conformable to 
the Book of Common Prayer therein esta¬ 
blished ; for the observance of which pro¬ 
vision, — the only concession made by the 
bill to the fears of the Establishment, — it 
was further enacted, that the penalties of 
the Act of Uniformity should be maintained 
against the contravention of that statute in 
the above respects. Had this bill passed 
into a law, and had such a law been per¬ 
manently and honestly executed, Great 
Britain would have enjoyed the blessings of 
religious liberty in a degree unimagined by 
the statesmen of that age, and far surpassing 
all that she has herself gained during the 
century and a half of the subseqnent pro¬ 
gress of almost all Europe towards tolerant 
principles. But such projects were ex¬ 
amined by the nation with a view to the 
intention of their authors, and to the ten¬ 
dency of their provisions in the actual cir¬ 
cumstances of the time and country; and 
the practical question was, whether such 
intention and tendency were not to relieve 
the minority from intolerance, but to lessen 
the security of the great majority against it. 
The speciousness of the language, and the 
liberality of the enactments, in which it 
rivalled the boldest speculations at that 
time hazarded by philosophers, were so con¬ 
trary to the opinions, and so far beyond the 
sympathy, of the multitude, that none of 
the great divisions of Christians could 
heartily themselves adopt, or could pru¬ 
dently trust each other’s sincerity in hold¬ 
ing them forth : they were regarded not as a 
boon, but as a snare. From the ally of 
Louis XIV., three years after the perse¬ 
cution of the Protestants, they had the ap¬ 
pearance of an insulting mockery; even 
though it was not then known that James 
had during his whole reign secretly con¬ 
gratulated that monarch on his barbarous 
measures. 

The general distrust of the king’s designs 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


arose from many circumstances, separately 
too small to reach posterity, but, taken to¬ 
gether, sufficient to entitle near observers to 
form an estimate of his character. When, 
about 1679, he had visited Amsterdam, he 
declared to the magistrates of that liberal 
and tolerant city, that he “never was for 
oppressing tender consciences.” * * * § * The sin¬ 
cerity of these tolerant professions was soon 
after tried when, holding a Parliament as 
lord high commissioner at Edinburgh, in 
1681, he exhorted that assembly to suppress 
the conventicles, or, in other words, the 
religious worship of the majority of the 
Scottish people, f It being difficult for the 
fiercest zealots to devise any new mode of 
persecution which the Parliament had not 
already tried, he was content to give the 
royal assent to an act confirmatory of all 
those edicts of blood already in force against 
the proscribed Presbyterians. j But very 
shortly after, when the Earl of Argyle, act¬ 
ing evidently from the mere dictates of 
conscience, added a modest and reasonable 
explanation to an oath required of him, 
which without it would have been contra¬ 
dictory, the lord commissioner caused that 
nobleman to be prosecuted for high treason, 
and to be condemned to death on account of 
his conscientious scruples. § To complete 
the evidence of his tolerant spirit, it is only 
necessary to quote one passage which he 
himself has fortunately preserved. He 
assures us that, in his confidential commu¬ 
nication with his brother, he represented it 
as an act of “ imprudence to have proposed 
in Parliament the repeal of the 35th of 


* Account of James II.’s visit to Amsterdam, by 
William Carr, then English consul (said by mis¬ 
take to be in 1681). Gentleman’s Magazine, 
vol. lix. part 2. p. 659. 

f Life of James II., vol. i. p. 694. The words of 
his speech are copied from his own IMS. Memoirs. 

J Acts of Parliament, vol. viii. p. 242. 

§ State Trials, vol. viii. p.843. Wodrow, vol. i. 
pp. 205—217.—a narrative full of interest, and 
obviously written with a careful regard to truth. 
Laing, vol. iv. p. 125. — where the moral feelings 
of that upright and sagacious historian are con¬ 
spicuous. 


391 

Elizabeth,” * — a statute almost as sangui¬ 
nary as those Scottish acts which he had 
sanctioned. The folly of believing his 
assurances of equal toleration was at the 
time evinced by his appeal to those solemn 
declarations of a resolution to maintain the 
Edict of Nantz, with which Louis XIV. had 
accompanied each of his encroachments on it. 

Where a belief prevailed that a law was 
passed without an intention to observe it, 
all scrutiny of its specific provisions became 
needless: — yet it ought to be remarked, 
that though it might be fair to indemnify 
those who acted under the dispensing power, 
the recognition of its legality was at least a 
wanton insult to the constitution, and ap¬ 
peared to betray a wish to reserve that 
power for further and more fatal measures. 
The dispensation which had been granted to 
the incumbent of Putney showed the facility 
with which such a prerogative might be 
employed to elude the whole proviso of the 
proposed bill in favour of the Established 
Church. It contained no confirmation of 
the king’s promises to protect the endow¬ 
ments of the Protestant clergy; and instead 
of comprehending, as all wise laws should 
do, the means of its own execution, it would 
have facilitated the breach of its own most 
important enactments. If it had been 
adopted by the next Parliament, another 
still more compliant would have found it 
easier, instead of more difficult, to establish 
the Catholic religion, and to abolish tolera¬ 
tion. This essential defect was confessed 
rather than obviated by the impracticable 
remedies recommended in a tract f, which, 
for the security of the great charter of 
religious liberty about to be passed, pro¬ 
posed “that every man in the kingdom 
should, on obtaining the age of twenty-one, 
swear to observe it; that no peer or com¬ 
moner should take his seat in either House 
of Parliament till he had taken the like 
oath ; and that all sheriffs, or others, making 


* Life of James II. vol. ii. p. 656., verbatim from 
the King’s Memoirs. 

f A New Test instead of the Old One. By G. S. 
Licensed 24th of March, 1688. 














P 92 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


false returns, or peers or commoners, pre¬ 
suming to sit in either House without taking 
the oath, or who should move or mention 
anything in or out of Parliament that might 
tend to the violating or altering the liberty 
of conscience, should be hanged on a gallows 
made out of the timber of his own house, 
which was for that purpose to be demolished.”* * * § * 
It seems not to have occurred to this writer 
that the Parliament whom he thus proposes 
to restrain, might have begun their opera¬ 
tions by repealing his penal laws. 

Notwithstanding the preparations for con¬ 
vening a parliament, it was not believed, by 
the most discerning and well-informed, that 
any determination was yet adopted on the 
subject. Lord Nottingham early thought 
that, in case of a general election, “ few 
Dissenters would be chosen, and that such 
as were would not, in present circumstances , 
concur in the repeal of so much as the penal 
laws; because to do it might encourage the 
Papists to greater attempts.” f Lord Hali¬ 
fax, at a later period, observes, “that the 
moderate Catholics acted reluctantly; that 
the Court, finding their expectations not 
answered by the Dissenters, had thoughts of 
returning to their old friends the High 
Churchmen ; and that he thought a meeting 
of Parliament impracticable, and continued as 
much an unbeliever for October, as he had 
before been for April.” J In private, he 
mentioned, as one of the reasons of his 
opinion, that some of the courtiers had 
declined to take up a bet for five hundred 
pounds, which he had offered, that the 
Parliament would not meet in October; and 
that, though they liked him very little, they 
liked his money as well as any other man’s.§ 


* The precedent alleged for this provision is the 
decree of Darius, for rebuilding the temple of 
Jerusalem: — “ And I have made a decree that 
whoever shall alter this word, let timber be pulled 
down from his house, and being set up, let him be 
hanged thereon.” Ezra, chap. vi. v. 11. 

f Lord Nottingham to the Prince of Orange, 2d 
Sept. 1687. Dalrymple, app. to book v. 

J Lord Halifax to the Prince of Orange, 12th 
April, 1688. Dalrymple, app. to book v. 

§ Johnstone, 27th Feb. MS. 


The perplexities and variations of the 
Court were multiplied by the subtle and 
crooked policy of Sunderland, who, though 
willing to purchase his continuance in office 
by unbounded compliance, was yet extremely 
solicitous, by a succession of various projects 
and reasonings adapted to the circumstances 
of each moment, to divert the mind of James 
as long as possible from assembling Parlia¬ 
ment, or entering on a foreign war, or com¬ 
mitting any acts of unusual severity or 
needless insult to the constitution, or under¬ 
taking any of those bold or even decisive 
measures, the consequences of which to his 
own power, or to the throne of his sovereign, 
no man could foresee. Sunderland had 
gained every object of ambition : he could 
only lose by change, and instead of betraying 
James by violent counsels, he appears to 
have better consulted his own interest, by 
offering as prudent advice to him as he could 
venture without the risk of incurring the 
royal displeasure. He might lose his great¬ 
ness by hazarding too good counsel, and he 
must lose it if his master was ruined. Thus 
placed between two precipices, and winding 
his course between them, he could find 
safety only by sometimes approaching one, 
and sometimes the other. Another circum¬ 
stance contributed to augment the seeming 
inconsistencies of the minister : he was some¬ 
times tempted to deviate from his own path 
by the pecuniary gratifications which, after 
the example of Charles and James, he clan¬ 
destinely received from France ; — an in¬ 
famous practice, in that age very prevalent 
among European statesmen, and regarded 
by many of them as little more than forming 
part of the perquisites of office.* It will 
appear in the sequel that, like his master, he 
received French money only for doing what 
he otherwise desired to do; and that it 
rather induced him to quicken or retard, to 
enlarge or contract, than substantially to 
alter his measures. But though he was too 
prudent to hazard the power which produced 
all his emolument for a single gratuity, yet 


* D’Avaux, passim. See Lettres de De Witt, 
vol. iv., and Ellis, History of the Iron Mask. 









REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 393 


this dangerous practice must have multiplied 
the windings of his course; and from these 
deviations arose, in some measure, the fluc¬ 
tuating counsels and varying language of 
the government of which he was the chief. 
The divisions of the Court, and the variety 
of tempers and opinions by which he was 
surrounded, added new difficulties to the 
game which he played. This was a more 
simple one at first, while he coalesced with 
the queen and the then united Catholic 
party, and professed moderation as his sole 
defence against Rochester and the Protestant 
Tories; but after the defeat of the latter, 
and the dismissal of their chief, divisions 
began to show themselves among the victo¬ 
rious Catholics, which gradually widened as 
the moment of decisive action seemed to 
approach. It was then * that he made an 
effort to strengthen himself by the revival 
of the office of lord treasurer in his own 
person; — a project in which he endeavoured 
to engage Father Petre by proposing that 
Jesuit to be his successor as secretary of 
state, and in which he obtained the co¬ 
operation of Sir Nicholas Butler, a new 
convert, by suggesting that he should be 
chancellor of the exchequer. The king, 
however, adhered to his determination that 
the treasury should be in commission not¬ 
withstanding the advice of Butler, and the 
queen declined to interfere in a matter 
where her husband appeared to be resolute. 
It should seem, from the account of this 
intrigue by James himself, that Petre neither 
discouraged Sunderland in his plan, nor 
supported it by the exercise of his own 
ascendancy over the mind of the king. 

In the spring of 1688, the Catholics formed 
three separate and unfriendly parties, whose 
favour it was not easy for a minister to 
preserve at the same time. The nobility 
and gentry of England were, as they con- 


* “ A little before Christmas.” Life of James II. 
vol. ii. p. 131.; passages quoted from James’s Me¬ 
moirs. The king’s own Memoirs are always de¬ 
serving of great consideration, and in unmixed 
cases of fact are, I am willing to hope, generally 
conclusive. 


tinued to the last, adverse to those rash 
courses which honour obliged them appa¬ 
rently to support, but which they had always 
dreaded as dangerous to their sovereign and 
their religion. Lords Powis, Bellasis, and 
Arundel vainly laboured to inculcate their 
wise maxims on the mind of James; while 
the remains of the Spanish influence, for¬ 
merly so powerful among British Catholics, 
were employed by the ambassador, Don Pe¬ 
dro Ronquillo, in support of this respectable 
party. Sunderland, though he began, soon 
after his victory over Rochester, to moderate 
and temper the royal measures, was afraid of 
displeasing his impatient master by openly 
supporting them. The second party, which 
may be called the Papal, was that of the 
nuncio, who had at first considered the Ca¬ 
tholic aristocracy as lukew.arm in the cause 
of their religion, but who, though he con¬ 
tinued outwardly to countenance all do¬ 
mestic efforts for the advancement of the 
faith, became at length more hostile to the 
connection of James with France, than zeal¬ 
ous for the speedy accomplishment of that 
prince’s ecclesiastical policy in England. To 
him the queen seems to have adhered, both 
from devotion to Rome, and from that habi¬ 
tual apprehension of the displeasure of the 
House of Austria which an Italian princess 
naturally entertained towards the masters of 
Lombardy and Naples.* When hostility 
towards Holland was more openly avowed, 
and when Louis XIV., no longer content 
with acquiescence, began to require from 
England the aid of armaments and threats, 
if not co-operation in war, Sunderland and 
the nuncio became more closely united, and 
both drew nearer to the more moderate 
party. The third, known by the name of 
the French or Jesuit party, supported by 
Ireland and the clergy, and possessing the 
personal favour and confidence of the king, 
considered all delay in the advancement of 


* The King to Barillon, 2nd June. MS. Louis 
heard of this partiality from his ministers at Mad¬ 
rid and Vienna, and desired Barillon to insinuate 
to her that neither she nor her husband had any 
thing to hope from Spain. 








394 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


their religion as dangerous, and were devoted 
to France as the only ally able and willing 
to ensure the success of their designs. Em¬ 
boldened by the pregnancy of the queen, 
and by so signal a mark of favour as the in¬ 
troduction of Father Petre into the Council, 
— an act of folly which the moderate Ca¬ 
tholics would have resisted, if the secret had 
not been kept from them till the appoint¬ 
ment *, — they became impatient of Sun¬ 
derland’s evasion and procrastination, espe¬ 
cially of his disinclination to all hostile 
demonstrations against Holland. Their 
agent, Skelton, the British minister at Paris, 
represented the minister’s policy to the 
French Government, as “ a secret opposition 
to all measures against the interest of the 
Prince of Orange ; ” f and though Barillon 
acquits him of such treachery |, it would 
seem that from that moment he ceased to 
enjoy the full confidence of the French 
party. 

It was with difficulty that at the begin¬ 
ning of the year Sunderland had prevailed 
on the majority of the Council to postpone 
the calling a parliament till they should be 
strengthened by the recall of the English 
troops from the Dutch service § : and when, 
two months later, just before the delivery of 
the queen (in which they would have the 
advantage of the expectation of a Prince of 
Wales), the king and the majority of the 
Council declared for this measure, conform¬ 
ably to his policy of delayihg decisive, and 
perhaps irretrievable steps, he again resisted 
it with success, on the ground that matters 
were not ripe, that it required much longer 
time to prepare the corporations, and that, 
if the Nonconformists in the Parliament 
should prove mutinous, an opposition so 


* The account of Petre’s advancement by Dodd 
is a specimen of the opinion entertained by the se¬ 
cular clergy of the regulars, but especially of the 
Jesuits. 

f The King to Barillon, 11th Dec. 1687. MS. 

j Barillon to the King, 5th Jan. 1688. MS. 

§ Johnstone, 16th Jan. MS. “ Sidney believes 
that Sunderland has prevailed, after a great 
struggle, to dissuade the Council from a war or a 
parliament.” 


national would render the employment of 
any other means more hazardous.* * § Sun¬ 
derland owed his support to the queen, who, 
together with the nuncio, protected him 
from the attack of Father Petre, who, after 
a considerable period of increasing estrange¬ 
ment, had now declared against him with 
violence.f In the meantime the French 
Government, which had hitherto affected im¬ 
partiality in the divisions of the British Ca¬ 
tholics, had made advances to Petre as he 
receded from Sunderland; while the former 
had, as long ago as January, declared in 
council, that the king ought to be solicitous 
only for the friendship of France, j James 
now desired Barillon to convey the assur¬ 
ances of his high esteem for the Jesuit §; 
and the ambassador undertook to consider of 
some more efficacious proof of respect to 
him, agreeably to the king’s commands. || 
Henceforward the power of Sunderland 
was seen to totter. It was thought that he 
himself saw that it could not, even with the 
friendship of the queen, stand long, since 
the French ambassador had begun to trim, 
and the whole French party leant against 
him. Petre, through whom Sunderland 
formerly had a hold on the Jesuit party, be¬ 
came now himself a formidable rival for 
power, and was believed to be so infatuated 
by ambition as to pursue the dignity of a 
cardinal, that he might more easily become 
prime minister of England.** At a later 
period, Barclay, the celebrated Quaker, 
boasted of having reconciled Sunderland to 


* D’Adda, 12th March. MS. “II y avaient 
beaucoup d’intrigues et de cabales de Cour sur 
cela dirigees contre my Lord Sunderland: la reine 
le soutient, et il a emporte.” Barillon, Mazure, 
Histoire de la Revolution, vol. ii. p. 399. — Shrews¬ 
bury to the Prince of Orange (communicating the 
disunion), 14th March, 1688. Dalrymple, app. to 
books v. and vi. 

f Van Citters, 9th April. MS. 

x Barillon, 2d Feb. MS. 

§ The King to Barillon, 19th March. MS. 

|| Barillon, 29th March. MS. 

Johnstone, 12th March and 2d April. MS. 

** Lettre au Roi, 1 Aout, 1687, in the Depot des 
Affaires Etrangeres at Paris, not signed, but pro¬ 
bably from Bonrepos. 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 395 


Melfort, trusting that it would be the ruin 
of Petre *; and Sunderland then told the 
nuncio that he considered it as the first prin¬ 
ciple of the king’s policy to frame all his 
measures with a view to their reception by 
Parliament f; — a strong proof of the aver¬ 
sion to extreme measures, to which he after¬ 
wards adhered. A fitter opportunity will 
present itself hereafter for relating the cir¬ 
cumstances in which he demanded a secret 
gratuity from France, in addition to his pen¬ 
sion from that Court of 60,000 livres yearly 
(25001.); of the skill with which Barillon 
beat down his demands, and made a bargain 
less expensive to his Government; and of the 
address with which Sunderland claimed the 
bribe for measures on which he had before 
determined, — so that he might seem rather 
to have obtained it under false pretences, 
than to have been diverted by it from his 
own policy. It is impossible to trace clearly 
the serpentine course of an intriguing mi¬ 
nister, whose opinions were at variance with 
his language, and whose craving passions 
often led him astray from his interest; but 
an attempt to discover it is necessary to the 
illustration of the government of James. In 
general, then, it seems to be clear that, from 
the beginning of 1687, Sunderland had 
struggled in secret to moderate the mea¬ 
sures of the Government; and that it was 
not till the spring of 1688, when he carried 
that system to the utmost, that the decay of 
his power became apparent. As Halifax 
had lost his office by liberal principles, and 
Sunderland had outbidden Rochester for the 
king’s favour, so Sunderland himself was 
now on the eve of being overthrown by the 
influence of Petre, at a time when no suc¬ 
cessor of specious pretensions presented him¬ 
self. He seems to have made one attempt 
to recover strength, by remodelling the 
Cabinet Council. For a considerable time 
the Catholic councillors had been summoned 
separately, together with Sunderland him¬ 
self, on all confidential affairs, while the 
more ordinary business only was discussed 


* Clarendon, Diary, 23rd June, 
t D’Adda, 4th June. MS. 


in the presence of the Protestants : — thus 
forming two cabinets; one ostensible, the 
other secret. He now proposed to form 
them into one, in order to remove the jeal¬ 
ousy of the Protestant councillors, and to 
encourage them to promote the king’s de¬ 
signs. To this united cabinet the affairs of 
Scotland and Ireland were to be committed, 
which had been separately administered be¬ 
fore, with manifest disadvantage to uniform¬ 
ity and good order. Foreign affairs, and 
others requiring the greatest secrecy, were 
still to be reserved to a smaller number. 
The public pretences for this change were 
specious; but the object was to curb the 
power of Petre, who now ruled without con¬ 
trol in a secret cabal of his own communion 
and selection.* 

The party which had now the undisputed 
ascendant were denominated “ Jesuits,” as a 
term of reproach, by the enemies of that 
famous society in the Church of Rome, as 
well as by those among the Protestant com¬ 
munions. A short account of their origin 
and character may facilitate a faint concep¬ 
tion of the admiration, jealousy, fear, and 
hatred — the profound submission or fierce 
resistance — which that formidable name 
once inspired. Their institution originated 
in pure zeal for religion, glowing in the 
breast of Loyola, a Spanish soldier — a man 
full of imagination and sensibility — in a 
country where wars, rather civil than foreign, 
waged against unbelievers for ages, had ren¬ 
dered a passion for spreading the Catholic 
faith a national point of honour, and blended 
it with the pursuit of glory, as well as with 
the memory of past renown. The legislative 
forethought of his successors gave form and 
order to the product of enthusiasm, and be¬ 
stowed laws and institutions on their society 
which were admirably fitted to its various 
ends.j* Having arisen in the age of the 


* D’Adda, 23rd April. MS.' 

I Originally consisting of seven men, the society 
possessed, at the end of the sixteenth century, 
1500 colleges, and contained 22,000 avowed mem¬ 
bers. Parts of their constitution were allowed (by 
Paul III.) to be kept and to be altered, without 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


396 


Reformation, they naturally became the 
champions of the Church against her new 
enemies; and in that also of the revival of 
letters, instead of following the example of 
the unlettered monks, who decried know¬ 
ledge as the mother of heresy, they joined 
in the general movement of mankind; they 
cultivated polite literature with splendid 
success ; they were the earliest, and, per¬ 
haps, most extensive reformers of European 
education, which, in their schools, made a 
larger stride than it has done at any suc¬ 
ceeding moment* *; and, by the just repu¬ 
tation of their learning, as well as by the 
weapons with which it armed them, they 
were enabled to carry on a vigorous contest 
against the most learned impugners of the 
authority of the Church. Peculiarly sub¬ 
jected to the See of Rome by their consti¬ 
tution, they became ardently devoted to its 
highest pretensions, in order to maintain a 
monarchical power, the necessity of which 
they felt for concert, discipline, and energy 
in their theological warfare. 

While the nations of the Peninsula has¬ 
tened with barbaric chivalry to spread reli¬ 
gion by the sword in the newly-explored 
regions of the East and West, the Jesuits 


the privity of the pope himself. The simple insti¬ 
tution of lay brethren, combined with the privilege 
of secrecy, afforded the means of enlisting power¬ 
ful individuals, among whom Louis XIV. and 
James II. are generally numbered. 

* “ For education,” says Bacon, within fifty 
years of the institution of the order, “ consult the 
schools of the Jesuits. Nothing hitherto tried in 
practics surpasses them.” De Augment. Scient. 
lib. vi. cap. 4. “ Education, that excellent part of 
ancient discipline, has been, in some sorts, revived 
of late times in the colleges of the Jesuits, of whom, 
in regard of this and of some other points of human 
learning and moral matters, I may say, ‘Tabs 
cum sis utinam noster esses.’ ” Advancement of 
Learning, book i. Such is the disinterested testi¬ 
mony of the wisest of men to the merit of the 
Jesuits, to the unspeakable importance of reforming 
education, and to the infatuation of those who, in 
civilised nations, attempt to resist new opinions by 
mere power, without calling in aid such a show of 
reason, if not the whole substance of reason, as 
cannot be maintained without a part of the sub¬ 
stance. 


alone, the great missionaries of that age, 
either repaired or atoned for the evils caused 
by the misguided zeal of their countrymen. 
In India, they suffered martyrdom with 
heroic constancy.* They penetrated through 
the barrier which Chinese policy opposed to 
the entrance of strangers — cultivating the 
most difficult of languages with such success 
as to compose hundreds of volumes in it; 
and, by the public utility of their scientific 
acquirements, obtained toleration, patronage, 
and personal honours, from that jealous go¬ 
vernment. The natives of America, who 
generally felt the comparative superiority of 
the European race only in a more rapid or a 
more gradual destruction, and to whom even 
the excellent Quakers dealt out little more 
than penurious justice, were, under the 
paternal rule of the Jesuits, reclaimed from 
savage manners, and instructed in the arts 
and duties of civilised life. At the opposite 
point of society, they were fitted by their 
release from conventual life, and their al¬ 
lowed intercourse with the world, for the 
perilous office of secretly guiding the con¬ 
science of princes. They maintained the 
highest station, as a religious body, in the 
literature of Catholic countries. No other 
association ever sent forth so many disciples 
who reached such eminence in departments 
so various and unlike. While some of their 
number ruled the royal penitents at Ver¬ 
sailles or the Escurial, others were teaching 
the use of the spade and the shuttle to the 
naked savages of Paraguay; a third body 
daily endangered their lives in an attempt 
to convert the Hindus to Christianity ; a 
fourth carried on the controversy against 
the Reformers ; a portion were at liberty to 
cultivate polite literature; while the greater 
part continued to be employed either in 
carrying on the education of Catholic Europe, 
or in the government of their society, and in 
ascertaining the ability and disposition of the 
junior members, so that well-qualified men 
might be selected for the extraordinary 
variety of offices in their immense common¬ 
wealth. The most famous constitutionalists, 


* See the Lettres Edifiantes, &c. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 397 


the most skilful casuists, the ablest school¬ 
masters, the most celebrated professors, the 
best teachers of the humblest mechanical 
arts, the missionaries who could most bravely 
encounter martyrdom, or who with most pa¬ 
tient skill could infuse the rudiments of reli¬ 
gion into the minds of ignorant tribes or 
prejudiced nations, were the growth of their 
fertile schools. The prosperous administra¬ 
tion of such a society for two centuries, is 
probably the strongest proof afforded from 
authentic history that an artificially-formed 
system of government and education is 
capable, under some circumstances, of ac¬ 
complishing greater things than the general 
experience of it would warrant us in ex¬ 
pecting. 

Even here, however, the materials were 
supplied, and the first impulse given by en¬ 
thusiasm ; and in this memorable instance 
the defects of such a system are discover¬ 
able. The whole ability of the members 
being constantly, exclusively, and intensely 
directed to the various purposes of their 
order, their minds had not the leisure, or 
liberty, necessary for works of genius, or 
even for discoveries in science — to say no¬ 
thing of the original speculations in philo¬ 
sophy which are interdicted by implicit faith. 
That great society, which covered the world 
for two hundred years, has no names which 
can be opposed to those of Pascal and Racine, 
produced by the single community of Port 
Royal, persecuted as it was during the greater 
pai’t of its short existence. But this remark¬ 
able peculiarity amounts, perhaps, to little 
more than that they were more eminent in 
active than in contemplative life. A far 
more serious objection is the manifest ten¬ 
dency of such a system, while it produces 
the precise excellences aimed at by its mode 
of cultivation, to raise up all the neighbour¬ 
ing evils with a certainty and abundance — 
a size and malignity—unknown to the freer 
growth of nature. The mind is narrowed by 
the constant concentration of the under¬ 
standing ; and those who are habitually 
intent on one object learn at last to pursue 
it at the expense of others equally or more 
important. The Jesuits, the reformers of 


education, sought to engross it, as well as to 
stop it at their own point. Placed in the 
front of the battle against the Protestants, 
they caught a more than ordinary portion 
of that theological hatred against their op¬ 
ponents which so naturally springs up where 
the greatness of the community, the fame of 
the controversialist, and the salvation of 
mankind seem to be at stake. Affecting 
more independence in their missions than 
other religious orders, they were the formid¬ 
able enemies of episcopal jurisdiction, and 
thus armed against themselves the secular 
clergy, especially in Great Britain, where 
they were the chief missionaries. Entrusted 
with the irresponsible guidance of kings, they 
were too often betrayed into a compliant 
morality — excused probably to themselves, 
by the great public benefits which they might 
thus obtain, by the numerous temptations 
which seemed to palliate royal vices, and by 
the real difficulties of determining, in many 
instances, whether there was more danger of 
deterring such persons from virtue by un¬ 
reasonable austerity, or of alluring them into 
vice by unbecoming relaxation. This diffi¬ 
culty is indeed so great, that casuistry has, 
in general, vibrated between these extremes, 
rather than rested near the centre. To exalt 
the Papal power, they revived the scholastic 
doctrine of the popular origin of government 
—that rulers might be subject to the people, 
while the people themselves, on all questions 
so difficult as those which relate to the limits 
of obedience, were to listen with reverential 
submission to the judgment of the sovereign 
pontiff, the common pastor of sovereigns and 
subjects, and the unerring oracle of humble 
Christians in all cases of perplexed con¬ 
science.* The ancient practice of excom- 


* It is true that Mariana (De Rege et Regis 
Institutione) only contends for the right of the 
people to depose sovereigns, without building the 
authority of the pope on that principle, as the 
schoolmen have expressly done; but his manifest 
approbation of the assassination of Henry III. by 
Clement, a fanatical partizan of the League, suffi¬ 
ciently discloses his purpose. See La Mennais, 
La Religion consideree dans ses Rapports avec 
l’Ordre politique. (Paris, 1826.) 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


398 


munication, which, in its original principle, 
was no more than the expulsion from a com¬ 
munity of an individual who did not observe 
its rules, being stretched so far as to inter¬ 
dict intercourse with offenders, and, by con¬ 
sequence, to suspend duty towards them, 
became, in the middle age, the means of ab¬ 
solving nations from obedience to excommu¬ 
nicated sovereigns.* Under these specious 
colours, both popes and councils had been 
guilty of alarming encroachments on the 
civil authority. The Church had, indeed, 
never solemnly adopted the principle of these 
usurpations into her rule of faith or of life, 
though many famous doctors gave them a 
dangerous countenance; but she had not 
condemned or even disavowed those equally 
celebrated divines who resisted them: and 
though the Court of Rome undoubtedly pa¬ 
tronised opinions so favourable to its power, 
the Catholic Church, which had never pro¬ 
nounced a collective judgment on them, was 
still at liberty to disclaim them, without 
abandoning her haughty claim of exemption 
from fundamental error.f 

On the Jesuits, as the most staunch of the 
polemics, who struggled to exalt the Church 
above the State, and who ascribed to the 
Supreme Pontiff an absolute power over the 
Church, the odium of these doctrines princi¬ 
pally fell.]; Among Reformed nations, and 
especially in Great Britain, the greatest of 
them, the whole order were regarded as in¬ 
cendiaries who were perpetually plotting the 
overthrow of all Protestant governments, 
and as immoral sophists, who employed their 
subtle casuistry to silence the remains of 
conscience in tyrants of their own persuasion. 


* Fleury, Discours sur l’Histoire Ecclesiastique, 
No. iii. sect. 18. 

t “ II est vrai que Gregoire YII. n’a jamais fait 
aucune decision sur ce point. Dieu ne Va pas per- 
mis” Ibid. It is evident that if such a deter¬ 
mination had, in Fleury’s opinion, subsequently- 
been pronounced by the Church, the last words of 
this passage would have been unreasonable. 

X Bayle, Dictionnaire Historique, &c., article 
“ Bellarmine,” — who is said by that unsuspected 
judge to have had the best pen for controversy of 
any man of that age. 


Nor was the detestation of Protestants re¬ 
warded by general popularity in Catholic 
countries: all other regulars envied their 
greatness ; the universities dreaded their 
acquiring a monopoly of education; while 
monarchs the most zealously Catholic, though 
they often favoured individual Jesuits, looked 
with fear and hatred on a society which 
would reduce them to the condition of vas¬ 
sals of the priesthood. In France, the ma¬ 
gistrates, who preserved their integrity and 
dignity in the midst of general servility, 
maintained a more constant conflict with 
these formidable adversaries of the inde¬ 
pendence of the State and the Church. The 
kings of Spain and Portugal envied their 
well-earned authority, in the missions of 
Paraguay and California, over districts which 
they had conquered from the wilderness. 
The impenetrable mystery in which a part 
of their constitution was enveloped, though 
it strengthened their association, and secured 
the obedience of its members, was an irre¬ 
sistible temptation to abuse power, and justi¬ 
fied the apprehensions of temporal sovereigns, 
while it opened an unbounded scope for 
heinous accusations. Even in the eighteenth 
century, when many of their peculiarities 
had become faint, and when they were, per¬ 
haps, little more than the most accomplished, 
opulent, and powerful of religious orders, 
they were charged with spreading secret 
confraternities over France.* The greatness 
of the body became early so invidious as to 
be an obstacle to the advancement of their 
members; and it was generally believed that 
if Bellarmine had belonged to any other than 
the most powerful order in Christendom, he 
would have been raised to the chair of Peter.f 
The Court of Rome itself, for whom they 
had sacrificed all, dreaded auxiliaries so po¬ 
tent that they might easily become masters; 
and these champions of the papal monarchy 
were regarded with jealousy by popes whose 
policy they aspired to dictate or control. 


* Montlosier, Me'moire h consulter (Paris, 
1826), pp. 20. 22., — quoted only to prove that 
such accusations were made, 
t Bayle, article “ Bellannine.” 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 399 


But temporary circumstances at this time 
created a more than ordinary alienation be¬ 
tween them. 

In their original character of a force raised 
for the defence of the Church against the 
Lutherans, the Jesuits always devoted them¬ 
selves to the temporal sovereign who was at 
the head of the Catholic party. They were 
attached to Philip II., at the time when 
Sextus V. dreaded his success; and they 
now placed their hopes on Louis XIV., in 
spite of his patronage, for a time, of the in¬ 
dependent maxims of the Gallican Church.* 
On the other hand, Odeschalchi, who go¬ 
verned the Church under the name of In¬ 
nocent XI., feared the growing power of 
France, resented the independence of the 
Gallican Church, and was to the last degree 
exasperated by the insults offered to him in 
his capital by the command of Louis. He 
was born in the Spanish province of Lom¬ 
bardy, and, as an Italian sovereign, he could 
not be indifferent to the bombardment of 
Genoa, and to the humiliation of that re¬ 
spectable republic, in the required public 
submission of the Doge at Versailles. As 
soon, then, as James became the pensioner 
and creature of Louis, the resentments of 
Odeschalchi prevailed over his zeal for the 
extension of the Church. The Jesuits had 
treated him and those of his predecessors 
who hesitated between them and their op¬ 
ponents with offensive liberty f ; but while 
they bore sway at Versailles and St. James’s, 
they were, on that account, less obnoxious 
to the Roman Court. Men of wit remarked 
at Paris, that things would never go on well 
till the Pope became a Catholic, and King 
James a Huguenot. { Such were the intri¬ 

* Bayle, Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, 
April, 1686. “Aujourd’hui plus attaches h la 
France qu’h l’Espagne.” Ibid. Nov. They were 
charged with giving secret intelligence to Louis 
XIV. of the state of the Spanish Netherlands. 
The French Jesuits suspended for a year the exe¬ 
cution of the pope’s order to remove Father Maim- 
bourg from their society, in consequence of a di¬ 
rection from the king. 

f Ibid. Oct. and Nov. 

\ “ Le chevalier de Silleri, 

En parlant de ce Pape-ci, 


cate and dark combinations of opinions, pas¬ 
sions, and interests which placed the nuncio 
in opposition to the most potent order of the 
Church, and completed the alienation of the 
British nation from James, by bringing on 
the party which now ruled his councils the 
odious and terrible name of Jesuits. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Declaration of Indulgence renewed. — Order that 
it should be read in Churches. — Deliberations 
of the Clergy. — Petition of the Bishops to the 
King. — Their Examination before the Privy 
Council, Committal, Trial, and Acquittal. — Re¬ 
flections. — Conversion of Sunderland. — Birth 
of the Prince of Wales. — State of Affairs. 

When the changes in the secret counsels of 
the king had rendered them most irrecon- 
cileable to the national sentiments, and when 
the general discontent produced by progres¬ 
sive encroachment had quietly grown into 
disaffection, nothing was wanting to the 
least unfortunate result of such an aliena¬ 
tion, but that an infatuated government 
should exhibit to the public thus disposed 
one of those tragic spectacles of justice vio¬ 
lated, of religion menaced, of innocence op¬ 
pressed, of unarmed dignity outraged, with 
all the conspicuous solemnities of abused 
law, in the persons of men of exalted rank 
and venerated functions who encounter 
wrongs and indignities with mild intrepidity. 
Such scenes, performed before a whole na¬ 
tion, revealed to each man the hidden 
thoughts of his fellow-citizens, added the 
warmth of personal feeling to the strength 
of public principle, animated patriotism by 
the pity and indignation which the suffer¬ 
ings of good men call forth, and warmed 


Souhaitoit, pour la paix publique, 

Qu’il se fut rendu Catholique, 

Et le roi Jacques Huguenot.” 

La Fontaine to the Due de Vendome. 

Racine (Prologue to Esther) expresses the same 
sentiments in a milder form: — 

“ Et l’enfer, couvrant tout de ses vapeurs funbbres, 
Surles yeux les plus saints a jetd les tdnbbres.” 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


400 

every heart by the reflection of the same 
passions from the hearts of thousands; until 
at length the enthusiasm of a nation, spring¬ 
ing up in the bosoms of the generous and 
brave, breathed a momentary spirit into the 
most vulgar souls, and dragged into its ser¬ 
vice the herd of the selfish, the cold, the 
mean, and the cowardly. The combus¬ 
tibles were accumulated; a spark was only 
wanting to kindle the flame. Accidents in 
themselves trivial, seem on this occasion, as 
in other times and countries, to have filled 
up the measure of provocation. In such a 
government as that of James, formed of ad¬ 
verse parties, more intent on weakening or 
supplanting each other than on securing 
their common foundation, every measure 
was too much estimated by its bearing on 
these unavowed objects, to allow a calm 
consideration of its effect on the interest or 
even on the temper of the public. 

On the 27th of April, the king repub¬ 
lished his Declaration of the former year for 
Liberty of Conscience; — a measure, appa¬ 
rently insignificant*, which was probably 
proposed by Sunderland, to indulge his 
master in a harmless show of firmness, which 
might divert him from rasher counsels, f To 
this Declaration a supplement was annexed, 
declaring, that the king was confirmed in 
his purpose by the numerous addresses 
which had assured him of the national con¬ 
currence ; that he had removed all civil and 
military officers who had refused to co¬ 
operate with him; and that he trusted that 
the people would do their part, by the choice 
of fit members to serve in Parliament, which 
he was resolved to assemble in November 
“ at farthest.” This last, and only important 
part of the proclamation, was prompted by 
the contending parties in the cabinet with 
opposite intentions. The moderate Catho¬ 
lics, and Penn, whose fault was only an un- 


* “ The Declaration, so long spoken of, is pub¬ 
lished. As nothing is said more than last year, 
politicians cannot understand the reason of so ill- 
timed a measure.” Yan Citters, 11th May. (Se¬ 
cret Despatch.) MS. 

f Barillon, 6th May. MS. 


seasonable zeal for a noble principle, desired 
a parliament from a hope, that if its convo¬ 
cation were not too long delayed, it might 
produce a compromise, in which the king 
might for the time be contented with an 
universal toleration of worship. The Jesuiti¬ 
cal party also desired a parliament; but it 
was because they hoped that it would pro¬ 
duce a final rupture, and a recurrence to 
those more vigorous means which the age of 
the king now required, and the safety of 
which the expected birth of a Prince of 
Wales appeared to warrant.* Sunderland 
acquiesced in the insertion of this pledge, 
because he hoped to keep the violent in 
check by the fear of the Parliament, and 
partly, also, because he by no means had 
determined to redeem the pledge. “ This 
language is held,” said he to Barillon (who 
was alarmed at the sound of a parliament), 
“ rather to show, that Parliament will not 
meet for six months, than that it will be 
then assembled, which must depend on the 
public temper at that time.”f For so far, it 
seems, did this ingenious statesman carry 
his system of liberal interpretation, that he 
employed words in the directly opposite 
sense to that in which they were understood. 
So jarring were the motives from which this 
Declaration proceeded, and so opposite the 
constructions of which its authors repre¬ 
sented it to be capable. Had no other step, 
however, been taken but the publication, it 
is not probable that it would have been 
attended by serious consequences. 

But in a week afterwards, an order was 
made by the king in council, commanding 
the Declaration to be read at the usual time 
of divine service, in all the churches in 
London on the 20th and 27th of May, and 
in all those in the country on the 3d and 
10th of June.j Who was the adviser of 
this order, which has acquired such im¬ 
portance from its immediate effects, has not 
yet been ascertained. It was publicly dis- 


* Burnet, vol. iii. p. 211. 
f Barillon, 13th May. MS. 

1 Letter from the Hague, 28th March, 1689. 
MS. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 401 


claimed by Sunderland * * * § , but at a time 
which would have left no value to his de¬ 
claration, but what it might derive from 
being uncontradicted; and it was agreeable 
to the general tenor of his policy. It now 
appears, however, that he and other coun¬ 
cillors disavowed it at the time; and they 
seem to have been believed by keen and 
watchful observers. Though it was then 
rumoured that Petre had also disavowed 
this fatal advice, the concurrent testimony 
of all contemporary historians ascribe it to 
him; and it accords well with the policy of 
that party, which received in some degree 
from his ascendant over them the unpopular 
appellation of Jesuits. It must be owned, 
indeed, that it was one of the numerous 
cases in which the evil effects of an impru¬ 
dent measure proved far greater than any 
foresight could have apprehended. There 
was considerable reason for expecting sub¬ 
mission from the Church. 

The clergy had very recently obeyed a 
similar order in two obnoxious instances. 
In compliance with an order made in 
council by Charles II. (officiously suggested 
to him, it is said, by Sancroft himself) f, 
they had read from their pulpits that 
prince’s apology for the dissolution of his 
two last parliaments, severally arraigning 
various parliamentary proceedings, and 
among others a Resolution of the House of 
Commons against the persecution of the 
Protestant Dissenters. j The compliance of 
the clergy on this occasion was cheerful, 
though they gave offence by it to many of 
the people. § Now, this seemed to be an 
open interference of the ecclesiastical order 
in the fiercest contests of political parties, 
which the duty of undistinguishing obedience 


* Johnstone, 23d May. MS. “Sunderland, 
Melfort, Penn, and, they say, Petre, deny having 
advised this Declaration.” But Yan Citters (25th 
May) says that Petre is believed to have advised 
the order. 

f Burnet, vol. iii. p. 212. 

| London Gazette, 7th—11th April, 1681. 

§ Kennet, History, vol. iii. p. 388. Echard, 
History of England, vol. iii. p. 625. 


alone could warrant.* The same principle 
appears still more necessary to justify their 
reading the Declaration of Charles on the 
Rye House Plot f, published within a week 
of the death of Lord Russell; when it was 
indecent for the ministers of religion to 
promulgate their approval of bloodshed, and 
unjust to inflame prejudice against those 
who remained to be tried. This Declaration 
had been immediately preceded by the famous 
decree of the University of Oxford, and had 
been followed by a persecution of the Non¬ 
conformists, on whom it reflected as the 
authors of the supposed conspiracy. \ These 
examples of compliance appeared to be 
grounded on the undefined authority claimed 
by the king, as supreme ordinary, on the. 
judicial determinations, which recognised 
his right in that character to make ordinaries 
for the outward rule of the Church §, and on 
the rubric of the Book of Common Prayer 
(declared, by the Act of Uniformity ||, to be 
a part of that statute), which directs, “ that 
nothing shall be published in church by the 
minister, but what is prescribed by this 
book, or enjoined by the king.” These 
reasonings and examples were at least suf¬ 
ficient to excuse the confidence with which 
some of the royal advisers anticipated the 
obedience either of the whole Church, or of 
so large a majority as to make it safe and 
easy to punish the disobedient. 

A variation from the precedents of a seem- 


* It was accompanied by a letter from the king 
to Sancroft, which seems to imply a previous usage 
in such cases. “ Our will is, that you give such 
directions as have been usual in such cases for the 
reading of our said Declaration.” Kennet, supra. 
Note from Lambeth MS. D’Oyley, Life of San¬ 
croft, vol. i. p.258. “Now,” says Ralph (vol. i. 
p. 590.) “ the cry of Church and King was echoed 
from one side of the kingdom to the other.” Im¬ 
mediately after began the periodical libels of 
L’Estrange, and the invectives against Parliament 
under the form of loyal addresses. 

f London Gazette, 2d—6th August, 1683. Ken¬ 
net, vol. iii. p. 408. Echard, vol. iii. p. 695. 

| This fact is reluctantly admitted by Roger 
North. Examen, p. 369. 

§ Cro. Jac. p. 37. 

|| 14 Car. II. chap. 4. 


D D 








402 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


ingly slight and formal nature seems to have 
had some effect on the success of the measure. 
The bishops were now, for the first time, 
commanded by the order published in the 
Gazette to distribute the Declaration in 
their dioceses, in order to its being read by 
the clergy. Whether the insertion of this 
unusual clause was casual, or intended to 
humble the bishops, it is now difficult to 
conjecture: it was naturally received and 
represented in the most offensive sense.* 
It fixed the eyes of the whole nation on the 
prelates, rendering the conduct of their 
clergy visibly dependent solely on their 
determination, and thus concentrating, on a 
small number, the dishonour of submission 
which would have been lost by dispersion 
among the whole body. So strongly did the 
belief that insult was intended prevail, that 
Petre, to whom it was chiefly ascribed, was 
said to have declared it in the gross and 
contumelious language used of old, by a 
barbarous invader, to the deputies of a 
besieged city, f But though the menace be 
imputed to him by most of his contempo¬ 
raries];, yet, as they were all his enemies, 
and as no ear-witness is quoted, we must be 
content to be doubtful whether he actually 
uttered the offensive words, or was only so 
generally imprudent as to make it easily so 
believed. 

The first effect of this order was to place 
the prelates who were then in the capital or 
its neighbourhood in a situation of no small 
perplexity. They must have been still more 
taken by surprise than the more moderate 
ministers; and, in that age of slow convey- 


* Van Citters, 15th—25th May. MS. One of 
the objections was, that the order was not trans¬ 
mitted in the usual and less ostentatious manner, 
through the primate, as in 1681. 

f Rabshekah, the Assyrian general, to the offi¬ 
cers of Hezekiah, 2 Kings, xviii. 27. 

I Burnet, Echard, Oldmixon, Ralph. The ear¬ 
liest printed statement of this threat is probably in 
a pamphlet, called “ An Answer from a Country 
Clergyman to the Letter of his Brother in the City” 
(Dr. Sherlock), which must have been published 
in June, 1688. Baldwin’s Farther State Tracts, 
p. 314. (London, 1692.) 


ance and rare publication, they were allowed 
only sixteen days from the order, and 
thirteen from its official publication*, to 
ascertain the sentiments of their brethren 
and of their clergy, without the knowledge 
of which their determination, whatever it 
was, might promote that division which it 
was one of the main objects of their 
enemies, by this measure, to excite. Re¬ 
sistance could be formidable only if it were 
general. It is one of the severest tests of 
human sagacity to call for instantaneous 
judgment from a few leaders when they 
have not support enough to be assured of 
the majority of their adherents. Had the 
bishops taken a single step without concert, 
they would have been assailed by charges of 
a pretension to dictatorship, — equally likely 
to provoke the proud to desertion, and to 
furnish the cowardly with a pretext for it. 
Their difficulties were increased by the 
character of the most distinguished laymen 
whom it was fit to consult. Rochester was 
no longer trusted: Clarendon was zealous, 
but of small judgment: and both Notting¬ 
ham, the chief of their party, and Halifax, 
with whom they were now compelled to 
coalesce, hesitated at the moment of de- 
cision.f 

The first body whose judgment was to be 
ascertained was the clergy of London, among 
whom were, at that time, the lights and 
ornaments of the Church. They at first 
ventured only to converse and correspond 
privately with each other, j A meeting 
became necessary, and was hazarded. A 
diversity of opinions prevailed. It was 
urged on one side that a refusal was incon¬ 
sistent with the professions and practice of 
the Church; that it would provoke the king 
to desperate extremities, expose the country 
to civil confusions, and be represented to the 
Dissenters as a proof of the incorrigible 
intolerance of the Establishment; that the 


* London Gazette, 7th April, 
f “Halifax and Nottingham wavered at first, 
which had almost ruined the business.” John¬ 
stone, 27th May. MS. 

J Van Citters, 28th May. (Secret Despatch.) MS. 













REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 403 


reading of a proclamation implied no assent 
to its contents; and that it would be pre¬ 
sumption in the clergy to pronounce a judg¬ 
ment against the legality of the dispensing 
power, which the competent tribunal had 
already adjudged to be lawful. Those of 
better spirit answered, or might have 
answered, that the danger of former ex¬ 
amples of obsequiousness was now so visible, 
that they were to be considered as warnings 
rather than precedents ; that compliance 
would bring on them command after com¬ 
mand, till at last another religion would be 
established; that the reading, unnecessary 
for the purpose of publication, would be 
understood as an approval of the Declaration 
by the contrivers of the order, and by the 
body of the people ; that the parliamentary 
condemnations of the dispensing power were 
a sufficient reason to excuse them from a 
doubtful and hazardous act; that neither 
conscience nor the more worldly principle of 
honour would suffer them to dig the grave 
of the Protestant Church, and to desert the 
cause of the nobility, the gentry, and the 
whole nation ; and finally, that in the most 
unfavourable event, it was better to fall then 
under the king’s displeasure, when supported 
by the consolation of having fearlessly per¬ 
formed their duty, than to fall a little later 
unpitied and despised, amidst the curses of 
that people whom their compliance had 
ruined. From such a fall they would rise 
no more.* One of those middle courses 
was suggested which is very apt to captivate 
a perplexed assembly : — it was proposed to 
gain time, and smooth a way to a compro¬ 
mise, by entreating the king to revert to the 
ancient methods of communicating his 
commands to the Church. The majority 
appeared at first to lean towards submission, 
or evasion, which was only disguised and 
deferred submission; when, happily, a de¬ 
cisive answer was produced to the most 
plausible argument of the compliant party. 
Some of the chief ministers and laymen 


* Sherlock’s “Letter from a Gentleman in the 
City to a Friend in the Country.” Baldwin, 
p. 309. 


among the Nonconformists earnestly be¬ 
sought the clergy not to judge them by a 
handful of their number who had been 
gained by the Court, but to be assured that, 
instead of being alienated from the Church, 
they would be drawn closer to her, by her 
making a stand for religion and liberty.* 
A clergyman present read a note of these 
generous declarations, which he was autho¬ 
rised by the Nonconformists to exhibit to 
the meeting. The independent portion of 
the clergy made up, by zeal and activity, 
for their inferiority in numbers. Fatal con¬ 
cession, however, seemed to be at hand, 
when the spirit of an individual, manifested 
at a critical moment, contributed to rescue 
his order from disgrace, and his country 
from slavery. This person, whose fortunate 
virtue has hitherto remained unknown, was 
Dr. Edward Fowler, then incumbent of a 
parish in London, who, originally bred a 
Dissenter, had been slow to conform at the 
Restoration, was accused of the crime of 
Whiggismf at so dangerous a period as 
that of Monmouth’s riot, and, having been 
promoted to the see of Gloucester, combined 
so much charity with his unsuspected ortho¬ 
doxy as to receive the last breath of Firmin, 
the most celebrated Unitarian of that period. J 
When Fowler perceived that the courage of 
his brethren faltered, he addressed them 
shortly: — “I must be plain. There has 
been argument enough: more only will 
heat us. Let every man now say ‘Yea’ or 
‘Nay.’ I shall be sorry to give occasion to 
schism, but I cannot in conscience read the 
Declaration; for that reading would be an 
exhortation to my people to obey commands 
which I deem unlawful.” Stillingfleet de¬ 
clared, on the authority of lawyers, that 
reading the Declaration would be an offence, 
as the publication of an unlawful document; 
but excused himself from being the first 
subscriber to an agreement not to comply, 
on the ground that he was already proscribed 
for the prominent part which he had taken 


* Johnstone, 18th May. MS. 
f Athens® Oxonienses, vol. ii. p. 1029. 
X Birch, Life of Tillotson, p. 320. 


D D 2 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


404 

in the controversy against the Romanists. 
Patrick offered to be the first, if any man 
would second him; and Fowler answered 
to the appeal which his own generosity had 
called forth.* * * § * They were supported by 
Tillotson, though only recovering from an 
attack of apoplexy, and by Sherlock, who 
then atoned for the slavish doctrines of 
former times. The opposite party were 
subdued by this firmness, declaring that they 
would not divide the Church f: and the 
sentiments of more than fourscore of the 
London clergy j were made known to the 
metropolitan. 

At a meeting at Lambeth, on Saturday, 
the 12th of May, where there were present, 
besides Sancroft himself, only the Earl of 
Clarendon, three bishops, Compton, Turner, 
and White, together with Tenison, it was 
resolved not to read the Declaration, to pe¬ 
tition the king that he would dispense with 
that act of obedience, and to entreat all the 
prelates within reach of London to repair 
thither to the aid of their brethren.§ It was 
fit to wait a short time for the concurrence 
of these absent bishops. Lloyd of St. Asaph, 
late of Chichester, Ken of Bath and Wells, 
and Trelawney, quickly complied with the 
summons, and were present at another and 
more decisive meeting at the archiepiscopal 
palace on Friday, the 18th, where, with the 
assent of Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick, 
Tenison, Grove, and Sherlock, it was re¬ 
solved that a petition, prepared and written 
by Sancroft, should be forthwith presented 
to his Majesty. It is a calumny against the 
memory of these prelates to assert that they 
postponed their determination till within two 
days of the Sunday appointed for reading 
the Declaration, in order to deprive the king 
of time to retire from his purpose with dig¬ 
nity or decency: for we have seen that the 
period since the publication of the order 


* Kennet, vol. iii. p. 570. note. This narrative 
reconciles Johnstone, Van Citters, and Kennet. 

f Johnstone, 23d May. MS. 

x This victory was early communicated to the 
Dutch ambassador. Yan Citters, 25th May. MS. 

§ Clarendon, 12th May. 


was fully occupied by measures for concert 
and co-operation; and it would have been 
treachery to the Church and the kingdom 
to have sacrificed any portion of time so 
employed to relieve their most formidable 
enemy.* The petition, after setting forth 
that “ their averseness to read the king’s 
Declaration arose neither from want of the 
duty and obedience which the Church of 
England had always practised, nor from want 
of tenderness to Dissenters, to whom they 
were willing to come to such a temper as 
might be thought fit in Parliament and Con¬ 
vocation, but because it was founded in a 
dispensing power declared illegal in Par¬ 
liament ; and that they could not in prudence 
or conscience make themselves so far parties 
to it as the publication of it in the church at 
the time of divine service must amount to 
in co mm on and reasonable construction,” 
concludes by “ humbly and earnestly be¬ 
seeching his Majesty not to insist on their 
distributing and reading the said Declara¬ 
tion.” It is easy to observe the skill with 
which the petition distinguished the case 
from the two recent examples of submission, 
in which the royal declarations, however 
objectionable, contained no matter of ques¬ 
tionable legality. Compton, being sus¬ 
pended, did not subscribe the petition; and 


* Life of James II., vol.ii. p. 158. But this is 
the statement, not of the king, but of Mr. Diccon- 
son the compiler, who might have been misled by 
the angry traditions of his exiled friends. A week 
i3 added to the delay, by referring the commence¬ 
ment of it to the Declaration of the 27th of April, 
instead of the order of the 4th of May, which alone 
called on the bishops to deliberate. The same 
suppression is practised, and the same calumny in¬ 
sinuated, in “ An Answer to the Bishops’ Petition,” 
published at the time. Somers’ Tracts, vol. ix. 
p. 119. In the extract made, either by Carte or 
Macpherson, an insinuation against the bishops is 
substituted for the bold charge made by Diccon- 
son. “ The bishops’ petition on the 18th of May, 
against what they are to read on the 20th.” Mac¬ 
pherson, Original Papers, vol. i. p. 151. But as 
throughout that inaccurate publication no distinc¬ 
tion is made between what was written by James 
and what was added by his biographer, the dis¬ 
grace of the calumnious insinuation is unjustly 
thrown on the king’s memory. 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 405 


Sancroft, having had the honour to be for¬ 
bidden the Court nearly two years, took no 
part in presenting it. Nor was it thought 
proper that the private divines, who were 
the most distinguished members of the meet¬ 
ing, should attend the presentation. 

With no needless delay, six bishops pro¬ 
ceeded to Whitehall about ten o’clock in the 
evening, — no unusual hour of audience at 
the accessible courts of Charles and James. 
They were remarked, as they came from the 
landing place, by the watchful eyes of the 
Dutch ambassador * * * § , who was not uninformed 
of their errand. They had remained at the 
house of Lord Dartmouth, till Lloyd of 
St. Asaph, the boldest of their number, 
should ascertain when and where the king 
would receive them. He requested Lord 
Sunderland to read the petition, and to ac¬ 
quaint the king with its contents, that his Ma¬ 
jesty might not be surprised at it. The wary 
minister declined, but informed the king of 
the attendance of the bishops, who were then 
introduced into the bedchamber.j* When 
they had knelt down before the monarch, 
St. Asaph presented the petition, purporting 
to be that “ of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
with divers suffragan bishops of his province, 
in behalf of themselves and several of their 
absent brethren, and of the clergy of then' 
respective dioceses.” The king, having been 
told by the Bishop of Chester that they 
would desire no more than a recurrence to 
the former practice of sending declarations 
to chancellors and archdeacons j, desired 
them to rise, and received them at first 
graciously, saying, on opening the petition, 
“ This is my Lord of Canterbury’s hand¬ 
writing ; ” but, when he read it over, and 
after he had folded it up, he spoke to them 
in another tone § : — “ This is a great sur¬ 


* Van Citters, 28th May. MS. 

f Gutch, Collectanea Curiosa, vol. i. p. 335. 
Clarendon, State Papers, vol. i. p. 287., and 
D'Oyley, vol. i. p. 263. 

| Burnet, iii. 216. 

§ “ S. M. rispose loro con ardezza.” D’Adda, 
30th May; or as the same circumstance was 
viewed by another through a different medium, — 
“ The king answered very disdainfully, and with 


prise to me. Here are strange words. I 
did not expect this from you. This is a 
standard of rebellion.” St. Asaph replied, 
“ We have adventured our lives for your 
Majesty, and would lose the last drop of our 
blood rather than lift up a finger against 
you.” The king continued: — “I tell you 
this is a standard of rebellion. I never saw 
such an address.” Trelawney of Bristol, 
falling again on his knees, said, “ Rebellion, 
sir! I beseech your Majesty not to say any¬ 
thing so hard of us. For God’s sake, do not 
believe we are or can be guilty of rebellion.” 
It deserves remark, that the two who uttered 
these loud and vehement protestations were 
the only prelates present who were conscious 
of having harboured projects of more deci¬ 
sive resistance. The Bishops of Chichester 
and Ely made professions of unshaken loyalty, 
which they afterwards exemplified. The 
Bishop of Bath and Wells pathetically and 
justly said, “ Sir, I hope you will give that 
liberty to us which you allow to all mankind.” 
He piously added, “ We will honour the 
king, but fear God.” James answered at 
various times, “It tends to rebellion. Is 
this what I have deserved from the Church 
of England? I will remember you who 
have signed this paper. I will keep this 
paper: I will not part with it. I did not 
expect this from you, especially from some 
of you. I will be obeyed.” Ken, in the 
spirit of a martyr, answered only with a 
humble voice, “ God’s will be done.” The 
angry monarch called out, “ What’s that ? ” 
The bishop, and one of his brethren, repeated 
what had been said. J ames dismissed them 
with the same unseemly, unprovoked, and 
incoherent language: — “If I think fit to 
alter my mind, I will send to you. God has 
given me this dispensing power, and I will 
maintain it. I tell you, there are seven 
thousand men, and of the Church of England 
too, that have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 
Next morning, when on his way to chapel, 


the utmost anger.” Van Citters, 1st June. The 
mild Evelyn (Diary, 18th May) says, “ the king 
was so incensed, that, with threatening language,* 
he commanded them to obey at their peril.” 

















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


406 

he said to the Bishop of St. David’s, “ My 
lord, your brethren presented to me, yes¬ 
terday, the most seditious paper that ever 
was penned. It is a trumpet of rebellion.” 
He frequently repeated what Lord Halifax 
said to him, — “ Your father suffered for the 
Church, not the Church for him.”* * * § 

The petition was printed and circulated 
during the night, certainly not by the bishops, 
who delivered to the king their only copy, 
written in the hand of Sancroft, for the ex¬ 
press purpose of preventing publication — 
probably, therefore, by some attendant of 
the court, for lucre or from disaffection. In 
a few days, six other prelates j’ had declared 
their concurrence in the petition; and the 
Bishop of Carlisle agreed to its contents, 
lamenting that he could not subscribe it, 
because his diocese was not in the province 
of Canterbury J: two others agreed to the 
measure of not reading. § The archbishopric 
of York had now been kept vacant for Petre 
more than two years; and the vacancy which 
delivered Oxford from Parker had not yet 
been filled up. Lloyd, of Bangor, who died 
a few months afterwards, was probably pre¬ 
vented by age and infirmities from taking 
any part in this transaction. The see of 
Lichfield, though not vacant, was deserted 
by Wood, who (having been appointed by 
the Duchess of Cleveland, in consequence of 
his bestowing his niece, a rich heiress, of 
whom he was guardian, on one of her sons ||), 
had openly and perpetually abandoned his 
diocese : for this he had been suspended by 
Sancroft, and though restored on submission, 
had continued to reside at Hackney, without 
professing to discharge any duty, till his 
death. Sprat, who would have honoured 
the episcopal dignity by his talents, if he 
had not earned it by a prostitution of them ; 
Cartwright, who had already approved him- 


* Van Citters, 1st June. MS. 
f London, Norwich, Gloucester, Salisbury, Win¬ 
chester, and Exeter. D’Oyley, vol. i. p. 269. 

J Gutch, vol. i. p. 334. 

§ Llandaff and Worcester. Gutch, vol. i. p. 331. 
|| Kennet in Lansdowne MSS. in the British 
Museum. D’Oyley, vol. i. p. 193. 

*[f Narrative of the Rye House Plot. 


self the ready instrument of lawless power 
against his brethren; Crewe, whose servility 
was rendered more conspicuously disgraceful 
by birth and wealth; Watson, who, after a 
long train of offences, wa& at length deprived 
of his see ; together with Croft, in extreme 
old age, and Barlow, who had fallen into 
second childhood, were, since the death of 
Parker, the only faithless members of an 
episcopal body, which, in its then incomplete 
state, amounted to twenty-two. 

On Sunday, the 20th, the first day ap¬ 
pointed for reading the Declaration in Lon¬ 
don, the order was generally disobeyed, 
though the administration of the diocese, 
during the suspension of the bishop, was 
placed in the perfidious hands of Sprat and 
Crewe. Out of a hundred, the supposed 
number of the London clergy at that time, 
seven were the utmost who are, by the 
largest account, charged with submission.* 
Sprat himself chose to officiate as dean in 
Westminster Abbey, where, as soon as he 
gave orders for the reading, so great a mur¬ 
mur arose that nobody could hear it; and, 
before it was finished, no one was left in the 
church but a few prebendaries, the choris¬ 
ters, and the "Westminster scholars. He, him¬ 
self, could hardly hold the Proclamation in 
his hands for trembling.f Even in the chapel 
at Whitehall, it was read by a chorister, j At 
Serjeants’ Inn, on the chief justice desiring 
that it should be read, the clerk said that 
he had forgotten it.§ The names of four 
complying clergymen only are preserved — 
Elliott, Martin, Thomson, and Hall — who, 
obscure as they were, may be enumerated 
as specimens of so rare a vice as the sinister 
courage which, for base ends, can brave the 
most generous feelings of all the spectators 


* “ La lettura non se essequi che in pochissimi 
luoghi.” D’Adda, 30th May. MS. Clarendon 
states the number to be four; Kennet and Burnet, 
seven. Perhaps the smaller number refers to 
parochial clergy, and the larger to those of every 
denomination. 

f Burnet, vol. iii. p. 218., note by Lord Dart¬ 
mouth, then present as a Westminster scholar. 

X Evelyn, 20th May. 

§ Van Citters, suprit. MS. 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 407 

of their conduct. The temptation on this 
occasion seems to have been the bishopric of 
Oxford, in the pursuit of which, Hall, who 
had been engaged in negotiations with the 
Duchess of Portsmouth for the purchase of 
Hampden’s pardon*, by such connections 
and services prevailed over his competitors. 
On the following Sunday the disobedience 
was equally general; and the new reader at 
the Chapel Royal was so agitated as to be 
unable to read the Declaration audibly .f In 
general, the clergy of the country displayed 
the same spirit. In the dioceses of the faith¬ 
ful bishops, the example of the diocesan was 
almost universally followed; in that of 
Norwich, which contains twelve hundred 
parishes, the Declaration was not read by 
more than three or four.j In Durham, on 
the other side, Crewe found so great a num¬ 
ber of his poor clergy more independent than 
a vast revenue could render himself, that 
he suspended many for disobedience. The 
other deserters were disobeyed by nineteen- 
twentieths of their clergy; and not more 
than two hundred in all are said to have 
complied out of a body of ten thousand. § 
“The whole Church,” says the nuncio, “es¬ 
pouses the cause of the bishops. There is no 
reasonable expectation of a division among 
the Anglicans, and our hopes from the Non¬ 
conformists are vanished.” || Well, indeed, 
might he despair of the Dissenters, since, on 
the 20th of May, the. venerable Baxter, above 
sectarian interests, and unmindful of ancient 
wrongs, from his tolerated pulpit extolled 
the bishops for their resistance to the very 
Declaration to which he now owed the liberty 
of commending them.^f 

It was no wonder that such an appearance 
of determined resistance should disconcert 
the Government. No prospect now remained 
of seducing some, and of punishing other, 
Protestants, and, by this double example, of 
gaining the greater part of the rest. The 

king, after so many previous acts of violence, 
seemed to be reduced to the alternative of 
either surrendering to exasperated anta¬ 
gonists, or engaging in a mortal combat with 
all his Protestant subjects. In the most 
united and vigorous government, the choice 
would have been among the most difficult 
which human wisdom is required to make. 
In the distracted councils of James, where 
secret advisers thwarted responsible minis¬ 
ters, and fear began to disturb the judgment 
of some, while anger inflamed the minds of 
others, a still greater fluctuation and con¬ 
tradiction prevailed than would have na¬ 
turally arisen from the great difficulty of the 
situation. Pride impelled the king to ad¬ 
vance ; caution counselled him to retreat; 
calm reason, even at this day, discovers nearly 
equal dangers in either movement. It is one 
of the most unfortunate circumstances in 
human affairs, that the most important ques¬ 
tions of practice either perplex the mind so 
much by their difficulty, as to be always 
really decided by temper, or excite passions 
too strong for such an undisturbed exercise 
of the understanding as alone affords a pro¬ 
bability of right judgment. The nearer 
approach of perils, both political and per¬ 
sonal, rendered the counsels of Sunderland 
more decisively moderate * ; in which he was 
supported by the Catholic lords in office, 
conformably to their uniform principles!, 
and by Jeffreys, who, since he had gained 
the prize of ambition, began more and more 
to think of safety.]; It appears, also, that 
those who recoiled from an irreparable 
breach with the Church, the nation, and the 
Protestants of the royal family, were now 
not unwilling that their moderation should 
be known. Jeffreys spoke to Lord Claren¬ 
don of “ moderate counsels,” declared, that 
“ some men would drive the king to destruc¬ 
tion,” and made professions of “ service to 
the bishops,” which he went so far as to 

* Lords’ Journals, 19th Dec. 1689. 
f Van Citters. MS. 
j; D’Oyley, vol. i. p. 270. 

§ Van Citters, 25th June. MS. 

|| D’Adda, 11th June. MS. 

Tf Johnstone, 23rd May. MS. 

* D’Adda and Barillon, 3rd June. MS. 
j- “Lords Powis, Arundel, Dover, and Bellasis 
are very zealous for moderation.” Van Citters, 
11th June. MS. 

X Clarendon, 14th and 27th June, 5th July, 13th 
August. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


408 

desire liiin to communicate to them. William 
Penn, on a visit, after a very long interval, 
to Clarendon, betrayed an inquietude, which 
sometimes prompts men almost instinctively 
to acquire or renew friendships.* Sunder¬ 
land disclosed the nature and grounds of his 
own counsels, very fully, both to the nuncio 
and to the French ambassador.f “ The 
great question,” he said, “ was, how the 
punishment of the bishops would affect the 
probability of accomplishing the king’s pur¬ 
pose through a parliament. Now, it was not 
to be expected that any adequate penalty 
could be inflicted on them in the ordinary 
course of law. Recourse must be had to the 
Ecclesiastical Commission, which was already 
sufficiently obnoxious. Any legal proceeding 
would be long enough, in the present temper 
of men, to agitate all England. The sus¬ 
pension or deprivation by the Ecclesiastical 
Commissioners, which might not exclude the 
bishops from their parliamentary seats, 
would, in a case of so extensive delinquency, 
raise such a fear and cry of arbitrary power, 
as to render all prospect of a parliament 
desperate, and to drive the king to a reliance 
on arms alone; — a fearful resolution, not to 
be entertained without fuller assurance that 
the army was and would remain untainted.” 
He therefore advised, that “ his Majesty 
should content himself with publishing a 
declaration, expressing his high and just re¬ 
sentment at the hardihood of the bishops, in 
disobeying the supreme head of their Church, 
and disputing a royal prerogative recently 
recognised by all the judges of England; 
but stating that, in consideration of the 
fidelity of the Church of England in past 
times, from which these prelates had been 
the first to depart, his Majesty was desirous 
of treating their offence with clemency, and 
would refer their conduct to the considera¬ 
tion of the next Parliament, in the hope that 
their intermediate conduct might warrant 
entire forgiveness.” It was said, on the 


* Clarendon, 21st May. “ The first time I had 
seen him for a long time. He professed great 
kindness.” 

t D’Adda and Barillon, supra. 


other hand, “ that the safety of the Govern¬ 
ment depended on an immediate blow ; that 
the impunity of such audacious contumacy 
would embolden every enemy at home and 
abroad; that all lenity would be regarded as 
the effect of weakness and fear; and that the 
opportunity must now or never be seized, of 
employing the Ecclesiastical Commission to 
strike down a church, which supported the 
Crown only as long as she dictated to it, 
and became rebellious at the moment when 
she was forbidden to be intolerant.” To 
strengthen these topics, it was urged “ that 
the factions had already boasted that the 
Court would not dare to proceed juridically 
against the bishops.” 

Both the prudent ministers, to whom these 
discussions were imparted, influenced pro¬ 
bably by their wishes, expected that mo¬ 
deration would prevail.* But, after a week 
of discussion, Jeffreys, fearing that the king 
could not be reconciled to absolute forbear¬ 
ance, and desirous of removing the odium 
from the Ecclesiastical Commission, of which 
he was the head f, proposed that the bishops 
should be prosecuted in the Court of King’s 
Bench, and the consideration of mercy or 
rigour postponed till after judgment; — a 
compromise probably more impolitic than 
either of the extremes, inasmuch as it united 
a conspicuous and solemn mode of pro¬ 
ceeding, and a form of trial partly popular, 
with room for the utmost boldness of defence, 
some probability of acquittal, and the least 
punishment in case of conviction. On the 
evening of the 27th, the second Sunday 


* D’Adda and Barillon, 11th June. MS. 
f Van Citters, 11th June. MS. The biographer 
of James II. (Life, vol. ii. p. 158.) tells us that the 
chancellor advised the king to prosecute the 
bishops for tumultuous petitioning, ignorantly sup¬ 
posing the statute passed at the Restoration against 
such petitioning to be applicable to their case. The 
passage in the same page, which quotes the king’s 
own MSS., is more naturally referable to the secret 
advisers of the order in council. The account of 
Van Citters, adopted in the text, reconciles the 
Jacobite tradition followed by Dicconson with the 
language of Jeffreys to Clarendon, and with the 
former complaints of the Catholics against his luke¬ 
warmness mentioned by Barillon. 









REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 409 


appointed for reading the Declaration, it 
was accordingly determined to prosecute 
them; and they were summoned to appear 
before the Privy Council on the 8th of 
June, to answer a charge of misdemeanour. 

In obedience to this summons, the bishops 
attended at Whitehall on the day appointed, 
about five o’clock in the afternoon, and 
being called into the council chamber, were 
graciously received by the king. The chan¬ 
cellor asked the archbishop, whether a paper 
now shown to him was the petition written 
by him, and presented by the other bishops 
to his Majesty. The archbishop, addressing 
himself to the king, answered, “ Sir, I am 
called hither as a criminal, which I never 
was before: since I have that unhappiness, 
I hope your Majesty will not be offended 
that I am cautious of answering questions 
which may tend to accuse myself.” The 
king called this chicanery ; adding, “ I hope 
you will not deny your own hand.” The 
archbishop said, “The only reason for the 
question is to draw an answer which may 
be ground of accusation;” and Lloyd, of 
St. Asaph, added, “All divines of all Christian 
churches are agreed that no man in our 
situation is obliged to answer such ques¬ 
tions:” but the king impatiently pressing 
for an answer, the archbishop said, “ Sir, 
though not obliged to answer, yet, if your 
Majesty commands it, we are willing to 
obey, trusting to your justice and generosity 
that we shall not suffer for our obedience.” 
The king said he should not command them, 
and Jeffreys directed them to withdraw. 
On their return, being commanded by the 
king to answer, they owned the petition. 
There is some doubt whether they repeated 
the condition on which they made their first 
offer of obedience *; but, if they did not, 


* D’Oyley (vol. i. p. 278.) seems on this point to 
vary from the narrative in Gutch (vol. i. p. 351.). 
It seems to me more probable that the condition 
was repeated after the second entrance; for Dr. 
D’Oyley is certainly right in thinking that the 
statement of the archbishop’s words, as having 
been spoken “ after the third or fourth coming in,” 
must be a mistake. It is evidently at variance 
with the whole course of the examination. 


their forbearance must have arisen from a 
respectful confidence, which disposed them, 
with reason, to consider the silence of the 
king as a virtual assent to their unretracted 
condition. A tacit acceptance of condi¬ 
tional obedience is indeed as distinct a pro¬ 
mise to perform the condition as the most 
express words. They were then again com¬ 
manded to withdraw; and, on their return 
a third time, they were told by Jeffreys 
that they would be proceeded against; 
“ but,” he added (alluding to the obnoxious 
Commission), “with all fairness, in West¬ 
minster Hall.” He desired them to enter 
into a recognisance (or legal engagement) 
to appear. They declared their readiness 
to answer, whenever they were called upon, 
without it, and, after some conversation, 
insisted on their privilege as peers not to be 
bound by a recognisance in misdemeanour. 
After several ineffectual attempts to prevail 
on them to accept the offer of being dis¬ 
charged on their own recognisances, as a 
favour, they were committed to the Tower 
by a warrant, which all the privy coun¬ 
cillors present (except Lord Berkeley and 
Father Petre) subscribed; of whom it is 
observable, that nine only were avowed 
Catholics, and nine professed members of 
the English Church, besides Sunderland, 
whose renunciation of that religion was not 
yet made public.* The order for the pro¬ 
secution was, however, sanctioned in the 
usual manner, by placing the names of all 
privy councillors present at its head. 

The people, who saw the bishops as they 
walked to the barges which were to conduct 
them to the Tower, were deeply affected by 
the spectacle, and, for the first time, mani¬ 
fested their emotions in a manner which 
would have still served as a wholesome 
admonition to a wise government. The de¬ 
meanour of the prelates is described by 
eye-witnesses as meek, composed, cheerful, 
betraying no fear, and untainted by osten¬ 
tation or defiance, but endowed with a 
greater power over the fellow-feeling of the 
beholders by the exhortations to loyalty, 

* Gutch, vol. i. p. 353. 








410 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


which were doubtless uttered with unde¬ 
signing sincerity by the greater number of 
the venerable sufferers.* * * § The mode of con¬ 
veyance, though probably selected for mere 
convenience, contributed to deepen and pro¬ 
long the interest of the scene. The soldiers 
who escorted them to the shore had no need 
to make any demonstrations of violence; 
for the people were too much subdued by 
pity and reverence to vent their feelings 
otherwise than by tears and prayers. Having 
never before seen prelates in opposition to 
the king, and accustomed to look at them 
only in a state of pacific and inviolate 
dignity, the spectators regarded their fall 
to the condition of prisoners and the appear¬ 
ance of culprits with amazement, awe, and 
compassion. The scene seemed to be a pro¬ 
cession of martyrs. w Thousands,” says Yan 
Citters, probably an eye-witness, “begged 
their blessing.” f Some ran into the water 
to implore it. Both banks of the Thames 
were lined with multitudes, who, when they 
were too distant to be heard, manifested 
their feelings by falling down on their knees, 
and raising up their hands, beseeching 
Heaven to guard the sufferers for religion 
and liberty. On landing at the Tower, 
several of the guards knelt down to receive 
their blessing; while some even of the 
officers yielded to the general impulse. As 
the bishops chanced to land at the accus¬ 
tomed hour of evening prayer, they imme¬ 
diately repaired to the chapel; where they 
heard, in the ordinary lesson of the day, 
a remarkable exhortation to the primitive 
teachers of Christianity, “ to approve them¬ 
selves the ministers of God, in much patience, 
in afflictions, in imprisonments.” J The Court 
ordered the guard to be doubled. 

On the following days multitudes crowded 
to the Tower §, of whom the majority gazed 
on the prison with distant awe, while a few 
entered to offer homage and counsel to the 
venerable prisoners. “ If it be a crime to 


* Reresby, p. 261. 
f 18th June. MS. 

J 2 Corinthians, vi. 4, 5. 

§ Clarendon, 9th, 10th, 12th June. 


lament,” said a learned contemporary, m a 
confidential letter, “ innumerable are the 
transgressors. The nobles of both sexes, 
as it were, keep their court at the Tower, 
whither a vast concourse daily go to beg the 
holy men’s blessing. The very soldiers act 
as mourners.” * The soldiers on guard, in¬ 
deed, drank their healths, and though repri¬ 
manded by Sir Edward Hales, now lieuten¬ 
ant of the Tower, declared that they would 
persevere. The amiable Evelyn did not fail 
to visit them on the day previous to that on 
which he was to dine with the chancellor, 
appearing to distribute his courtesies with 
the neutrality of Atticusf; but we now 
know that Jeffreys himself, on the latter of 
these days, had sent a secret message by 
Clarendon, assuring the bishops that he was 
much troubled at the prosecution, and offer¬ 
ing his services to them. J None of their 
visitors were more remarkable than a depu¬ 
tation of ten Nonconformist ministers, which 
so incensed the king that he personally re¬ 
primanded them; but they answered, that 
they could not but adhere to the bishops, as 
men constant to the Protestant religion, — 
an example of magnanimity rare in the con¬ 
flicts of religious animosities. The Dissent¬ 
ing clergy seem, indeed, to have been nearly 
unanimous in preferring the general interest 
of religious liberty to the enlargement of 
their peculiar privileges.§ Alsop was full of 
sorrow for his compliances in the former 
year. Lobb, who was seized with so en¬ 
thusiastic an attachment to James that he 
was long after known by the singular name 
of the “ Jacobite Independent,” alone per¬ 
severed in devotedness to the Court; and 
when the king asked his advice respecting 
the treatment of the bishops, advised that 
they should be sent to the Tower. || 

No exertion of friendship or of public 


* Dr. Nelson, Gutch, vol. i. p. 360. 

t Diary, 13th—14th June. 

$ Clarendon, 14th June. 

§ Johnstone, 13th June. MS. 

|| Ibid. MS. “I told the Archbishop of Can¬ 
terbury,” says Johnstone, “that their fate de¬ 
pended on very mean person^” Burnet, vol. iii. 
p. 217. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 411 


zeal was wanting to prepare the means of 
their defence, and to provide for their dig¬ 
nity, in every part of the proceeding. The 
Bishop of London, Dr. Tennyson, and John¬ 
stone, the secret agent of the Prince of 
Orange, appear to have been the most active 
of their friends. Pemberton and Pollexfen, 
accounted the most learned among the elder 
lawyers, were engaged in their cause. Sir 
John Holt, destined to be the chief orna¬ 
ment of a bench purified by liberty, con¬ 
tributed his valuable advice. John Somers, 
then in the thirty-eighth year of his age, 
was objected to at one of their consultations, 
as too young and obscure to be one of their 
counsel; and, if we may believe Johnstone, 
it was owing to him that this memorable 
cause afforded the earliest opportunity of 
making known the superior intellect of that 
great man. Twenty-eight peers were pre¬ 
pared to bail them, if bail should be re¬ 
quired.* * * § Stanley, chaplain to the Princess 
of Orange, had already assured Sancroft that 
the prince and princess approved their firm¬ 
ness, and were deeply interested in their 
fate, f One of them, probably Trelawney, 
a prelate who had served in the Civil War, 
had early told Johnstone that if they were 
sent to the Tower, he hoped the Prince of 
Orange would take them out, which two 
regiments and his authority would do J ; and, 
a little later, the Bishop of St. Asaph assured 
the same trusty agent, who was then collect¬ 
ing the opinions of several eminent persons 
on the seasonableness of resistance, that 
“ the matter would be easily done.” § This 
bold prelate had familiarised himself with 
extraordinary events, and was probably 
tempted to daring counsels by an overween¬ 
ing confidence in his own interpretation of 
mysterious prophecies, which he had long 
laboured to illustrate by vain efforts of 


* Gutch, vol. i. p. 357., where their names ap¬ 
pear. 

f Ibid. p. 307. 

j Johnstone, 27th May. MS. 

§ Ibid. 18th June. MS. Tho bishop’s ob¬ 
servation is placed between the opinions of Mr. 
Hampden and Sir J. Lee, both zealous for imme¬ 
diate action. 


ability and learning. He made no secret of 
his expectations; but, at his first interview 
with a chaplain of the archbishop, exhorted 
him to be of good courage, and declared that 
the happiest results were now to be hoped; 
for that the people, incensed by tyranny, 
were ready to take up arms to expel the 
Papists from the kingdom, and to punish the 
king himself, which was to be deprecated, by 
banishment or death; adding, that if the 
bishops escaped from their present danger, 
they would reform the Church from the cor¬ 
ruptions which had crept into her frame, 
throw open her gates for the joyful entrance 
of the sober and pious among Protestant 
Dissenters, and relieve even those who should 
continue to be pertinacious in their non¬ 
conformity from the grievous yoke of penal 
laws.* During the imprisonment, Sunder¬ 
land and the Catholic lords, now supported 
by Jeffreys, used every means of art and 
argument to persuade James that the birth 
of the Prince of Wales (which will presently 
be related) afforded a most becoming oppor¬ 
tunity for signalising that moment of na¬ 
tional joy by a general pardon, which would 
comprehend the bishops, without involving 
any apparent concession to them.f The 
king, as usual, fluctuated. A proclamation, 
couched in the most angry an,d haughty lan¬ 
guage, commanding all clergymen, under 
pain of immediate suspension, to read the 
Declaration, was several times sent to the 
press, and as often withdrawn.^ “ The 
king,” said Jeffreys, “ had once resolved to 
let the proceedings fall; but some men would 
hurry him to destruction.” § The obstinacy 
of James, inflamed by bigoted advisers, and 


* Diary of Henry Wharton, 25th June, 1G86. 
D’Oyley, vol. ii. p. 134. The term “ ponteficios,” 
which is rendered in the text by papists, may 
perhaps be limited, by a charitable construction, to 
the more devoted partisans of papal authority. 
“ The Bishop of St. Asaph was a secret favourer of 
a foreign interest.” Life of Kettlewell, p. 175., 
compiled (London, 1718) from the papers of Hicks 
and Nelson. 

f Johnstone, 13th June. MS. 

j Yan Citters, 8th June. MS. 

§ Clarendon, 14th June. 











412 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


supported by commendation, with proffered 
aid, from France, prevailed over sober 
counsels. 

On the loth of June, the prisoners were 
brought before the Court of King’s Bench 
by a writ of Habeas Corpus. On leaving 
the Tower they refused to pay the fees 
required by Sir Edward Hales as lieutenant, 
whom they charged with discourtesy. He 
so far forgot himself as to say that the fees 
were a compensation for the irons with 
which he might have loaded them, and the 
bare walls and floor to which he might have 
confined their accommodation.* They an¬ 
swered, “ We lament the king’s displeasure; 
but every other man loses his breath who 
attempts to intimidate us.” On landing 
from their barge, they were received with 
increased reverence by a great multitude, 
who made a lane for them, and followed 
them into Westminster Hall.f The nuncio, 
unused to the slightest breath of popular 
feeling, was subdued by these manifestations 
of enthusiasm, which he relates with more 
warmth than any other contemporary. “ Of 
the immense concourse of people,” says he, 
“ who received them on the bank of the 
river, the majority in their immediate neigh¬ 
bourhood were on their knees: the arch¬ 
bishop laid his hands on the heads of such as 
he could reach, exhorting them to continue 
steadfast in their faith; they cried aloud 
that all should kneel, while tears flowed 
from the eyes of many.” J In the court 
they were attended by the twenty-nine 
peers who offered to be their sureties ; and 
it was instantly filled by a crowd of gentle¬ 
men attached to their cause. 

The return of the lieutenant of the Tower 
to the writ set forth that the bishops were 
committed under a warrant signed by certain 
privy councillors for a seditious libel. The 
attorney-general moved, that the informa¬ 
tion should be read, and that the bishops 
should be called on to plead, or, in common 

* Johnstone, 18th June. MS. See a more gene¬ 
ral statement to the same effect, in Evelyn’s Diary, 
29th June. 

f Clarendon, loth June. 

X D’Adda, 22nd June.- MS. 


language, either to admit the fact, deny it, 
or allege some legal justification of it. The 
counsel for the bishops objected to reading 
the information, on the ground that they 
were not legally before the court, because 
the warrant, though signed by privy coun¬ 
cillors, was not stated to be issued by them in 
that capacity, and because the bishops, being 
peers of Parliament, could not lawfully be 
committed for a libel. The court over¬ 
ruled these objections; — the first with evi¬ 
dent justice, because the warrant of commit¬ 
ment set forth its execution at the council 
chamber, and in the presence of the king, 
which sufficiently showed it to be the act of 
the subscribing privy councillors acting as 
such, — the second, with much doubt touch¬ 
ing the extent of privilege of Parliament, 
acknowledged on both sides to exempt from 
apprehension in all cases but treason, felony, 
and breach of the peace, which last term was 
said by the counsel for the crown to com¬ 
prehend all such constructive offences against 
the peace as libels, and argued on behalf of 
the bishops, to be confined to those acts or 
threats of violence which, in common lan¬ 
guage, are termed “ breaches of the peace.” 
The greatest judicial authority on constitu¬ 
tional law since the accession of the House 
of Brunswick has pronounced the deter¬ 
mination of the judges in 1688 to be erro¬ 
neous.* The question depends too much 
upon irregular usage and technical subtle¬ 
ties to be brought under the cognisance of 
the historian, who must be content with 
observing, that the error was not so mani¬ 
fest as to warrant an imputation of bad 
faith in the judges. A delay of pleading 
till the next term, which is called an “ im¬ 
parlance,” was then claimed. The officers 
usually referred to for the practice of the 
court declared such for the last twelve years 
to have been that the defendants should 
immediately plead. Sir Robert Sawyer, 
Mr. Finch, Sir Francis Pemberton, and Mr. 
Pollexfen, bore a weighty testimony, from 
their long experience, to the more indulgent 
practice of the better times which preceded; 


* Lord Camden in 'Wilkes’s case, 1763. 













REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 413 

but Sawyer, covered with the guilt of so 
many odious proceedings, Finch, who was 
by no means free from participation in them, 
and even Pemberton, who had the misfor¬ 
tune to be chief justice in evil days, seemed 
to contend against the practice of their own 
administration with bad grace: the veteran 
Pollexfen alone, without fear of retaliation, 
appealed to the pure age of Sir Matthew 
Hale. The court decided that the bishops 
should plead; but their counsel considered 
themselves as having gained their legitimate 
object by showing that the Government 
employed means at least disputable against 
them.* The bishops then pleaded “ Not 
guilty,” and were enlarged, on their own 
undertaking to appear on the trial, which 
was appointed for the 29th of June. 

As they left the court they were sur¬ 
rounded by crowds, who begged their bless¬ 
ing. The Bishop of St. Asaph, detained in 
Palace Yard by a multitude, who kissed his 
hands and garments, was delivered from 
their importunate kindness by Lord Claren¬ 
don, who, taking him into his carriage, 
found it necessary to make a circuit through 
the Park to escape from the bodies of people 
by whom the streets were obstructed.] - 
Shouts and huzzas broke out in the court, 
and were repeated all around at the moment 
of the enlargement. The bells of the Abbey 
Church of Westminster had begun to ring a 
joyful peal, when they were stopped by 
Sprat amidst the execrations of the people.]; 
“No one knew,” said the Dutch minister, 

“ what to do for joy.” When the arch¬ 
bishop landed at Lambeth, the grenadiers of 

Lord Lichfield’s regiment, though posted 
there by his enemies, received him with 
military honours, made a lane for his passage 
from the river to his palace, and fell on their 
knees to ask his blessing.* In the evening 
the premature joy at this temporary libera¬ 
tion displayed itself in bonfires, and in some 
outrages to Roman Catholics, as the sup¬ 
posed instigators of the prosecution, f 

No doubt was entertained at Court of the 
result of the trial, which the king himself 
took measures to secure by a private inter¬ 
view with Sir Samuel Astray, the officer, 
whose province it was to form the jury.]; 
It was openly said that the bishops would be 
condemned to pay large fines, to be impri¬ 
soned till payment, and to be suspended 
from their functions and revenues.§ A fund 
would thus be ready for the king’s liberality 
to Catholic colleges and chapels; while the 
punishment of the archbishop would remove 
the only licenser of the press || who was 
independent of the Crown. Sunderland still 
contended for the policy of being generous 
after victory, and of not seeking to destroy 
those who would be sufficiently degraded; 
and he believed that he had made a favour¬ 
able impression on the king.^f But the latter 
spoke of the feebleness which had disturbed 
the reign of his brother, and brought his 
father to the scaffold; and Barillon repre¬ 
sents him as inflexibly resolved on rigour **, 
which opinion seems to have been justified 
by the uniform result of every previous de¬ 
liberation. Men of common understanding 
are much disposed to consider the contrary 
of the last unfortunate error as being always 

* State Trials, vol. xii. p. 183. The general 
reader may be referred with confidence to the ex¬ 
cellent abridgment of the State Trials, by Mr. 
Phillipps, — a work probably not to be paralleled by 
the union of discernment, knowledge, impartiality, 
calmness, clearness, and precision, it exhibits on 
questions the most angrily contested. It is, in¬ 
deed, far superior to the huge and most unequal 
compilation of which it i3 an abridgment, — to say 
nothing of the instructive observations on legal 
questions in which Mr. Phillipps rejudges the de¬ 
terminations of past times, 
f Clarendon, 15th June. 

J Van Citters, 25th June. MS. 

* Johnstone, 18th June. MS. 

f Narcissus Luttrell, MS.; and the two last- 
mentioned authorities. 

1 Clarendon, 21st—27th June, where an agent 
of the courtis said to have busied himself in strik¬ 
ing the jury. 

§ Barillon, 1st July. MS. Van Citters, 2nd 
July. MS. 

|| It appears from Wharton’s Diary, that the 
chaplains at Lambeth discharged this duty with 
more regard even then to the feelings of the king 
than to the rights of Protestant controversialists. . 

f D’Adda, 9th July. MS. 

** Barillon, 1st July. MS. 








——--- 1 

414 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


the sound policy; they are incapable of esti¬ 
mating the various circumstances which 
may render vigour or caution applicable at 
different times and in different stages of the 
same proceedings, and pursue their single 
maxim, often founded on shallow views, 
even of one case, with headlong obstinacy. 
If they be men also of irresolute nature, 
they are unable to resist the impetuosity of 
violent counsellors, they are prone to rid 
themselves of the pain of fluctuation by a 
sudden determination to appear decisive, 
and they often take refuge from past fears, 
and seek security from danger to come, by a 
rash and violent blow. “ Lord Sunderland,” 
says Barillon, “ like a good courtier and an 
able politician, every where vindicates, with 
warmth and vigour, the measures which he 
disapproved and had opposed.” * 

The bishops, on the appointed day, en¬ 
tered the court, surrounded by the lords f 
and gentlemen who, on this solemn occasion, 
chose that mode of once more testifying their 
adherence to the public cause. Some pre¬ 
vious incidents inspired courage. Levinz, 
one of the counsel retained, having endea¬ 
voured to excuse himself from an obnoxious 
duty r was compelled, by the threats of attor¬ 
neys, to perform it. The venerable Serjeant 
Maynard, urged to appear for the Crown, in 
the discharge of his duty as king’s serjeant, 
boldly answered, that if he did he was bound 
also to declare his conscientious opinion of 
the case to the king’s judges l The appear¬ 
ance of the bench was not consolatory to the 
accused. Powell was the only impartial and 
upright judge. Allibone, as a Roman Ca¬ 
tholic, was, in reality, about to try the ques¬ 
tion whether he was himself legally qualified 
for his office. Wright and Holloway were 
placed there to betray the law. Jeffreys 
himself, who had appointed the judges, now 


* Barillon, suprh.. 

t “ Thirty-five lords (Johnstone, 2nd July. 
MS.) ; probably about one half of the legally qua¬ 
lified peers then in England and able to attend. 
There were eighty-nine temporal lords who were 
-Protestants. Minority, absence from the kingdom, 
and sickness, may account for nineteen. 

X Johnstone, 2nd July: MS. 


loaded them with the coarsest reproaches *, 
— more, perhaps, from distrust of their 
boldness than from apprehension of their 
independence. Symptoms of the overawing 
power of national opinion are, indeed, per¬ 
ceptible in the speech of the attorney-gene¬ 
ral, which was not so much the statement of 
an accusation as an apology for a prosecu¬ 
tion. He disclaimed all attack on the bishops 
in their episcopal character, and did not now 
complain of their refusal to read the king’s 
declaration; but only charged them with 
the temporal offence of composing and pub¬ 
lishing a seditious libel, under pretence of 
presenting a humble petition to his Majesty. 
His doctrine on this head was, indeed, sub¬ 
versive of liberty ; but it has often been re¬ 
peated in better times, though in milder 
terms, and with some reservations. “ The 
bishops,” said he, “ are accused of censuring 
the Government, and giving their opinion 
about affairs of state. No man may say 
of the great officers of the kingdom, far less 
of the king, that they act unreasonably, for 
that may beget a desire of reformation, and 
the last age will abundantly satisfy us 
whither such a thing does tend.” 

The first difficulty arose as to the proof of 
the handwriting, which seems to have been 
decisive against Sancroft, sufficient against 
some others, and altogether wanting in the 
cases of Ken and Lake. All the witnesses 
on this subject gave their testimony with 
the most evident reluctance. The court 
was equally divided on the question whether 
there was sufficient proof of it to warrant the 
reading of the petition in evidence against 
the accused. The objection to its being so 
read was groundless; but the answers to it 
were so feeble as to betray a general irreso¬ 
lution and embarrassment. The counsel for 
the Crown were then driven to the necessity 
of calling the clerk of the Privy Council to 
prove the confessions before that body, in 
obedience to the commands of the king. 


* “ Rogues,” “ Knaves,” “ Fools.” Clarendon, 
27th June — 5th July. He called Wright “a 
beast; ” but this, it must be observed, was after 
his defeat. 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 415 


When they were proved, Pemberton, with 
considerable dexterity, desired the witness 
to relate all the circumstances which attended 
these confessions. Blathwaite, the clerk, 
long resisted, and evaded the question, of 
which he evidently felt the importance ; but 
he was at length compelled to acknowledge 
that the bishops had accompanied their offer 
to submit to the royal command, with an 
expression of their hope that no advantage 
would be taken of their confession against 
them. He could not pretend that they had 
been previously warned against such a hope; 
but he eagerly added, that no promise to 
such an effect had been made, — as if chica¬ 
nery could be listened to in a matter which 
concerned the personal honour of a sove¬ 
reign. Williams, the only one of the counsel 
for the Crown who was more provoked than 
intimidated by the public voice, drew the 
attention of the audience to this breach of 
faith by the vehemence with which he re¬ 
sisted the admission of the evidence which 
proved it. 

Another subtle question sprung from the 
principle of English law, that crimes are 
triable only in the county where they are 
committed. It was said that the alleged 
libel was written at Lambeth in Surrey, and 
not proved to have been published in Mid¬ 
dlesex; so that neither of the offences 
charged could be tried in the latter county. 
That it could not have been written in 
Middlesex was proved by the archbishop, 
who was the writer, having been confined by 
illness to his palace for some months. The 
prosecutor then endeavoured to show by the 
clerks of the Privy Council *, that the bishops 
had owned the delivery of the petition to the 
king, which would have been a publication 
in Middlesex : but the witnesses proved only 
an admission of the signatures. On every 
failure, the audience showed their feelings 
by a triumphant laugh or a shout of joy. 
The chief justice, who at first feebly repri¬ 
manded them, soon abandoned the attempt 


* Pepys, the noted secretary to the Admiralty, 
was one of the witnesses examined. He was pro¬ 
bably a privy councillor. 


to check them. In a long and irregular 
altercation, the advocates of the accused 
spoke with increasing boldness, and those 
for the prosecution with more palpable de¬ 
pression, — except Williams, who vented the 
painful consciousness of inconsistency, un¬ 
varnished by success, in transports of rage 
which descended to the coarsest railing. The 
court had already, before the examination of 
the latter witnesses, determined that there 
was no evidence of publication; notwith¬ 
standing which, and the failure of these last, 
the attorney and solicitor-general proceeded 
to argue that the case was sufficient,— 
chiefly, it would seem, to prolong the brawl 
till the arrival of Lord Sunderland, by whose 
testimony they expected to prove the de¬ 
livery of the petition to the king. But the 
chief justice, who could no longer endure such 
wearisome confusion, began to sum up the 
evidence to the jury, whom, if he had adhered 
to his previous declarations, he must have 
instructed to acquit the accused. Finch, 
either distrusting the jury, or excused, if not 
justified, by the judge’s character, by the 
suspicious solemnity of his professions of 
impartiality, and by his own too long fa¬ 
miliarity with the darkest mysteries of state 
trials, suspected some secret design, and 
respectfully interrupted Wright, in order to 
ascertain whether he still thought that there 
was no sufficient proof of writing in Middle¬ 
sex, or of publication any where. Wright, 
who seemed to be piqued, said, “ he was 
sorry Mr. Finch should think him capable of 
not leaving it fairly to the jury,” — scarcely 
containing his exultation over his supposed 
indiscretion.* Pollexfen requested the judge 


* “ The C. J. said, ‘ Gentlemen, you do not know 
your own business; but since you will be heard, 
you shall be heard.’” Johnstone, 2nd July. MS. 
He seems to have been present, and, as a Scotch¬ 
man, was not very likely to have invented so good 
an illustration of the future tense. It is difficult 
not to suspect that Wright, after admitting that 
there was no positive evidence of publication in 
Middlesex, did not intend to tell the jury that 
there were circumstances proved from which they 
might reasonably infer the fact. The only cir¬ 
cumstance, indeed, which could render it doubtful 








416 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

to proceed; and Fincli pressed his interrup¬ 
tion no farther. But Williams, who, when 
"Wright had began to sum up, counter¬ 
manded his request for the attendance of 
Lord Sunderland as too late, seized the op¬ 
portunity of this interruption to despatch a 
second message, urging him to come without 
delay, and begged the court to suspend the 
summing up, as a person of great quality 
was about to appear who would supply the 
defects in the evidence, — triumphantly add¬ 
ing, that there was a fatality in this case. 
Wright then said to the accused’s counsel, 

“ You see what comes of the interruption; 
now we must stay.” All the bystanders 
condemned Finch as much as he soon after¬ 
wards compelled them to applaud him. An 
hour was spent in waiting for Sunderland. 
It appears to have been during this fortu¬ 
nate delay that the bishops’ counsel deter¬ 
mined on a defence founded on the illegality 
of the dispensing power, from which they 
had before been either deterred from an 
apprehension that they would not be suffered 
to question an adjudged point, or diverted 
at the moment by the prospect that the chief 
justice would sum up for an acquittal.* By 
this resolution, the verdict, instead of only 
insuring the escape of the bishops, became a 
triumph of the constitution. At length Sun¬ 
derland was carried through Westminster in 
a chair, the head of which was down ; — no 
one saluting him, and the multitude hooting 
and hissing, and crying out “ Popish dog ! ” 
He was so disordered by this reception that 
when he came into court he trembled, 

changed colour, and looked down, as if fear¬ 
ful of the countenances of ancient friends* 
and unable to bear the contrast between his 
own disgraceful greatness and the honour¬ 
able calamity of the bishops. He only proved 
that the bishops came to him with a petition, 
which he declined to read ; and that he in¬ 
troduced them immediately to the king, to 
whom he had communicated the purpose for 
which they prayed an audience. 

The general defence then began, and the 
counsel for the bishops, without relinquishing 
their minor objections, arraigned the dis¬ 
pensing power, and maintained the right of 
petition with a vigour and boldness which 
entitles such of them as were only mere 
advocates to great approbation, and those 
among them who were actuated by higher 
principles to the everlasting gratitude of 
their country. When Sawyer began to 
question the legality of the Declaration, 
Wright, speaking aside, said, “I must not 
suffer them to dispute the king’s power of 
suspending laws.” Powell answered, “ They 
must touch that point; for if the king hath 
no such power (as clearly he hath not), the 
petition is no attack on the king’s legal 
power, and therefore no libel.” Wright 
peevishly replied, “I know you are full of 
that doctrine, but the bishops shall have no 
reason to say I did not hear them. Brother, 
you shall have your way for once. I will 
hear them. Let them talk till they are,, 
weary.” The substance of the argument 
was, that a dispensing power was unknown 
to the ancient constitution; that the Com¬ 
mons, in the reign of Richard II., had for¬ 
mally consented that the king should, with 
the assent of the Lords, exercise such a 
power respecting a single law till the next 
parliament *; that the acceptance of such a 
trust was a parliamentary declaration against 
the existence of such a prerogative; that 
though there were many cases of dispensa¬ 
tions from penalties granted to individuals, 
there never was an instance of a pretension 
to dispense with laws before the Restoration; 
that it was in the reign of Charles II. 

that he would lay down a doctrine so well founded, 
and so suitable to his purpose, at a time when he 
could no longer be contradicted, is the confusion 
which, on this trial, seems to have more than 
usually clouded his weak understanding. 

* “ They waited about an hour for Sunderland, 
which luckily fell out, for in this time the bishops’ 
lawyers recollected themselves, in order to what 
followed.” A minute examination of the trial 
explains these words of Johnstone, and remarkably 
proves his accuracy. From the eagerness of Pol- 
lexfen that Wright should proceed with his address 
to the jury, it is evident that they did not then 
intend to make the defence which was afterwards 
made. 

* 15 Ric. IT. 









REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 


twice condemned by Parliament, twice re¬ 
linquished, and once disclaimed by • the 
Crown; that it was declared to be illegal 
by the House of Commons in their very last 
session; and finally, that the power to 
suspend was in effect a power to abrogate, 
that it was an assumption of the whole 
legislative authority, and laid the laws and 
liberties of the kingdom at the mercy of the 
king. Mr. Somers, whose research had sup¬ 
plied the ancient authorities quoted by his 
seniors, closed the defence in a speech ad¬ 
mirable for a perspicuous brevity well ad¬ 
apted to the stage of the trial at which he 
spoke; in which, with a mind so unruffled 
by the passions which raged around him 
as even to preserve a beautiful simplicity 
of expression,—rarely reconcileable with 
anxious .condensation, — he conveyed in a 
few luminous sentences the substance of all 
that had been dispersed over a rugged, 
prolix, and disorderly controversy. “My 
lord, I would only mention the case re¬ 
specting a dispensation from a statute of 
Edward VI., wherein all the judges de¬ 
termined that there never could be an 
abrogation or suspension (which is a tempo¬ 
rary abrogation) of an act of Parliament but 
by the legislative power. It was, indeed, 
disputed how far the king might dispense 
with the penalties of such a particular law, 
as to particular persons; but it was agreed 
by all that the king had no power to suspend' 
any law. Nay, I dare venture to appeal to 
Mr. Attorney-General, whether, in the late 
case of Sir Edward Hales, he did not admit 
that the king could not suspend a law, but 
only grant a dispensation from its observance 
to a particular person. My lord, by the law 
of all civilised nations, if the prince requires 
something to be done, which the person who 
is to do it takes to be unlawful, it is not only 
lawful, but his duty, rescribere principi *,— 
to petition the sovereign. This is all that 


* This phrase of the Roman law, which at first 
sight seems mere pedantry, conveys a delicate and 
happy allusion to the liberty of petition, which 
was allowed even under the despotism of the em¬ 
perors of Rome. 


417 

is done here; and that in the most humble 
manner that could be thought of. Your 
'lordships will please to observe how far 
that humble caution went; how careful they 
were that they might not in any way justly 
offend the king; they did not interpose by 
giving advice as peers; they never stirred 
till it was brought home to themselves as 
bishops. When they made this petition, all 
they asked was, that it might not be so 
far insisted on by his Majesty as to oblige 
them to read it. Whatever they thought of 
it, they do not take it upon them to desire 
the Declaration to be revoked. My lord, 
as to the matters of fact alleged in the 
petition, that they are perfectly true we 
have shown by the Journals of both Houses. 
In every one of those years which are men¬ 
tioned in the petition, this power was con¬ 
sidered by Parliament, and upon debate 
declared to be contrary to law. There 
could then be no design to diminish the 
prerogative, for the king has no such pre¬ 
rogative. Seditious, my lord, it could not 
be, nor could it possibly stir up sedition in 
the minds of the people, because it was 
presented to the king in private and alone ; 
false it could not be, for the matter of it 
was true; there could be nothing of malice, 
for the occasion was not sought, but the 
thing was pressed upon them; and a libel it 
could not be, because the intent was innocent, 
and they kept within the bounds set up by 
the law that gives the subject leave to apply to 
his prince by petition when he is aggrieved.” 

The Crown lawyers, by whom this ex¬ 
tensive and bold defence seems to have been 
unforeseen, manifested in their reply their 
characteristic faults. Powis was feebly 
technical, and Williams was offensively 
violent.* Both evaded the great question of 


* “ Pollexfen and Finch took no small pains to 
inveigh against the king’s dispensing power. The 
counsel for the Crown waived that point, though 
Mr. Solicitor was fiercely earnest against the 
bishops, and took the management upon himself; 
Mr. Attorney’s province being to put a smooth 
question now and then.” Mr. (afterwards Baron) 
Price to the Duke of Beaufort. Macpherson, Ori¬ 
ginal Papers, vol. i. p. 2G6. 

E E 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


418 


the prerogative by professional common¬ 
places of no avail with the jury or the public. 
They both relied on the usual topics em¬ 
ployed by their predecessors and successors, 
that the truth of a libel could not be the 
subject of inquiry; and that the falsehood, 
as well as the malice and sedition charged 
by the information, were not matters of 
fact to be tried by the jury, but qualifica¬ 
tions applied by the law to every writing 
derogatory to the Government. Both trium¬ 
phantly urged that the parliamentary pro¬ 
ceedings of the last and present reign, being 
neither acts nor judgments of Parliament, 
were no proof of the illegality of what they 
condemned, — without adverting to the very 
obvious consideration, that the bishops ap¬ 
pealed to them only as such manifestations 
of the sense of Parliament, as it would be 
imprudent in them to disregard. Williams, 
in illustration of this argument, asked 
“ Whether the name of ‘ a declaration in 
Parliament ’ could be given to the Bill of 
Exclusion, because it had passed the Com¬ 
mons (where he himself had been very 
active in promoting it) ? ” This indiscreet 
allusion was received with a general hiss.* 
He was driven to the untenable position, 
that a petition from these prelates was war¬ 
rantable only to Parliament; and that they 
were bound to delay it till Parliament should 
be assembled. 

Wright, waiving the question of the dis¬ 
pensing power f, instructed the jury that a 
delivery to the king was a publication ; and 
that any writing which was adapted to dis¬ 
turb the Government, or make a stir among 
the people, was a libel; — language of fear¬ 
ful import, but not peculiar to him, nor con¬ 
fined to his time. Holloway thought, that 
if the intention of the bishops was only to 
make an innocent provision for their own 


* Van Citters, 9th July. MS. 
f The dispensing power is more effectually 
knocked on the head than if an act of Parliament 
had been made against it. The judges said nothing 
about it, except Powell, who declared against it: 
so it is given up in Westminster Hall. My lord 
chief justice is much blamed at Court for allowing 
it to be debated.” Johnstone, 2nd July. MS. 


security, the writing could not be a libel. 
Powell declared that they were innocent of 
sedition, or of any other crime, saying, “If 
such a dispensing power be allowed, there 
will need no Parliament; all the legislature 
will be in the king. I leave the issue to 
God and to your consciences.” Allibone 
overleaped all the fences of decency or 
prudence so far as to affirm, “ that no man 
can take upon himself to write against the 
actual exercise of the Government, unless he 
have leave from the Government, but he 
makes a libel, be what he writes true or 
false. The Government ought not to be im¬ 
peached by argument. This is a libel No 
private man can write concerning the Go¬ 
vernment at all, unless his own interest be 
stirred, and then he must redress himself 
by law. Every man may petition in what 
relates to his private interest; but neither 
the bishops, nor any other man, has a 
right to intermeddle in affairs of govern¬ 
ment.” 

After a trial which lasted ten hours, the 
jury retired at seven o’clock in the evening 
to consider their verdict. The friends of 
the bishops watched at the door of the jury- 
room, and heard loud voices at midnight 
and at three o’clock; — so anxious were 
they about the issue, though delay be in 
such cases a sure symptom of acquittal. 
The opposition of one Arnold, the brewer 
of the king’s house, being at length sub¬ 
dued by the steadiness of the others, the 
chief justice was informed, at six o’clock 
in the morning, that the jury were agreed 
in their verdict.* The Court met at nine 


* Letter of Ince, the solicitor for the bishops, to 
Sancroft. Guteli, vol. i. p. 374. From this letter 
we learn that the perilous practice then prevailed of 
successful parties giving a dinner and money to 
the jury. The solicitor proposed that the dinner 
should be omitted, but that 150 or 200 guineas 
should be distributed among twenty-two of the 
panel who attended. “ Most of them (i. e. the 
panel of the jury) are Church of England men: 
several are employed by the king in the navy and 
revenue; and some are or once were of the Dis¬ 
senters’ party.” Ellis, Original Letters, 2nd series, 
vol. iv. p. 10*5. Of this last class we are told by 












REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 419 


o’clock. The nobility and gentry covered 
the benches; and an immense concourse of 
people filled the Hall, and blocked up the 
adjoining streets. Sir Robert Langley, 
the foreman of the jury, being according to 
established form asked whether the accused 
were guilty or not guilty, pronounced the 
verdict, “Not guilty.” No sooner were 
these words uttered than a loud huzza arose 
from the audience in the court. It was in¬ 
stantly echoed from without by a shout of 
joy, which sounded like a crack of the an¬ 
cient and massy roof of Westminster Hall.* * * * * § 
It passed with electrical rapidity from voice 
to voice along the infinite multitude who 
waited in the streets, reaching the Temple 
in a few minutes. For a short time no man 
seemed to know where he was. No busi¬ 
ness was done for hours. The solicitor- 
general informed Lord Sunderland, in the 
presence of the nuncio, that never within 
the remembrance of man had there been 
heard such cries of applause mingled with 
tears of joy.f “ The acclamations,” says 
Sir John Reresby, “were a very rebellion 
in noise.” In no long time they ran to the 
camp at Hounslow, and were repeated with 
an ominous voice by the soldiers in the 
hearing of the king, who, on being told that 
they were for the acquittal of the bishops, 
said, with an ambiguity probably arising 
from confusion, “ So much the worse for 
them.” The jury were every where re¬ 
ceived with the loudest acclamations : hun¬ 
dreds, with tears in their eyes, embraced 
them as deliverers.^ The bishops, almost 
alarmed at their own success, escaped from 
the huzzas of the people as privately as 
possible, exhorting them to “ fear God and 
honour the king.” Cartwright, bishop of 
Chester, had remained in court during the 
trial unnoticed by any of the crowd of no¬ 
bility and gentry, and Sprat met with little 


Johnstone, that, “ on being sounded by the Court 
agents, they declared that if they were jurors, they 
should act according to their conscience.” 

* Clarendon, 30th June, 
f D’Adda, 16th July. MS. 
j Van Citters, 13th July. MS. 


more regard.* The former, in going to his 
carriage, was called a “ wolf in sheep’s 
clothing; ” and as he was very corpulent, 
the mob cried out, “ Room for the man with 
a pope in his belly! ” They bestowed also 
on Sir William Williams very mortifying 
proofs of disrespect.f 

Money having been thrown among the 
populace for that purpose, they in the 
evening drank the healths of the king, the 
bishops, and the jury, together with con¬ 
fusion to the Papists, amidst the ringing of 
bells, and around bonfires blazing before 
the windows of the king’s palace { ; where 
the pope was burnt in effigy § by those who 
were not aware of his lukewarm friend¬ 
ship for their enemies. Bonfires were also 
kindled before the doors of the most distin¬ 
guished Roman Catholics, who were re¬ 
quired to defray the expense of this annoy¬ 
ance. Lord Arundel, and others, submitted : 
Lord Salisbury, with the zeal of a new 
convert, sent his servants to disperse the 
rabble; but after having fired upon and 
killed only the parish beadle, who came to 
quench the bonfire, they were driven back 
into the house. All parties, Dissenters as 
well as Churchmen, rejoiced in the acquittal: 
the bishops and their friends vainly laboured 
to temper the extravagance with which their 
joy was expressed.|| The nuncio, at first 
touched by the effusion of popular feeling, 
but now shocked by this boisterous triumph, 
declared, “that the fires over the whole 
city, the drinking in every street, accom¬ 
panied by cries to the health of the bishops 
and confusion to the Catholics, with the play 
of fireworks, and the discharge of fire-arms, 
and the other demonstrations of furious 
gladness, mixed with impious outrage against 
religion, which were continued during 
the night, formed a scene of unspeak¬ 
able horror, displaying, in all its rancour 


* Gutch, vol. i. p. 382. 

f Van Citters, 13th July. MS. 

% Ibid. 

§ Johnstone, 2nd July. MS. Gerard, News- 
Letter, 4 th July. 

|| News-Letter, 4th July. 


EE 2 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


420 


the malignity of this heretical people 
against the Church.” * * * § The bonfires were 
kept up during the whole of Saturday; and 
the disorderly rejoicings of the multitude 
did not cease till the dawn of Sunday re¬ 
minded them of the duties of their religion. - }- 
These same rejoicings spread through the 
principal towns. The grand jury of Middle¬ 
sex refused to find indictments for a riot 
against some parties who had tumultuously 
kindled bonfires, though four times sent out 
with instructions to do so. j 

The Court also manifested its deep feel¬ 
ings on this occasion. In two days after 
the acquittal, the rank of a baronet was con¬ 
ferred upon Williams; while Powell for his 
honesty, and Holloway for his hesitation, 
were removed from the bench. The king 
betrayed the disturbance of his mind even 
in his camp §; and, though accustomed to 
unreserved conversation with Barillon, ob¬ 
served a silence on the acquittal which that 
minister was too prudent to interrupt. || 

In order to form a just estimate of this 
memorable trial, it is necessary to distinguish 
its peculiar grievances from the evils which 
always attend the strict administration of 
the laws against political libels. The doc¬ 
trine that every writing which indisposes 
the people towards the administration of the 
Government, however subversive of all po¬ 
litical discussion, is not one of these pe¬ 
culiar grievances, for it has often been held 
in other cases, and perhaps never distinctly 


* D’Adda, 16th July. MS. 

f Ellis, vol. iv. p. 110. 

% Reresby, p. 265. Gerard, News-Letter, 7lh July. 

§ Reresby, supra. 

|| “His Majesty has been pleased to remove Sir 
Richard Holloway and Sir John Powell from being 
justices of the King’s Bench.” London Gazette, 
6th July. In the Life of James II. (vol. ii. p. 163.) 
it is said, that “ the king gave no marks of his 
displeasure to the Judges Holloway and Powell.” 
It is due to the character of James, to say that this 
falsehood does not proceed from him ; and justice 
requires it to be added, that as Dicconson, the 
compiler, thus evidently neglected the most acces¬ 
sible means of ascertaining the truth, very little 
credit is due to those portions of his narrative for 
which, as in the present case, he cites no authority. 


disclaimed; and the position that a libel 
may be conveyed in the form of a petition is 
true, though the case must be evident and 
flagrant which would warrant its applica¬ 
tion. The extravagances of Williams and 
Allibone might in strictness be laid out of 
the case, as peculiar to themselves, and not 
necessary to support the prosecution, were 
it not that they pointed out the threatening 
positions which success in it might en¬ 
courage and enable the enemy to occupy. 
It was absolutely necessary for the Crown 
to contend that the matter of the writing 
was so inflammatory as to change its cha¬ 
racter from that of a petition to that of 
a libel; that the intention in composing it 
was not to obtain relief, but to excite dis¬ 
content ; and that it was presented to the 
king to insult him, and to make its contents 
known to others. But the attempt to ex¬ 
tract such conclusions from the evidence 
against the bishops was an excess beyond 
the furthest limits of the law of libel, as it 
was even then received. The generous 
feelings of mankind did not, however, so 
scrupulously weigh the demerits of the pro¬ 
secution. The effect of this attempt was to 
throw a strong light on all the odious qua¬ 
lities (hid from the mind in their common 
state by familiarity) of a jealous and re¬ 
strictive legislation, directed against the 
free exercise of reason and the fair ex¬ 
amination of the interests of the community. 
All the vices of that distempered state in 
which a government cannot endure a fear¬ 
less discussion of its principles and mea¬ 
sures, appeared in the peculiar evils of a 
single conspicuous prosecution. The feel¬ 
ings of mankind, in this respect more pro¬ 
vident than their judgment, saw, in the loss 
of every post, the danger to the last en¬ 
trenchments of public liberty. A multi¬ 
tude of contemporary circumstances, wholly 
foreign to its character as a judicial pro¬ 
ceeding, gave the trial the strongest hold on 
the hearts of the people. Unused to po¬ 
pular meetings, and little accustomed to 
political writings, the whole nation looked 
on this first public discussion of their rights 
in a high place, surrounded by the majesty 







REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF TIIE REVOLUTION OF 1G88. 421 


of public justice, with that new and intense 
interest which it is not easy for those who 
are familiar with such scenes to imagine. 
It was a prosecution of men of the most 
venerable character and of manifestly inno¬ 
cent intention, after the success of which no 
good man could have been secure. It was 
an experiment, in some measure, to ascertain 
the means and probabilities of general de¬ 
liverance. The Government was on its 
trial: and by the verdict of acquittal, the 
king was justly convicted of a conspiracy to 
maintain usurpation by oppression. 

The solicitude of Sunderland for modera¬ 
tion in these proceedings had exposed him 
to such charges of lukewarmness, that he 
deemed it necessary no longer to delay the 
long-promised and decisive proof of his iden¬ 
tifying his interest with that of his master. 
Sacrifices of a purely religious nature cost 
him little.* * * * § Some time before, he had com¬ 
pounded for his own delay by causing his 
eldest son to abjure Protestantism, “ choos¬ 
ing rather,” says Barillon, “ to expose his 
son than himself to future hazard.” The 
specious excuse of preserving his vote in 
Parliament had hitherto been deemed suffi¬ 
cient, while the shame of apostasy, and an 
anxiety not to embroil himself irreparably 
with a Protestant successor, were the real 
motives for delay. But nothing less than a 
public avowal of his conversion would now 
suffice to shut the mouths of his enemies, 
who imputed his advice of lenity towards 
the bishops to a desire of keeping measures 
with the adherents of the Prince of Orange.f 
It was accordingly in the week of the bishops’ 
trial that he made public his renunciation 
of the Protestant religion, but without any 
solemn abjuration, because he had the year 
before secretly performed that ceremony to 


* “On ne scait pas de quelle religion il est.” 
Lettre d’un Anonyme (peut-etre Bonrepos) sur la 
Cour de Londres, 1688, MSS. in the Depot des 
Affaires Etrangeres, at Paris. 

I “ II a voulu fermer la bouche h ses ennemis, et 
leur oter toute pretexte de dire qu’il peut entrer 
dans sa conduite quelque management pour la 
partie de M. le Prince d’Orange.” Barillon, 8th 
July. MS. 


Father Petre.* By this measure he com¬ 
pletely succeeded in preserving or recovering 
the favour of the king, who announced it 
with the warmest commendations to his 
Catholic counsellors, and told the nuncio that 
a resolution so generous and holy would 
very much contribute to the service of God. 
“ I have, indeed, been informed,” says that 
minister, “ that some of the most fanatical 
merchants of the city have observed that the 
royal party must certainly be the strongest, 
since, in the midst of the universal exas¬ 
peration of men’s minds, it is thus embraced 
by a man so wise, prudent, rich, and well 
informed.” f The Catholic courtiers also 
considered the conversion as an indication of 
the superior strength and approaching tri¬ 
umph of their religion. Perhaps, indeed, 
the birth of the Prince of Wales might have 
somewhat encouraged him to the step ; but 
it chiefly arose from the prevalence of the 
present fear for his place over the appre¬ 
hension of remote consequences. Ashamed 
of his conduct, he employed a friend to com¬ 
municate his change to his excellent wife, 
who bitterly deplored it. j His uncle, Henry 
Sidney, the most confidential agent of the 
Prince of Orange, was incensed at his apos¬ 
tasy, and openly expressed the warmest 
wishes for his downfall.§ 

Two days after the imprisonment of the 
bishops — as if all the events which were to 


* Barillon, suprh,. “ Father Petre, though it was 
irregular, was forced to say two masses in one 
morning, because Lord Sunderland and Lord Mul- 
grave were not to know of each other’s conver¬ 
sion.” Halifax MSS. The French ambassador at 
Constantinople informed Sir William Trumbull of 
the secret abjuration. Ibid. “ It is now neces¬ 
sary,” says Van Citters (6th July), “ to secure the 
king’s favour; the queen’s if she be regent; and 
his own place in the council of regency, if there be 
one.” 

f D’Adda, 9th July. MS. 

j Evelyn, who visited Althorp a fortnight after¬ 
wards, thus alludes to it: “I wish from my soul 
that the lord her husband, whose parts are other¬ 
wise conspicuous, were as worthy of her, as by a 
fatal apostasy and court ambition he has made 
himself unworthy.” Diary, 18th July. 

§ Johnstone, 2nd July. MS. 








422 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

hasten the catastrophe of this reign, however 
various in their causes or unlike in their 
nature, were to be crowded into the same 
scene—the queen had been delivered in the 
palace of St. James’s, of a son, whose birth 
had been the object of more hopes and fears, 
and was now the hinge on which greater 
events turned, than that of any other royal 
infant since human affairs have been recorded 
in authentic history. Never did the de¬ 
pendence of a monarchical government on 
physical accident more strikingly appear. 
On Trinity Sunday, the 10th of June, be¬ 
tween nine and ten in the morning, the 
Prince of Wales was born, in the presence 
of the queen dowager, of most of the Privy 
Council, and of several ladies of quality—of 
all, in short, who were the natural witnesses 
on such an occasion, except the Princess 
Anne, who was at Bath, and the Archbishop 
of Canterbury, who was a prisoner in the 
Tower. The cannons of the Tower were 
fired, a general thanksgiving was ordered, 
and the lord mayor was enjoined to give 
directions for bonfires and public rejoicing. 
Some addresses of congratulation followed ; 
and compliments were received on so happy 
an occasion from foreign powers. The Bri¬ 
tish ministers abroad, in due time, celebrated 
the auspicious birth—with undisturbed mag¬ 
nificence at Rome — amidst the loudest mani¬ 
festations of dissatisfaction and apprehension 
at Amsterdam. From Jamaica to Madras, 
the distant dependencies, with which an un¬ 
frequent intercourse was then maintained by 
tedious voyages, continued their prescribed 
rejoicings long after other feelings openly 
prevailed in the mother country. The genius 
of Dryden, which often struggled with the 
difficulty of a task imposed, commemorated 
the birth of the “ son of prayer” in no ig¬ 
noble verse, but with prophecies of glory 
which were speedily clouded, and in the end 
most signally disappointed.* 

The universal belief that the child was 
supposititious, is a fact which illustrates seve¬ 
ral principles of human nature, and affords 
a needful and wholesome lesson of scepticism, 
even in cases where many testimonies seem 
to combine, and all judgments for a time 
agree. The historians who wrote while the 
dispute was still pending, enlarge on the 
particulars. In our age, the only circum¬ 
stances deserving preservation are those 
which throw light on the origin and recep¬ 
tion of a false opinion which must be owned 
to have contributed to subsequent events. 
Few births are so well attested as that of the 
unfortunate prince, whom almost all English 
Protestants then believed to be spurious. 
The queen had, for months before, alluded 
to her pregnancy, in the most unaffected 
manner, to the Princess of Orange.* The 
delivery took place in the presence of many 
persons of unsuspected veracity, a consider¬ 
able number of whom were Protestants. 
Messengers were early sent to fetch Dr. 
Chamberlain, an eminent obstetrical prac¬ 
titioner, and a noted Whig, who had been 
oppressed by the king, and who would have 
been the last person summoned to be present 
at a pretended delivery.j* But as not one in 
a thousand had credited the pregnancy, the 
public now looked at the birth with a strong 
predisposition to unbelief, which a very na¬ 
tural neglect suffered for some time to grow 
stronger from being uncontradicted. This 
prejudice was provoked to greater violence 
by the triumph of the Catholics, as suspicion 
had before been awakened by their bold 

Fain would the fiends have made a dubious birth. 

* * * * * 

No future ills, nor accidents, appear, 

To sully or pollute the sacred infant’s year. 

* * * * * * 

But kings too tame arc despicably good. 

Be this the mixture of the regal child, 

By nature manly, but by virtue mild.” 

Britannia Rcdiviva. 

* Ellis, Original Letters, 1st series, vol. iii. 
p. 348. ‘21st Feb., 15th May, 6th—13th July. 

The last is decisive. 

f Dr. Chamberlain’s Letter to the Princess 
Sophia. Dalrymple, app. to book v. 

* “ Born in broad daylight, that the ungrateful rout 
May find no room for a remaining doubt: 

Truth, which itself is light, does darkness shun, 
And the true eaglet safely dares the sun. 













REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 423 


predictions. The importance of the event 
had, at the earlier period of the pregnancy, 
produced mystery and reserve — the fre¬ 
quent attendants of fearful anxiety—which 
were eagerly seized on as presumptions of 
sinister purpose. When a passionate and 
inexperienced queen disdained to take any 
measures to silence malicious rumours, her 
inaction was imputed to inability; and when 
she submitted to the use of prudent precau¬ 
tions, they were represented as betraying 
the fears of conscious guilt. Every act of 
the royal family had some handle by which 
ingenious hostility could turn it against them. 
Reason was employed only to discover ar¬ 
gument in support of the judgment which 
passion had pronounced. In spite of the 
strongest evidence, the Princess Anne 
honestly persevered in her incredulity.* 
Johnstone, who received minute information 
of all the particulars of the delivery from one 
of the queen’s attendants f, could not divest 
himself of suspicions, the good faith of which 
seems to be proved by his not hazarding a 
positive judgment on the subject. By these 
the slightest incidents of a lying-in room 
were darkly coloured. No incidents in 
human life could have stood the test of a 
trial by minds so prejudiced — especially as 
long as adverse scrutiny had the advantages 
of the partial selection and skilful insinuation 
of facts, undisturbed by that full discussion 
in which all circumstances are equally sifted. 
When the before-mentioned attendant of the 
queen declared to a large company of gain- 
sayers that “ she would swear” (as she after¬ 
wards did) “ that the queen had a child,” it 
was immediately said, “How ambiguous is 
her expression! the child might have been 
born dead.” At one moment Johnstone 
boasts of the universal unbelief; at another 
he is content with saying that even wise men 


* Princess Anne to the Princess of Orange. 
Dalrymple, app. to book v. 

f Mrs. Dawson, one of the gentlewomen of the 
queen’s bedchamber, a Protestant, afterwards ex¬ 
amined before the Privy Council, who communi¬ 
cated all the circumstances to her friend, Mrs. 
Baillie, of Jerviswood, Johnstone’s sister. 


see no evidence of the birth; that, at all 
events, there is doubt enough to require a 
parliamentary inquiry; and that the general 
doubt may be lawfully employed as an argu¬ 
ment by those who, even if they do not share 
it, did nothing to produce it. He sometimes 
endeavours to stifle his own scepticism with 
the public opinion, and on other occasions 
has recourse to these very ambiguous maxims 
of factious casuistry; but the whole tenor 
of his confidential letters shows the ground¬ 
less unbelief in the prince’s legitimacy to 
have been as spontaneous as it was general. 
Various, and even contradictory, accounts of 
the supposed imposture were circulated: it 
was said that the queen was never pregnant; 
that she had miscarried at Easter ; that one 
child, and by some accounts two children in 
succession, had been substituted in the room 
of the abortion. That these tales contra¬ 
dicted each other, was a very slight objection 
in the eye of a national prejudice: the 
people were very slow in seeing the contra¬ 
diction ; some had heard only one story, and 
some jumbled parts of more together. The 
zealous, when beat out of one version, retired 
upon another: the skilful chose that which, 
like the abortion (of which there had ac¬ 
tually been a danger), had some apparent 
support from facts. When driven succes¬ 
sively from every post, they took refuge in 
the general remark, that so many stories 
must have a foundation ; that they all coin¬ 
cided in the essential circumstance of a sup¬ 
posititious birth, though they differed in facts 
of inferior moment; that the king deserved, 
by his other breaches of faith, the humilia¬ 
tion which he now underwent; and that the 
natural punishment of those who have often 
deceived is to be disbelieved when they speak 
truth. It is the policy of most parties not 
to discourage zealous partisans. The mul¬ 
titude considered every man who hesitated 
in thinking the worst of an enemy, as his 
abettor; and thejoudness of the popular cry 
subdued the remains of candid doubt in 
those who had at first, from policy, coun¬ 
tenanced, though they did not contrive, the 
delusion. In subsequent times, it was not 
thought the part of a good citizen to aid in 








424 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


detecting a prevalent error, which enabled 
the partisans of inviolable succession to ad¬ 
here to the principles of the Revolution 
without inconsistency during the reign of 
Anne* * * * § , and through which the House of 
Hanover itself were brought at least nearer 
to an hereditary right. Johnstone on the 
spot, and at the moment, almost worked 
himself into a belief of it; while Lloyd, 
bishop of St. Asaph, honestly adhered to it 
many years afterwards.] - The collection of 
inconsistent rumours on this subject by 
Burnet reflects more on his judgment than 
any other passage of his history: yet, zealous 
as he was, his conscience would not allow 
him to profess his own belief in what was 
still a fundamental article of the creed of 
his party. Echard, writing under George I., 
intimates his disbelief, for which he is almost 
rebuked by Kennet. The upright and judi¬ 
cious Rapin, though a French Protestant, 
and an officer in the army led by the Prince 
of Orange into England, yet, in the liberty 
of his foreign retirement, gave an honest 
judgment against his prejudices. Both par¬ 
ties, on this subject, so exactly believed what 
they wished, that perhaps scarcely any indi¬ 
vidual before him examined it on grounds of 
reason. The Catholics were right by chance, 
and by chance the Protestants were wrong. 
Had it been a case of the temporary success 
of artful impostures, so common an occur¬ 
rence would have deserved no notice; but 
the growth of a general delusion from the 
prejudice and passion of a nation, and the 
deep root which enabled it to keep a place 
in history for half a century, render this 
transaction worthy to be remembered by 
posterity. 


* Caveat against the Whigs, part ii. p. 50., — 
where the question is left in doubt at the critical 
period of 1712. 

j- See his account, adverted to by Burnet and 
others, published by Oldmixon, vol. i. p. 734. 
“ The bishop whom your friends know, bids me 
tell them that he had met with neither man nor 
woman who were so good as to believe the 
Prince of Wales to be a lawful child.” Johnstone, 
2nd July. MS. This bold bishop was probably 
Compton. 


The triumph of the bishops did not ter¬ 
minate all proceedings of the ecclesiastical 
commissioners against the disobedient clergy. 
They issued an order* requiring the proper 
officers in each diocese to make a return of 
the names of those who had not read the 
Royal Declaration. On the day before that 
which was fixed for the giving in the return, 
a meeting of chancellors and archdeacons was 
held; of whom eight agreed to return that 
they had no means of procuring the inform¬ 
ation but at their regular visitation, which 
did not fall within the appointed time, six 
declined to make any return at all, and five 
excused themselves on the plea that the 
order had not been legally served upon 
them, f The commissioners, now content to 
shut their eyes on lukewarmness, resistance, 
or evasion, affected a belief .in the reasons 
assigned for non-compliance, and directed 
another return to be made on the 6th of 
December, appointing a previous day for a 
visitation.]; On the day when the board 
exhibited these sysmptoms of debility and 
decay, it received a letter from Sprat, ten¬ 
dering the resignation of his seat, which was 
universally regarded as foreboding its speedy 
dissolution § ; and the last dying effort of its 
usurped authority was to adjourn to a day 
on which it was destined never to meet. 
Such, indeed, was the discredit into which 
these proceedings had fallen, that the Bishop 
of Chichester had the spirit to suspend one 
of his clergy for obedience to the king’s 
order in reading the Declaration. || 

The Court and the Church now contended 
with each other for the alliance of the Dis- 


* London Gazette, 12th July, 

f Sayers’ News-Letter, 18th August, 

j London Gazette, lGth August. 

§ Sayers’ News-Letter, 22nd August. “The 
secretary gave this letter to the chancellor, who 
swore that the bishop was mad. He gave it to 
the lord president, but it was never read to the 
board.” Such was then the disorder in their minds 
and in their proceedings. 

|| Ibid. 19tli Sept., Kennet, vol. iii. p. 515. note; 
in both which, the date of Sprat’s letter is 15th 
August, the day before the last meeting of the 
commissioners. 













REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688 425 

senters, but with very unequal success. The 
last attempt of the king to gain them, was 
the admission into the Privy Council of three 
gentlemen, who were either Nonconformists, 
or well-disposed towards that body, — Sir 
John Trevor, Colonel Titus, and Mr. Vane, 
the posthumous son of the celebrated Sir 
Henry Vane.* The Church took better 
means to unite all Protestants against a 
usurpation which clothed itself in the garb 
of religious liberty; and several consulta¬ 
tions were held on the mode of coming to a 
better understanding with the Dissenters.f 
The archbishop and clergy of London had 
several conferences with the principal Dis¬ 
senting ministers on the measures fit to be 
proposed about religion in the next Parlia¬ 
ment.! The primate himself issued admo¬ 
nitions to his clergy, in which he exhorted 
them to have a very tender regard towards 
their Dissenting brethren, and to entreat them 
to join in prayer for the union of all Reformed 
churches “ at home and abroad, against the 
common enemy,” § conformably to the late 
petition of himself and his brethren, in 
which they had declared their willingness to 
come into such a temper as should be thought 
fit with the Dissenters, whenever that matter 
should be considered in parliament and con¬ 
vocation. He even carried this new-born 
tenderness so far as to renew those projects 
for uniting the more moderate to the Church 
by some concessions in the terms of worship, 
and for exempting those whose scruples 
were insurmountable from the severity of 
penal laws, which had been foiled by his 
friends, when they were negotiated by Hale 
and Baxter in the preceding reign, and which 
were again within a few months afterwards 
to be resisted, by the same party, and with 
too much success. Among the instances of 
the disaffection of the Church, the University 
of Oxford refused so small a compliance as 
that of conferring the degree of doctor of 
divinity on their bishop, according to the 

royal mandamus *, and hastened to elect the 
young Duke of Ormonde to be their chan¬ 
cellor on the death of his grandfather, in 
order to escape the imposition of Jeffreys, in 
whose favour they apprehended a recom¬ 
mendation from the Court. 

Several symptoms now indicated that the 
national discontents had infected the armed 
force. The seamen of the squadron at the 
Nore received some monks who were sent to 
officiate among them with boisterous marks 
of derision and aversion; and, though the 
tumult was composed by the presence of 
the king, it left behind dispositions favour¬ 
able to the purposes of disaffected officers. 
James’s proceedings respecting the army 
were uniformly impolitic. He had, very early, 
boasted of the number of his guards who 
were converted to his religion; thus disclos¬ 
ing to them the dangerous secret of their 
importance to his designs.f The sensibility 
evinced at the Tower and at Lambeth, be¬ 
tokened a proneness to fellow-feeling with 
the people, which Sunderland had before 
intimated to the nuncio, and of which he had 
probably forewarned his master. After the 
triumph of the prelates, on which occasion 
the feelings of the army declared themselves 
still more loudly, the king had recourse to 
the very doubtful expedient of paying open 
court to it. He dined twice a week in the 
camp +, and showed an anxiety to ingratiate 
himself by a display of affability, of pre¬ 
cautions for the comfort, and of pride in the 
discipline and appearance of the troops. 
Without the boldness which quells a mutinous 
spirit, or the firmness which, where activity 
would be injurious, can quietly look at a 
danger till it disappears or may be sur¬ 
mounted, he yielded to the restless fearful¬ 
ness which seeks a momentary relief in rash 
and mischievous efforts, that rouse many 
rebellious tempers and subdue none. A 
written test was prepared, which even the 
privates were required to subscribe, by 
which they bound themselves to contribute 

* London Gazette, Gth July, 
f Savers’ News-Letter, 7th July, 
i Ibid. 21st July. Ellis, vol. iv. p. 117. 

§ D’Oyley, vol. i. p. 324. 

* Sayers’ News-Letter, 25th July, 
f D’Adda, 5th Dec. 1687. MS. 
x Ellis, vol. iv. p. 111. 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


426 

to the repeal of the penal laws.* It was 
first to be tendered to the regiments who 
were most confidently expected to set a good 
example to the others. The experiment was 
first tried on Lord Lichfield’s, and all who 
hesitated to comply with the king’s com¬ 
mands were ordered to lay down their arms: 
— the whole regiment, except two captains 
and a few Catholic privates, actually laid 
down their arms. The king was thunder¬ 
struck ; and, after a gloomy moment of 
silence, ordered them to take up their mus¬ 
kets, saying, “ that he should not again do 
them the honour to consult them.” f When 
the troops returned from the encampment 
to their quarters, another plan was attempted 
for securing their fidelity, by the introduc¬ 
tion of trustworthy recruits. With this 
view, fifty Irish Catholics were ordered to 
be equally distributed among the ten com¬ 
panies of the Duke of Berwick’s regiment 
at Portsmouth, which, having already a 
colonel incapacitated by law, was expected 
to be better disposed to the reception of 
recruits liable to the same objection. But 
the experiment was too late, and was also 
conducted with a slow formality alien to the 
genius of soldiers. The officers were now 
actuated by the same sentiments with their 
own class in society. Beaumont, the 
lieutenant-colonel, and the five captains who 
were present, positively refused to comply. 
They were brought to Windsor under an 
escort of cavalry, tried by a council of war, 
and sentenced to be cashiered. The king 
now relented, or rather faltered, offering 
pardon on condition of obedience, — a fault 
as great as the original attempt: they all 
refused. The greater part of the other 
officers of the regiment threw up their com¬ 
missions ; and, instead of intimidation, a 


* Johnstone, 2nd July. MS. Oldmixon, vol. i. 
p. 739. 

f Kennet, vol. iii. p. 516. Ralph speaks doubt¬ 
fully of this scene, of which, indeed, no writer has 
mentioned the place or time. The written test is 
confirmed by Johnstone, and Kennet could hardly 
nave been deceived about the sequel. The place 
must have been the camp at HounsloAv, and the 
time was probably about the middle of July. 


great and general discontent was spread 
throughout the army. Thus, to the odium 
incurred by an attempt to recruit it from 
those who were deemed the most hostile of 
foreign enemies, was superadded the con¬ 
tempt which feebleness in the execution of 
obnoxious designs never fails to inspire.* 

Thus, in the short space of three years 
from the death of Monmouth and the de¬ 
struction of his adherents, when all who 
were not zealously attached to the Crown 
seemed to be dependent on its mercy, were 
all ranks and parties of the English nation, 
without any previous show of turbulence, 
and with not much of that cruel oppression 
of individuals which is usually necessary to 
awaken the passions of a people, slowly and 
almost imperceptibly conducted to the brink 
of a great revolution. The appearance of 
the Prince of Wales filled the minds of those 
who believed his legitimacy with terror; 
while it roused the warmest indignation of 
those who considered his supposed birth as a 
flagitious imposture. Instead of the govern¬ 
ment of a Protestant successor, it presented, 
after the death of James, both during the 
regency of the queen, and the reign of a 
prince educated under her superintendence, 
no prospect but an administration certainly 
not more favourable than his to religion and 
liberty. These apprehensions had been 
brought home to the feelings of the people 
by the trial of the bishops, and had at last 
affected even the army, the last resource of 
power, — a tremendous weapon, which can¬ 
not burst without threatening destruction to 
all around, and which, if it were not some¬ 
times happily so overcharged as to recoil on 
him who wields it, would rob all the slaves 
in the world of hope, and all the freemen of 
safety. 

The state of the other British kingdoms 
was not such as to abate the alarms of 
England. In Ireland the government of 
Tyrconnel was always sufficiently in advance 
of the English minister to keep the eyes of 
the nation fixed on the course which their 


* Reresby, p. 270., who seems to have been a 
captain in this regiment. Burnet, vol. iii. p. 272. 










REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 427 

rulers were steering.* Its influence in 
spreading alarm and disaffection through 
the other dominions of the king, was con¬ 
fessed by the ablest and most zealous of his 
apologists. 

Scotland was also a mirror in which the 
English nation might behold their approach¬ 
ing doom. The natural tendency of the 
dispensing and suspending powers to ter¬ 
minate in 'the assumption of the whole 
authority of legislation, was visible in the 
declarations of indulgence issued in that 
kingdom. They did not, as in England, 
profess to be founded on limited and pecu¬ 
liar prerogatives of the king, either as the 
head of the Church or as the fountain of 
justice, nor on usages and determinations 
which, if they sanctioned such acts of power, 
at least confined them within fixed bound¬ 
aries, but upon what the king himself dis¬ 
played, in all its amplitude and with all its 
terrors, as “ our sovereign authority, pre¬ 
rogative royal, and absolute power, which 
all our subjects are bound to obey without 
reservation.” f In the exercise of this alarm¬ 
ing power, not only were all the old oaths 
taken away, but a new one, professing 
passive obedience, was proposed as the con- 

dition of toleration. A like declaration in 
1688, besides the repetition of so high an 
act of legislative power as that of “ an¬ 
nulling” oaths which the legislature had 
prescribed, proceeds to dissolve all the courts 
of justice and bodies of magistracy in that 
kingdom, in order that by their acceptance 
of new commissions conformably to the royal 
pleasure, they might renounce all former 
oaths; — so that every member of them 
would hold his office under the suspending 
and even annulling powers, on the legiti¬ 
macy of which the whole judicature and 
administration of the realm would thus ex¬ 
clusively rest.” * Blood had now ceased to 
flow for religion; and the execution of Ren- 
wickj*, a pious and intrepid minister, who, 
according to the principles of the Came- 
ronians, openly denied James II. to be his 
rightful sovereign, is rather an apparent 
than a real exception: for the offence im¬ 
puted to him was not of a religious nature, 
and must have been punished by every 
established authority; though an impartial 
observer would rather regret the impru¬ 
dence than question the justice of such a 
declaration from the mouths of these perse¬ 
cuted men. Books against the king’s reli¬ 
gion were reprehended or repressed by the 
Privy Council. J Barclay, the celebrated 
Quaker, was at this time in such favour, 
that he not only received a liberal pension, 

* “I do not vindicate all that Lord Tyrconnel, 
and others, did in Ireland before the Revolution; 
which, most of any thing, brought it on. I am 
sensible that their carriage gave greater occasion 
to King James’s enemies than all the other mal¬ 
administrations charged upon his government.” 
Leslie, Answer to King’s State of the Protestants, 
p. 73. Leslie is the ablest of James’s apologists. 
He skilfully avoids all the particulars of Tyrcon- 
nel’s government before the Revolution. That 
silence, and this general admission, may be con¬ 
sidered as conclusive evidence against it. 

f Proclamation, 12tli Feb. 1687. Wodrow, vol. ii. 
app. No. cxxix. “ We here in England see what 
we must look to. A Parliament in Scotland 
proved a little stubborn; now absolute power comes 
to set all right: so w'hen the closeting has gone 
round, we may perhaps see a parliament here: but 
if it chance to be untoward, then our reverend 
judges will copy from Scotland, and will discover 
to us this new mystery of absolute power, which 
we are all obliged to obey without reserve.” Bur¬ 
net, Reflections on Proclamation for Toleration. 

* Proclamation, 15th May. Wodrow, vol. ii. 
app. No. cxxxviii. Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 504. 
The latter writer informs us, that “ this occasioned 
several sheriffs to forbear awhile.” Perth, the 
Scotch chancellor, who carried this Declaration to 
Scotland, assured the nuncio, before leaving Lon¬ 
don, “ that the royal prerogative was then so ex¬ 
tensive as not to require the concurrence of Parlia¬ 
ment, which was only an useful corroboration.” 
D’Adda, 21st May. MS. 
f On the 17th Feb. 1688. 
j A bookseller in Edinburgh was “ threatened 
for publishing an account of the persecution in 
France.” Fountainhall, 8th Feb. 1688. Cockburn, 
a minister, was forbidden to continue a Review, 
taken chiefly from Le Clerc’s Biblioth&que Univer- 
selle, containing some extracts from Mabillon’s 
Iter Italicum, which were supposed to reflect on 
the Church of Rome. 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


428 


but had influence enough to procure an 
indecent, but successful letter from the 
king to the court of session, in effect an¬ 
nulling a judgment for a large sum of money 
which had been obtained against Sir Ewen 
Cameron, a bold and fierce chieftain, the 
brother-in-law of the accomplished and pa¬ 
cific apologist.* * * § * Though the clergy of the 
Established Church had two years before 
resisted an unlimited toleration by preroga¬ 
tive, yet we are assured by a competent 
witness, that their opposition arose chiefly 
from the fear that it would encourage the 
unhappy Presbyterians, then almost entirely 
ruined and scattered through the world.f 
The deprivation of two prelates, Bruce, 
bishop of Dunkeld, for his conduct in par¬ 
liament, and Cairncross, archbishop of Glas¬ 
gow, in spite of subsequent submission, for 
not censuring a preacher against the Church 
of Rome j, showed the English clergy that 
suspensions like that of Compton might be 
followed by more decisive measures; but 
seems to have silenced the complaints of the 
Scottish Church. From that time, at least, 
their resistance to the Court entirely ceased. 
It was followed by symptoms of an opposite 
disposition; among which may probably be 
reckoned the otherwise inexplicable return 
to the office of lord advocate of the eloquent 
Sir George Mackenzie, their principal in¬ 
strument in the cruel persecution of the 
Presbyterians, —who now accepted that sta¬ 
tion at the moment of the triumph of those 
principles by opposing which he had forfeited 
it two years before.§ The primate prevailed 
on the University of St. Andrews to declare, 
by an address to the king, their opinion that 
he might take away the penal laws without 
the consent of Parliament || No manifesta¬ 
tion of sympathy appears to have been made 
towards the English bishops, at the moment 


* Fountainhall, 2nd June, 
f Balcarras, Affairs of Scotland (London, 1714), 

p.8. 

X Skinner, Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, 
vol. ii. pp. 500—504. 

§ Fountainhall, 23rd February. 

|| Ibid. 29th March. * 


of their danger, or of their triumph, by their 
brethren in Scotland. At a subsequent pe¬ 
riod, when the prelates of England offered 
wholesome and honest counsel to their sove¬ 
reign, those of Scotland presented an address 
to him, in which they prayed that “God 
might give him the hearts of his subjects and 
the necks of his enemies.” * In the awful 
struggle in which the English nation and 
Church were about to engage, they had to 
number the Established Church of Scotland 
among their enemies. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Doctrine of Obedience. — Eight of Resistance.— 
Comparison of Foreign and Civil War. — Right 
of calling Auxiliaries. — Relations of the People 
of England and of Holland. 

The time was now come when the people 
of England were called upon to determine, 
whether they should by longer submission 
sanction the usurpations and encourage the 
further encroachments of the Crown, or 
take up arms against the established autho¬ 
rity of their sovereign for the defence of 
their legal rights, as well as of those safe¬ 
guards which the constitution had placed 
around them. Though the solution of this 
tremendous problem requires the calmest 
exercise of reason, the circumstances which 
bring it forward commonly call forth mightier 
agents, which disturb and overpower the 
action of the understanding. In conjunc¬ 
tures so awful, where men feel more than 
their reason, their conduct is chiefly go¬ 
verned by the boldness or wariness of their 
nature, by their love of liberty or their 
attachment to quiet, by their proneness or 
slowness to fellow-feeling with their country¬ 
men. The generous virtues and turbulent 
passions rouse the brave and aspiring to 
resistance; some gentle virtues and useful 
principles second the qualities of human 
nature in disposing many to submission. 


* Skinner, vol. ii. p. 513. 










REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 429 


The duty of legal obedience seems to forbid 
that appeal to arms which the necessity of 
preserving law and liberty allows, or rather 
demands. In such a conflict there is little 
quiet left for moral deliberation. Yet by 
the immutable principles of morality, and 
by them alone, must the historian try the 
conduct of all men, before he allows himself 
to consider all the circumstances of time, 
place, opinion, example, temptation, and ob¬ 
stacle, which, though they never authorise 
a removal of the everlasting landmarks of 
right and wrong, ought to be well weighed, 
in allotting a due degree of commendation 
or censure to human actions. 

The English law, like that of most other 
countries, lays down no limits of obedience. 
The clergy of the Established Church, the 
authorised teachers of public morality, car¬ 
ried their principles much farther than was 
required by a mere concurrence with this 
cautious silence of the law. Not content 
with inculcating, in common with all other 
moralists, religious or philosophical obedience 
to civil government as one of the most 
essential duties of human life, the English 
Church perhaps alone had solemnly pro¬ 
nounced, that in the conflict of obligations 
no other rule of duty could, under any 
circumstances, become more binding than 
that of allegiance. Even the duty which 
seems paramount to every other, — that 
which requires every citizen to contribute 
to the preservation of the community,— 
ceased, according to their moral system, to 
have any binding force, whenever it could 
not be performed without resistance to esta¬ 
blished government. Regarding the power 
of a monarch as more sacred than the 
paternal authority from which they vainly 
laboured to derive it, they refused to na¬ 
tions oppressed by the most cruel tyrants* * * § 
those rights of self-defence which no moralist 
or lawgiver had ever denied to children 
against unnatural parents. To palliate the 
extravagance of thus representing obedience 


* Interpretation of Romans, xiii. 1—7., written 
under Kero. See, among many others, South, 
Sermon on 5tli November, 1663. 


as the only duty without an exception, an 
appeal was made to the divine origin of 
government; — as if every other moral rule 
were not, in the opinion of all theists, equally 
enjoined and sanctioned by the Deity. To 
denote these singular doctrines, it was 
thought necessary to devise the terms of 
“passive obedience” and “non-resistance,” 
— uncouth and jarring forms of speech, 
not unfitly representing a violent departure 
from the general judgment of mankind. 
This attempt to exalt submission so high as 
to be always the highest duty, constituted 
the undistinguishing loyalty of which the 
Church of England boasted as her exclusive 
attribute, in contradistinction to the other 
reformed communions, as well as to the 
Church of Rome. At the dawn of the Re¬ 
formation it had been promulgated in the 
Homilies or discourses appointed by the 
Church to be read from the pulpit to the 
people *; and all deviations from it had 
been recently condemned by the University 
of Oxford with the solemnity of a decree 
from Rome or from Trent, f The seven 
bishops themselves, in the very petition, 
which brought the contest with the Crown 
to a crisis, boasted of the inviolable obe¬ 
dience of their Church, and of the honour 
conferred on them by the king’s repeated 
acknowledgments of it. Nay, all the eccle¬ 
siastics and the principal laymen of the 
Church had recorded their adherence to the 
same principles, in a still more solemn and 
authoritative mode. By the Act of Uni¬ 
formity J, which restored the legal establish¬ 
ment of the Episcopal Church, it was enacted 
that every clergyman, schoolmaster, and pri¬ 
vate tutor should subscribe a declaration, 
affirming that “it was not lawful on any 
pretext to take up arms against the king,” 
which members of corporations § and officers 
of militia || were by other statutes of the 
same period also compelled to swear : — to 


* Homilies of Edward YI. and Elizabeth, 

f Parliamentary History, 20th July, 1683. 

J 14 Ch. II. c. 4. 

§ 13 Ch. II. stat. ii. c. 1. 

|| 14Ch.II. c.3. 

















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


430 


say nothing of the still more comprehen¬ 
sive oath which the High-Church leaders, 
thirteen years before the trial of the bishops, 
had laboured to impose on all public officers, 
magistrates, ecclesiastics, and members of 
both Houses of Parliament. 

That no man can lawfully promise what 
he cannot lawfully do is a self-evident pro¬ 
position. That there are some duties supe¬ 
rior to others, will be denied by no one; and 
that when a contest arises, the superior ought 
to prevail, is implied in the terms by which 
the duties are described. It can hardly be 
doubted that the highest obligation of a 
citizen is that of contributing to preserve 
the community; and that every other poli¬ 
tical duty, even that of obedience to the 
magistrates, is derived from and must be 
subordinate to it. It is a necessary con¬ 
sequence of these simple truths, that no 
man who deems self-defence lawful in his 
own case, can, by any engagement, bind 
himself not to defend his country against 
foreign or domestic enemies. Though the 
opposite propositions really involve a con¬ 
tradiction in terms, yet declarations of their 
truth were imposed by law, and oaths to 
renounce the defence of our country were 
considered as binding, till the violent col¬ 
lision of such pretended obligations with the 
security of all rights and institutions awak¬ 
ened the national mind to a sense of their 
repugnance to the first principles of morality. 
Maxims, so artificial and over-strained, 
which have no more root in nature than 
they have warrant from reason, must always 
fail in a contest against the affections, senti¬ 
ments, habits, and interests which are the 
motives of human conduct,—leaving little 
more than compassionate indulgence to the 
small number who conscientiously cling to 
them, and fixing the injurious imputation 
of inconsistency on the great body who 
forsake them for better guides. 

The war of a people against a tyrannical 
government may be tried by the same tests 
which ascertain the morality of a war be¬ 
tween independent nations. The employ¬ 
ment of force in the intercourse of reason¬ 
able beings is never lawful, but for the 


purpose of repelling or averting wrongful 
force. Human life cannot lawfully be de¬ 
stroyed, or assailed, or endangered for any 
other object than that of just defence. Such 
is the nature and such the boundary of 
legitimate self-defence in the case of indi¬ 
viduals. Hence the right of the lawgiver 
to protect unoffending citizens by the ade¬ 
quate punishment of crimes: hence, also, 
the right of an independent state to take 
all measures necessary to her safety, if it be 
attacked or threatened from without; pro¬ 
vided always that reparation cannot other¬ 
wise be obtained, that there is a reasonable 
prospect of obtaining it by arms, and that 
the evils of the contest are not probably 
greater than the mischiefs of acquiescence 
in the wrong; including, on both sides of 
the deliberation, the ordinary consequences 
of the example, as well as the immediate 
effects of the act. If reparation can other¬ 
wise be obtained, a nation has no necessary, 
and therefore no just cause of war; if there 
be no probability of obtaining it by arms, a 
government cannot, with justice to their 
own nation, embark it in war; and if the 
evils of resistance should appear, on the 
whole, greater than those of submission, wise 
rulers will consider an abstinence from a 
pernicious exercise of right as a sacred duty 
to their own subjects, and a debt which 
every people owes to the great common¬ 
wealth of mankind, of which they and their 
enemies are alike members. A war is just 
against the wrongdoer when reparation for 
wrong cannot otherwise be obtained; but it 
is then only conformable to all the prin¬ 
ciples of morality, when it is not likely to 
expose the nation by whom it is levied to 
greater evils than it professes to avert, and 
when it does not inflict on the nation which 
has done the wrong sufferings altogether 
disproportioned to the extent of the injury. 
When the rulers of a nation are required to 
determine a question of peace or war, the 
bare justice of their case against the wrong¬ 
doer never can be the sole, and is not 
always the chief matter on which they are 
morally bound to exercise a conscientious 
deliberation. Prudence in conducting the 






REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 431 


affairs of their subjects is, in them, a part 
of justice. 

On the same principles the justice of a 
war made by a people against their own 
government must be examined. A govern¬ 
ment is entitled to obedience from the 
people, because without obedience it cannot 
perform the duty, for which alone it exists, 
of protecting them from each other’s injus¬ 
tice. But when a government is engaged 
in systematically oppressing a people, or in 
destroying their securities against future 
oppression, it commits the same species of 
wrong towards them which warrants an 
appeal to arms against a foreign .enemy. A 
magistrate who degenerates into a system¬ 
atic oppressor shuts the gates of justice, 
and thereby restores them to their original 
right of defending themselves by force. As 
he withholds the protection of law from 
them, he forfeits his moral claim to enforce 
their obedience by the authority of law. 
Thus far civil and foreign war stand on the 
same moral foundation : the principles which 
determine the justice of both against the 
wrongdoer are, indeed, throughout, the 
same. 

But there are certain peculiarities, of great 
importance in point of fact, which in other 
respects permanently distinguish them from 
each other. The evils of failure are greater 
in civil than in foreign war. A state 
generally incurs no more than loss in war: 
a body of insurgents is exposed to ruin. 
The probabilities of success are more dif¬ 
ficult to calculate in cases of internal con¬ 
test than in a war between states, where it 
is easy to compare those merely material 
means of attack and defence which may be 
measured or numbered. An unsuccessful 
revolt strengthens the power and sharpens 
the cruelty of the tyrannical ruler; while 
an unfortunate war may produce little of 
the former evil and of the latter nothing. 
It is almost peculiar to intestine war that 
success may be as mischievous as defeat. 
The victorious leaders may be borne along 
by the current of events far beyond their 
destination; a government may be over¬ 
thrown which ought to have been only 


repaired; and a new, perhaps a more 
formidable, tyranny may spring out of vic¬ 
tory. A regular government may stop 
before its fall becomes precipitate, or check 
a career of conquest when it threatens de¬ 
struction to itself: but the feeble authority 
of the chiefs of insurgents is rarely able, in 
the one case, to maintain the courage, in the 
other to repress the impetuosity, of their 
voluntary adherents. Finally, the cruelty 
and misery incident to all warfare are 
greater in domestic dissension than in con¬ 
tests with foreign enemies. Foreign wars 
have little effect on the feelings, habits, or 
condition of the majority of a great nation, 
to most of whom the worst particulars of 
them may be unknown. But civil war 
brings the same or worse evils into the heart 
of a country and into the bosom of many 
families : it eradicates all habits of recourse 
to justice and reverence for law; its hos¬ 
tilities are not mitigated by the usages which 
soften wars between nations; it is carried 
on with the ferocity of parties who appre¬ 
hend destruction from each other; and it 
may leave behind it feuds still more deadly, 
which may render a country depraved and 
wretched through a long succession of ages. 
As it involves a wider waste of virtue and 
happiness than any other species of war, it 
can only be warranted by the sternest and 
most dire necessity. The chiefs of a justly 
disaffected party are unjust to their fellows 
and their followers, as well as to all the rest 
of their countrymen, if they take up arms in 
a case where the evils of submission are not 
more intolerable, the impossibility of repara¬ 
tion by pacific means more apparent, and 
the chances of obtaining it by arms greater 
than are necessary to justify the rulers of a 
nation in undertaking a foreign war. A 
wanton rebellion, when considered with the 
aggravation of its ordinary consequences, is 
one of the greatest of crimes. The chiefs 
of an inconsiderable and ill-concerted revolt, 
however provoked, incur the most formi¬ 
dable responsibility to their followers and 
their country. An insurrection rendered 
necessary by oppression, and warranted by 
a reasonable probability of a happy termi- 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


432 

nation, is an act of public virtue, always 
environed with so much peril as to merit 
admiration. 

In proportion to the degree in which a 
revolt spreads over a large body till it 
approaches unanimity, the fatal peculiarities 
of civil war are lessened. In the insurrec¬ 
tion of provinces, either distant or separated 
by natural boundaries, — more especially if 
the inhabitants, differing in religion and 
language, are rather subjects of the same 
government than portions of the same 
people, — hostilities which are waged only 
to sever a legal tie may assume the regu¬ 
larity, and in some measure the mildness, of 
foreign war. Free men, carrying into insur¬ 
rection those habits of voluntary obedience 
to which they have been trained, are more 
easily restrained from excess by the leaders 
in whom they have placed their confidence. 
Thus far it may be affirmed, happily for 
mankind, that insurgents are most humane 
where they are likely to be most successful. 
But it is one of the most deplorable circum¬ 
stances in the lot of man, that the subjects 
of despotic governments, and still more 
those who are doomed to personal slavery, 
though their condition be the worst, and 
their revolt the most just, are disabled from 
conducting it to a beneficial result by the 
very magnitude of the evils under which 
they groan : for the most fatal effect of the 
yoke is, that it darkens the understanding 
and debases the soul; and that the victims 
of long oppression, who have never imbibed 
any noble principle of obedience, throw off 
every curb when they are released from the 
chain and the lash. In such wretched con¬ 
ditions of society, the rulers may, indeed, 
retain unlimited power as the moral guar¬ 
dians of the community, while they are con¬ 
ducting the arduous process of gradually 
transforming slaves into men ; but they 
cannot justly retain it without that purpose, 
or longer than its accomplishment requires : 
and the extreme difficulty of such a reform¬ 
ation, as well as the dire effects of any 
other emancipation, ought to be deeply con¬ 
sidered, as proofs of the enormous guilt of 
those who introduce any kind or degree of 


unlimited power, as well as of those who 
increase, by their obstinate resistance, the 
natural obstacles to the pacific amendment 
of evils so tremendous. 

The frame of the human mind, and the 
structure of civilised society, have adapted 
themselves to these important differences 
between civil and foreign war. Such is the 
force of the considerations which have been 
above enumerated; — so tender is the regard 
of good men for the peace of their native 
country,— so numerous are the links of 
interest and habit which bind those of a 
more common sort to an establishment, — 
so difficult and dangerous is it for the bad 
and bold to conspire against a tolerably 
vigilant administration, — the evils which 
exist in moderate governments appear so 
tolerable, and those of absolute despotism 
so incorrigible, that the number of unjust 
wars between states unspeakably surpasses 
those of wanton rebellions against the just 
exercise of authority. Though the maxim, 
that there are no unprovoked revolts, as¬ 
cribed to the Due de Sully, and adopted by 
Mr. Burke*, cannot be received without 
exceptions,- it must be owned that in civilised 
times mankind have suffered less from a 
mutinous spirit than from a patient endur¬ 
ance of bad government. 

Neither can it be denied that the objects 
for which revolted subjects take up arms 
do, in most cases, concern their safety and 
well-being more deeply than the interests of 
states are in general affected ‘by the legiti¬ 
mate causes of regular war. A nation may 
justly make war for the honour of her flag, 
or for dominion over a rock, if the one be 
insulted, and the other be unjustly invaded ; 
because acquiescence in the outrage or the 
wrong may lower her reputation, and thereby 
lessen her safety. But if these sometimes 
faint and remote dangers justify an appeal 
to arms, shall it be blamed in a people who 
have no other chance of vindicating the right 
to worship God according to their consciences, 
— to be exempt from imprisonment and ex¬ 
action at the mere will and pleasure of one 


* Thoughts on the Present Discontents. 








REVIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 433 


or a few, and to enjoy as perfect a security 
for their persons, for the free exercise of 
their industry, and for the undisturbed en¬ 
joyment of its fruits, as can be devised by 
human wisdom under equal laws and a pure 
administration of justice? What foreign 
enemy could do a greater wrong to a com¬ 
munity than the ruler who would reduce 
them to hold these interests by no higher 
tenure than the duration of his pleasure ? 
What war can be more necessary than that 
which is waged in defence of ancient laws 
and venerable institutions, which, as far as 
they are suffered to act, have for ages ap¬ 
proved themselves to be the guard of all 
these sacred privileges,—the shield which 
protects Reason in her fearless search of 
truth, and Conscience in the performance of 
her humble duty towards God, —the nursery 
of genius and valour, — the spur of probity, 
humanity, and generosity, — of every faculty 
of man. 

As James was unquestionably an aggres¬ 
sor, and the people of England drew their 
swords only to prevent him from accom¬ 
plishing a revolution which would have 
changed a legal and limited power into a 
lawless despotism, it is needless, on this oc¬ 
casion, to moot the question whether arms 
may be as justly wielded to obtain as to de¬ 
fend liberty. It may, however, be observed, 
that the rulers who obstinately persist in 
withholding from their subjects securities for 
good government, obviously necessary for 
the permanence of that blessing, generally 
desired by competently informed men, and 
capable of being introduced without danger 
to public tranquillity, appear thereby to 
place themselves in a state of hostility against 
the nation whom they govern. Wantonly 
to prolong a state of insecurity seems to be 
as much an act of aggression as to plunge a 
nation into it. When a people discover their 
danger, they have a moral claim on their 
governors for security against it. As soon 
as a distemper is discovered to be dangerous, 
and a safe and effectual remedy has been 
found, those who withhold the remedy are 
as much morally answerable for the deaths 
which may ensue as if they had administered 


poison. But though a reformatory revolt 
may in these circumstances become perfectly 
just, it has not the same likelihood of a 
prosperous issue with those insurrections 
which are more strictly and directly defen¬ 
sive. A defensive revolution, the sole pur¬ 
pose of which is to preserve and secure the 
laws, has a fixed boundary, conspicuously 
marked out by the well-defined object 
which it pursues, and which it seldom per¬ 
manently over-reaches; and it is thus ex¬ 
empt from that succession of changes which 
disturbs all habits of peaceable obedience, 
and weakens every authority not resting on 
mere force. 

Whenever war is justifiable, it is lawful 
to call in auxiliaries. But though always 
legitimate against a foreign or domestic 
enemy, it is often in civil contentions pecu¬ 
liarly dangerous to the wronged people them¬ 
selves. It must always hazard national in¬ 
dependence, and will therefore be the last 
resource of those who love their country. 
Good men, more especially if they are happy 
enough to be the natives of a civilised, and 
still more of a free country, religiously cul¬ 
tivate their natural repugnance to a remedy 
of which despair alone can warrant the 
employment. Yet the dangers of seeking 
foreign aid vary extremely in different cir¬ 
cumstances, and these variations are chiefly 
regulated by the power, the interest, and 
the probable disposition of the auxiliary to 
become an oppressor. The perils are the least 
where the inferiority of national strength in 
the foreign ally is such as to forbid all pro¬ 
jects of conquest, and where the independ¬ 
ence and greatness of the nation to be suc¬ 
coured are the main or sole bulwarks of his 
own. 

These fortunate peculiarities were all to 
be found in the relations between the people 
of England and the republic of the United 
Provinces; and the two nations were farther 
united by their common apprehensions from 
France, by no obscure resemblance of na¬ 
tional character, by the strong sympathies 
of religion and liberty, by the remembrance 
of the renowned reign in which the glory of 
England was founded on her aid to Holland, 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


434 

and, perhaps, also by the esteem for each 
other which both these maritime nations had 
learnt in the fiercest and most memorable 
J combats, which had been then celebrated in 
j the annals of naval warfare. The British 
j people derived a new security from the 
dangers of foreign interposition from the 
situation of him who was to be the chief of 
the enterprize to be attempted for their de¬ 
liverance, who had as deep an interest in 


their safety and well-being as in those of the 
nation whose forces he was to lead to their 
aid. William of Nassau, prince of Orange, 
statholder of the. republic of the United Pro¬ 
vinces, had been, before the birth of the 
Prince of Wales, first prince of the blood 
royal of England; and his consort the Lady 
Mary, the eldest daughter of the king, was 
at that period presumptive heiress to the 
Crown. 


AN ACCOUNT 

OF 

THE PARTITION OF POLAND.* 


Little more than fifty years have passed 
since Poland occupied a high place among 
the Powers of Europe. Her natural means 
of wealth and force were inferior to those of 
few states of the second order. The surface 
of the country exceeded that of France; 
and the number of its inhabitants was esti¬ 
mated at fourteen millions, — a population 
probably exceeding that cf the British 
Islands, or of the Spanish Peninsula, at that 
time. The climate was nowhere unfriendly 
to health, or unfavourable to labour; the 
soil was fertile, the produce redundant: a 
large portion of the country, still uncleared, 
afforded ample scope for agricultural enter¬ 
prise. Great rivers afforded easy means of 
opening an internal navigation from the 
Baltic to the Mediterranean. In addition 
to these natural advantages, there were many 
of those circumstances in the history and 
situation of Poland which render a people 
fond and proud of their country, and foster 
that national spirit which is the most effec¬ 
tual instrument either of defence or aggran¬ 


* From the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxvii. 
p. 463. 


disement. Till the middle of the seventeenth 
century, she had been the predominating 
power of the North. With Hungary, and 
the maritime strength of Venice, she had 
formed the eastern defence of Christendom 
against the Turkish tyrants of Greece; and, 
on the north-east, she had been long its sole 
barrier against the more obscure barbarians 
of Muscovy. A nation which thus consti¬ 
tuted a part of the vanguard of civilisation, 
necessarily became martial, and gained all 
the renown in arms which could be acquired 
before war had become a science. The wars 
of the Poles, irregular, romantic, full of 
personal adventure, depending on individual 
courage and peculiar character, proceeding 
little from the policy of Cabinets, but deeply 
imbued by those sentiments of chivalry which 
may pervade a nation, chequered by extra¬ 
ordinary vicissitudes, and carried on against 
barbarous enemies in remote and wild pro¬ 
vinces, were calculated to leave a deep im¬ 
pression on the feelings of the people, and 
to give every man the liveliest interest in 
the glories and dangers of his country. 
Whatever renders the members of a commu¬ 
nity more like each other, and unlike their 














AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 


neighbours, usually strengthens the bonds of 
attachment between them. The Poles were 
the only representatives of the Sarmatian 
race in the assembly of civilised nations. 
Their language and their national literature 
— those great sources of sympathy and ob¬ 
jects of national pride — were cultivated 
with no small success. They contributed, in 
one instance, signally to the progress of 
science; and they took no ignoble part in 
those classical studies which composed the 
common literature of Europe. They were 
bound to their country by the peculiarities 
of its institutions and usages, — perhaps, 
also, by those dangerous privileges, and by 
that tumultuary independence which ren¬ 
dered their condition as much above that of 
the slaves of an absolute monarchy, as it was 
below the lot of those who inherit the bless¬ 
ings of legal and moral freedom. They had 
once another singularity, of which they 
might justly have been proud, if they had 
not abandoned it in times which ought to 
have been more enlightened. Soon after the 
Reformation, they had set the first example 
of that true religious liberty which equally 
ndmits the members of all sects to the pri¬ 
vileges, the offices, and dignities of the com¬ 
monwealth. For nearly a century they had 
afforded a secure asylum to those obnoxious 
sects of Anabaptists and Unitarians, whom 
all other states excluded from toleration; 
and the Hebrew nation, proscribed every 
where else, found a second country, with 
protection for their learned and religious 
establishments, in this hospitable and tole¬ 
rant land. A body, amounting to about half 
a million, professing the equality of gentle¬ 
men amidst the utmost extremes of affluence 
and poverty, forming at once the legislature 
and the army, or rather constituting the 
commonwealth, were reproached, perhaps 
justly, with the parade, dissipation, and 
levity, which generally characterise the mas¬ 
ters of slaves : but their faculties were roused 
by ambition; they felt the dignity of con¬ 
scious independence ; and they joined to the 
brilliant valour of their ancestors, an un¬ 
common proportion of the accomplishments 
and manners of a polished age. Even in 


435 

the days of her decline, Poland had still a 
part allotted to her in the European system. 
By her mere situation, without any activity 
on her own part, she in some measure pre¬ 
vented the collision, and preserved the 
balance, of the three greatest military powers 
of the Continent. She constituted an es¬ 
sential member of the federative system of 
France; and, by her vicinity to Turkey, and 
influence on the commerce of the Baltic, 
directly affected the general interest of Eu¬ 
rope. Her preservation was one of the few 
parts of continental policy in which both 
France and England were concerned; and 
all Governments dreaded the aggrandisement 
of her neighbours. In these circumstances, 
it might have been thought that the dismem¬ 
berment of the territory of a numerous, 
brave, ancient, and renowned people, pas¬ 
sionately devoted to their native land, with¬ 
out colour of right, or pretext of offence, in 
a period of profound peace, in defiance of 
the law of nations, and of the common in¬ 
terest of all states, was an event not much 
more probable, than that it should have been 
swallowed up by a convulsion of nature. 
Before that dismemberment, nations, though 
exposed to the evils of war and the chance 
of conquest, in peace placed some reliance 
on each other’s faith. The crime has, how¬ 
ever, been triumphantly consummated. The 
principle of the balance of power has perished 
in the Partition of Poland. 

The succession to the crown of Poland 
appears, in ancient times, to have been 
governed by that rude combination of in¬ 
heritance and election which originally pre¬ 
vailed in most European monarchies, where 
there was a general inclination to respect 
hereditary claims, and even the occasional 
elections were confined to the members of 
the reigning family. Had not the male heirs 
of the House of Jagellon been extinct, or 
had the rule of female succession been in¬ 
troduced, it is probable that the Polish 
monarchy would have become strictly here¬ 
ditary. The inconveniences of the elective 
principle were chiefly felt in the admission of 
powerful foreign princes as candidates for 
the crown: but that form of government 


F F 2 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


436 


proved rather injurious to the independence, 
than to the internal peace of the country. 
More than a century, indeed, elapsed before 
the mischief was felt. In spite of the as¬ 
cendant acquired by Sweden in the affairs 
of the North, Poland still maintained her 
high rank. Her last great exertion, when 
John Sobieski, in 1683, drove the Turks 
from the gates of Vienna, was worthy of her 
ancient character as the guardian of Chris¬ 
tendom. 

His death, in 1696, first showed that the 
admission of such competition might lead to 
the introduction of foreign influence, and 
even arms. The contest which then oc¬ 
curred between the Prince of Conti and 
Augustus, Elector of Saxony, had been de¬ 
cided in favour of the latter by his own 
army, and by Russian influence, when Charles 
XII., before he had reached the age of 
twenty, having already compelled Denmark 
to submit, and defeated a great Russian 
army, entered Warsaw in triumph, deposed 
him as an usurper raised to the royal dignity 
by foreign force, and obliged him, by ex¬ 
press treaty, to renounce his pretensions to 
the crown. Charles was doubtless impelled 
to these measures by the insolence of a 
youthful conqueror, and by resentment 
against the Elector; but he was also influ¬ 
enced by those rude conceptions of justice, 
sometimes degenerating into cruelty, which 
were blended with his irregular ambition. 
He had the generosity, however, to spare the 
territory of the republic, and the good sense 
to propose the son of the great Sobieski to 
fill the vacant throne; — a proposal which, 
had it been successful, might have banished 
foreign factions, by gradually conferring on 
a Polish family an hereditary claim to the 
crown. But the Saxons, foreseeing such a 
measure, carried away young Sobieski a 
prisoner. Charles then bestowed it on 
Stanislaus Leczinski, a Polish gentleman of 
worth and talent, but destitute of the genius 
and boldness which the public dangers re¬ 
quired, and by the example of a second king 
enthroned by a foreign army, struck another 
blow at the independence of Poland. The 
treaty of Alt-Ranstadt was soon after an¬ 


nulled by the battle of Pultowa; and Au¬ 
gustus, renewing the pretensions which he 
had solemnly renounced, returned triumph¬ 
antly to Warsaw. The ascendant of the 
Czar was for a moment suspended by the 
treaty of Pruth, in 1711, where the Turks 
compelled Peter to swear that he would 
withdraw his troops from Poland, and never 
to interfere in its internal affairs; but as 
soon as the Porte were engaged in a war 
with Austria, he marched an army into it; 
and the first example of a compromise be¬ 
tween the King and the Diet, under the 
mediation of a Russian ambassador, and 
surrounded by Russian troops, was exhibited 
in 1717. 

The death of Augustus, in 1733, had 
nearly occasioned a general war throughout 
Europe. The interest of Stanislaus, the de¬ 
posed king, was espoused by France, partly 
perhaps because Louis XV. had married his 
daughter, but chiefly because the cause of 
the new Elector of Saxony, who was his 
competitor, was supported by Austria, the 
ally of England, and by Russia, then closely 
connected with Austria. The Court of 
Petersburgh then set up the fatal pretext 
of a guarantee of the Polish constitution, 
founded on the transactions of 1717. A 
guarantee of the territories and rights of one 
independent state against others, is perfectly 
compatible with justice ; but a guarantee of 
the institutions of a people against them¬ 
selves, is but another name for its dependence 
on the foreign power which enforces it. In 
pursuance of this pretence, the country was 
invaded by sixty thousand Russians, who 
ravaged with fire and sword every district 
which opposed their progress; and a handful 
of gentlemen, some of them in chains, whom 
they brought together in a forest near War¬ 
saw, were compelled to elect Augustus III. 

Henceforward Russia treated Poland as 
a vassal. She indeed disappeared from the 
European system—was the subject of wars 
and negotiations, but no longer a party en¬ 
gaged in them. Under Augustus III., she 
was almost as much without government at 
home as without influence abroad, slum¬ 
bering for thirty years in a state of pacific 





AN ACCOUNT OP THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 437 


anarchy, which is almost without example 
in history. The Diets were regularly assem¬ 
bled, conformably to the laws; but each one 
was dissolved, without adopting a single 
measure of legislation or government. This 
extraordinary suspension of public authority 
arose from the privilege which each nuncio 
possessed, of stopping any public measure, 
by declaring his dissent from it, in the well- 
known form of the liberum Veto. To give a 
satisfactory account of the origin and pro¬ 
gress of this anomalous privilege, would pro¬ 
bably require more industrious and critical 
research than were applied to the subject 
when Polish antiquaries and lawyers existed.* 
The absolute negative enjoyed by each mem¬ 
ber seems to have arisen from the principle, 
that the nuncios were not representatives, 
but ministers; that their power was limited 
by the imperative instructions of the pro¬ 
vinces ; that the constitution was rather a 
confederacy than a commonwealth; and that 
the Diet was not so much a deliberative as¬ 
sembly, as a meeting of delegates, whose 
whole duty consisted in declaring the deter¬ 
mination of their respective constituents. 
Of such a state of things, unanimity seemed 
the natural consequence. But, as the sove¬ 
reign power was really vested in the gentry, 
they were authorised by the law to interfere 
in public affairs, in a manner most incon¬ 
venient and hazardous, though rendered in 
some measure necessary by the unreasonable 
institution of unanimity. This interference 
was effected by that species of legal insur¬ 
rection called a “confederation,” in which 
any number of gentlemen subscribing the 
alliance bound themselves to pursue, by force 
of arms, its avowed object, either of defend¬ 
ing the country, or preserving the laws, or 
maintaining the privileges of any class of 
citizens. It was equally lawful for another 
body to associate themselves against the 
former, and the war between them was legi¬ 
timate. In these confederations, the sove¬ 
reign power released itself from the restraint 


* The information on this subject in Lengnich 
(Jus Publicum Polonise) is vague and unsatisfac¬ 
tory. 


of unanimity; and in order to obtain that 
liberty, the Diet sometimes resolved itself 
into a confederation, and lost little by being 
obliged to rely on the zeal of voluntary ad¬ 
herents, rather than on the legal obedience 
of citizens. 

On the death of Augustus III., it pleased 
the Empress Catharine to appoint Stanislaus 
Poniatowski, a discarded lover, to the vacant 
throne — a man who possessed many of the 
qualities and accomplishments which are at¬ 
tractive in private life, but who, when he 
was exposed to the tests of elevated station 
and public danger, proved to be utterly void 
of all dignity and energy. Several circum¬ 
stances in the state of Europe enabled her 
to bestow the crown on him without resist¬ 
ance from foreign powers. France was un¬ 
willing to expose herself so early to the hazard 
of a new war, and was farther restrained by 
her recent alliance with Austria; and the 
unexpected death of the Elector of Saxony 
deprived the Courts of Versailles and Vienna 
of the competitor whom they could have 
supported with most hope of success against 
the influence of the Czarina. Frederic II., 
abandoned, or (as he himself with reason 
thought) betrayed by England*, found him¬ 
self, at the general peace, without an ally, 
exposed to the deserved resentment of Aus¬ 
tria, and no longer with any hope of aid from 
France, which had become the friend of his 
natural enemy. In this situation, he thought 
it necessary to court the friendship of Catha¬ 
rine, and in the beginning of the year 1764, 
concluded a defensive alliance with her, the 
stipulations of which, with respect to Poland, 
were, that they were to oppose every attempt 
either to make that crown hereditary, or to 
strengthen the royal power; that they were 
to unite in securing the election of Stanis¬ 
laus; and that they were to protect the 
Dissidents of the Greek and Protestant com¬ 
munions, who, since the year 1717, had been 

* Memoires de Frederic II. 1763—1775. Intro¬ 
duction. Frederic charges the new administra¬ 
tion of Geo. III., not with breach of treaty in 
making peace without him, but with secretly offer¬ 
ing to regain Silesia for Maria Theresa, and with 
labouring to embroil Peter III. with Prussia. 









438 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


deprived of that equal admissibility to public 
office which was bestowed on them by the 
liberality of the ancient laws. The first of 
these stipulations was intended to perpetuate 
the confusions of Poland, and to ensure her 
dependence on her neighbours; while the 
last would afford a specious pretext for con¬ 
stant interference. In a declaration deli¬ 
vered at Warsaw, Catharine asserted, “that 
she did nothing but in virtue of the right of 
vicinage, acknowledged by all nations ; ” * 
and, on another occasion, observed, “ that 
justice and humanity were the sole rules of 
her conduct; and that her virtues alone had 
placed her on the throne :”'j’ while Frederic 
declared, that “ he should constantly labour 
to defend the states of the republic in their 
integrity;” and Maria Theresa, a sovereign 
celebrated for piety and justice, assured the 
Polish Government of “ her resolution to 
maintain the republic in all her rights, pre¬ 
rogatives, and possessions.” Catharine again, 
when Poland, for the first time, acknow¬ 
ledged her title of Empress of all the Russias, 
granted to the republic a solemn guarantee 
of all its possessions! j 

Though abandoned by their allies and 
distracted by divisions, the Poles made a 
gallant stand against the appointment of the 
discarded lover of a foreign princess to be 
their king. One party, at the head of which 
was the illustrious house of Czartorinski, 
by supporting the influence of Russia, and 
the election of Stanislaus, hoped to obtain 
the power of reforming the constitution, of 
abolishing the veto, and giving due strength 
to the crown. The other, more generous 
though less enlightened, spurned at foreign 
interference, and made the most vigorous 
efforts to assert independence, but were un¬ 
happily averse to reforms of the constitution, 
wedded to ancient abuses, and resolutely 
determined to exclude their fellow citizens 
of different religions from equal privileges. 


* Rulhiere, Histoire de l’Anarchie de Pologne, 
vol. ii. p. 41. 
f Ibid. p. 151. 

X Ferrand, Histoire des Trois Demembrements 
de la Pologne (Paris, 1820), p. 1. 


The leaders of the latter party were General 
Branicki, a veteran of Roman dignity and 
intrepidity, and Prince Radzivil, a youth of 
almost regal revenue and dignity, who, by 
a singular combination of valour and gene¬ 
rosity with violence and wildness, exhibited 
a striking picture of a Sarmatian grandee. 
The events which passed in the interregnum, 
as they are related by Rulhiere, form one 
of the most interesting parts of modern 
history. The variety of character, the ele¬ 
vation of mind, and the vigour of talent 
exhibited in the fatal struggle which then 
began, afford a memorable proof of the su¬ 
periority of the worst aristocracy over the 
best administered absolute monarchy. The 
most turbulent aristocracy, with all its dis¬ 
orders and insecurity, must contain a certain 
number of men who respect themselves, and 
who have some scope for the free exercise 
of genius and virtue. 

In spite of all the efforts of generous 
patriotism, the Diet, surrounded by a Rus¬ 
sian army, were compelled to elect Stanis¬ 
laus. The Princes Czartorinski expected 
to reign under the name of their nephew. 
They had carried through their reforms so 
dexterously as to be almost unobserved; 
but Catharine had too deep an interest in 
the anarchy of Poland not to watch over its 
preservation. She availed herself of the 
prejudices of the party most adverse to her, 
and obliged the Diet to abrogate the re¬ 
forms. Her ambassadors were her vice¬ 
roys. Keyserling, a crafty and smooth Ger¬ 
man jurist, Saldern, a desperate adventurer, 
banished from Holstein for forgery, and 
Repnin, a haughty and brutal Muscovite, 
were selected, perhaps from the variety of 
their character, to suit the fluctuating cir- 
cumstances of the country: but all of them 
spoke in that tone of authority which has 
ever since continued to distinguish Russian 
diplomacy. Prince Czartorinski was desirous 
not to be present in the Diet when his mea¬ 
sures were repealed; but Repnin told him, 
that if he was not, his palaces should be 
burnt, and his estates laid waste. Under¬ 
standing this system of Muscovite canvass, 
he submitted to the humiliation of proposing 






AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 439 


to abrogate those reformations which he 
thought essential to the existence of the 
republic. 

In September of the same year, the Rus¬ 
sian and Prussian ministers presented notes 
in favour of the Dissidents *, and afterwards 
urged the claims of that body more fully to 
the Diet of 1766, when they were seconded 
with honest intentions, though perhaps with 
a doubtful right of interference, by Great 
Britain, Denmark, and Sweden, as parties 
to, or as guarantees of, the Treaty of Oliva, 
the foundation of the political system of the 
north of Europe. The Diet, influenced by 
the unnatural union of an intolerant spirit 
with a generous indignation against foreign 
interference, rejected all these solicitations, 
though undoubtedly agreeable to the prin¬ 
ciple of the treaty, and though some of them 
proceeded from powers which could not be 
suspected of unfriendly intentions. The 
Dissidents were unhappily prevailed upon 
to enter into confederations for the re¬ 
covery of their ancient rights, and thus 
furnished a pretext for the armed inter¬ 
ference of Russia. Catharine now affected 
to espouse the cause of the Republicans, who 
had resisted the election of Stanislaus. A 
general confederation of malcontents was 

o 

formed under the auspices of Prince Rad- 
zivil at Radorn, but surrounded by Russian 
troops, and subject to the orders of the 
brutal Repnin. This capricious barbarian 
used his power with such insolence as soon 
to provoke general resistance. He pre¬ 
pared measures for assembling a more sub¬ 
servient Diet by the utmost excesses of 
military violence at the elections, and by 
threats of banishment to Siberia held out to 
every one whose opposition he dreaded. 

This Diet, which met on the 4th of Oc¬ 
tober, 1767, showed at first strong symptoms 
of independence j", but was at length inti¬ 
midated; and Repnin obtained its consent 
to a treaty J stipulating for the equal ad¬ 
mission of all religious sectaries to civil 


* Martens, Recueil de Traites, vol. i. p. 340. 
j- .Rulhiere, vol. ii. pp. 466. 470. 

| Martens, vol. iv. p. 582. 


offices, containing a reciprocal guarantee 
“ of the integrity of the territories of both 
powers in the most solemn and sacred man¬ 
ner,” confirming the constitution of Poland, 
especially the fatal law of unanimity, with a 
few alterations recently made by the Diet, 
and placing this “ constitution, with the 
government, liberty, and rights of Poland, 
under the guarantee of her Imperial Ma¬ 
jesty, who most solemnly promises to pre¬ 
serve the republic for ever entire.” Thus, 
again, under the pretence of enforcing re¬ 
ligious liberty, were the disorder and feeble¬ 
ness of Poland perpetuated; and by the 
principle of the foreign guarantee was her 
independence destroyed. Frederic II., an 
accomplice in these crimes, describes their 
immediate effect with the truth and coolness 
of an unconcerned spectator. “ So many 
acts of sovereignty,” says he, “ exercised by 
a foreign power on the territory of the re¬ 
public, at length excited universal indigna¬ 
tion : the offensive measures were not soft¬ 
ened by the arrogance of Prince Repnin: 
enthusiasm seized the minds of all, and the 
grandees availed themselves of the fana¬ 
ticism of their followers and serfs, to throw 
off a yoke which had become insupport¬ 
able.” In this temper of the nation, the 
Diet rose on the 6th of March following, 
and with it expired the Confederation of 
Radom, which furnished the second ex¬ 
ample, within five years, of a Polish party 
so blind to experience as to become the 
dupes of Russia. 

Another confederation was immediately 
formed at Bar, in Podolia, for the preserva¬ 
tion of religion and liberty *, which, in a 
moment, spread over the whole kingdom. 
The Russian officers hesitated for a moment 
whether they could take a part in this in¬ 
testine war. Repnin, by pronouncing the 
word “Siberia,” compelled those members 
of the Senate who were at Warsaw to claim 
the aid of Russia, notwithstanding the dis¬ 
sent of the Czartorinskis and their friends, 
who protested against that inglorious and 
ruinous determination. The war that fol- 


* See their Manifesto, Martens, vol. i. p. 456. 









440 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

lowed presented, on the part of Russia, a 
series of acts of treachery, falsehood, ra¬ 
pacity, and cruelty, not unworthy of Ctesar 
Borgia. The resistance of the Poles, an 
undisciplined and almost unarmed people, 
betrayed by their King and Senate, in a 
country without fastnesses or fortifications, 
and in which the enemy had already esta¬ 
blished themselves at every important point, 
forms one of the most glorious, though the 
most unfortunate, of the struggles of man¬ 
kind for their rights. The council of 
the confederation established themselves at 
Eperies, within the frontier of Hungary, 
with the connivance and secret favour of 
Austria. Some French officers, and aid in 
money from Versailles and Constantinople, 
added something to their strength, and more 
to their credit. Repnin entered into a ne¬ 
gotiation with them, and proposed an armis¬ 
tice, till he could procure reinforcements. 
Old Pulaski, the first leader of the con¬ 
federation, objected: — “ There is no word,” 
said he, “in the Russian language for 
honour.” Repnin, as soon as he was re¬ 
inforced, laughed at the armistice, fell upon 
the Confederates, and laid waste the lands 
of all true Poles with fire and sword. The 
Cossacks brought to his house at Warsaw, 
Polish gentlemen tied to the tails of their 
horses, and dragged in this manner along 
the ground.* A Russian colonel, named 
Drewitz, seems to have surpassed all his 
comrades in ferocity. Not content with 
massacring the gentlemen to whom quarter 
had been given, he inflicted on them the 
punishments invented in Russia for slaves; 
sometimes tying them to trees as a mark 
for his soldiers to fire at; sometimes scorch¬ 
ing certain parts of their skin, so as to re¬ 
present the national dress of Poland; some¬ 
times dispersing them over the provinces, 
after he had cut off their hands, arms, noses, 
or ears, as living examples of the punish¬ 
ment to be suffered by those who should 
love their country.f It is remarkable, that 
this ferocious monster, then the hero gf the 

Muscovite army, was deficient in the com¬ 
mon quality of military courage. Peter had 
not civilised the Russians ; that was an un¬ 
dertaking beyond even his genius, and in¬ 
consistent with his ferocious character: he 
had only armed a barbarous people with the 
arts of civilised war. 

But no valour could have enabled the 
Confederates of Bar to resist the power of 
Russia for four years, if they had not been 
seconded by certain important changes in 
the political system of Europe, which at 
first raised a powerful diversion in their 
favour, but at length proved the imme¬ 
diate cause of the dismemberment of their 
country. These changes may be dated from 
the alliance of France -with Austria in 1756, 
and still more certainly from the peace of 
1762. On the day on which the Duke de 
Choiseul signed the preliminaries of peace 
at Fontainebleau, he entered into a secret 
convention with Spain, by which it was 
agreed that the war should be renewed 
against England in eight years, — a time 
which was thought sufficient to repair the 
exhausted strength of the two Bourbon 
monarchies.* The hostility of the French 
minister to England was at that time ex¬ 
treme. “ If I was master,” said he, “ we 
should act towards England as Spain did to 
the Moors. If we really adopted that.system, 
England would, in thirty years, be reduced 
and destroyed.” f Soon after, however, his 
vigilance was directed to other quarters by 
projects which threatened to deprive France 
of her accustomed and due influence in the 
North and East of Europe. He was in¬ 
censed with Catharine for not resuming the 
alliance with Austria, and the war which 
had been abruptly suspended by the caprice 
of her unfortunate husband. She, on the 

* Ferrand, vol. i. p. 76. The failure of this per¬ 
fidious project is to be ascribed to the decline of 
Choiseul’s influence. The affair of the Falkland 
Islands was a fragment of the design. 

f Despatch from M. de Choiseul to M. d’Ossun 
at Madrid, 5th April. Flassan. Histoire de la 
Diplomatic Fran^aise, vol. vi. p. 466. About thirty 
years afterwards, the French monarchy was de¬ 
stroyed ! 

* Rulhifere, vol. iii. p. 55. f Ibid. p. 124. 










AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 441 


other hand, soon after she was seated on 
the throne, had formed one of those vast 
and apparently chimerical plans to which 
absolute power and immense territory have 
familiarised the minds of Russian sovereigns. 
She laboured to counteract the influence of 
France, which she considered as the chief 
obstacle to her ambition, on all the frontiers 
of her empire, in Sweden, Poland, and 
Turkey, by the formation of a great al¬ 
liance of the North, to consist of England, 
Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, and Poland,— 
Russia being of course the head of the 
league.* Choiseul exerted himself in every 
quarter to defeat this project, or rather to 
be revenged on Catharine for attempts which 
were already defeated by their own extra¬ 
vagance. In Sweden, his plan for reducing 
the Russian influence was successfully re¬ 
sisted; but the revolution accomplished by 
Gustavus III. in 1772, re-established the 
French ascendant in that kingdom. The 
Count de Yergennes, ambassador at Con¬ 
stantinople, opened the eyes of the Sultan 
to the ambitious projects of Catharine in 
Sweden, in Poland, and in the Crimea, and 
held out the strongest assurances of powerful 
aid, which, had Choiseul remained in power, 
would probably have been carried into effect. 
By all these means, Yergennes persuaded 
the Porte to declare war against Russia on 
the 30th of October, 1768.j' 

The Confederates of Bar, who had esta¬ 
blished themselves in the neighbourhood of 
the Turkish, as well as of the Austrian pro¬ 
vinces, now received open assistance from 
the Turks. The Russian arms were fully 
occupied in the Turkish war; a Russian 
fleet entered the Mediterranean; and the 
agents of the Court of St. Petersburgh ex¬ 
cited a revolt among the Greeks, whom they 


* Rulhikre, vol. ii. p 310. Ferrand, vol. i. p. 75. 
f Flassan, vol. iii. p. 83. Yergennes was imme¬ 
diately recalled, notwithstanding this success, for 
having lowered ( deconsideri ) himself by marrying 
the daughter of a physician. He brought back 
with him the three millions which had been re¬ 
mitted to him to bribe the Divan. Catharine 
called him “ Mustapha’s Prompter.” 


afterwards treacherously and cruelly aban¬ 
doned to the vengeance of their Turkish 
tyrants. These events suspended the fate 
of Poland. French officers of distinguished 
merit and gallantry guided the valour of 
the undisciplined Confederates ; Austria 
seemed to countenance, if not openly to 
support them. Supplies and reinforcements 
from France passed openly through Yienna 
into Poland; and Maria Theresa herself 
publicly declared, that there was no prin¬ 
ciple or honour in that country, but among 
the Confederates. But the Turkish war, 
which had raised up an important ally for 
the struggling Poles, was in the end des¬ 
tined to be the«cause of their destruction. 

The course of events had brought the 
Russian armies into the neighbourhood of 
the Austrian dominions, and began to fill 
the Court of Yienna with apprehensions for 
the security of Hungary. Frederic had no 
desire that his ally should become stronger; 
while both the great powers of Germany were 
averse to the extension of the Russian terri¬ 
tories at the expense of Turkey. Frederic 
was restrained from opposing it forcibly by 
his treaty with Catharine, who continued 
to be his sole ally; but Kaunitz, who ruled 
the councils at Yienna, still adhered to the 
French alliance, seconding the French nego¬ 
tiations at Constantinople. Even so late as 
the month of July, 1771, he entered into a 
secret treaty with Turkey, by which Austria 
bound herself to recover from Russia, by 
negotiation or by force, all the conquests 
made by the latter from the Porte. But 
there is reason to think that Kaunitz, dis- 
trustiilg the power and the inclination of 
France under the feeble government of 
Louis XY., and still less disposed to rely 
on the councils of Versailles after the 
downfall of Choiseul in December, 1770, 
though he did not wish to dissolve the 
alliance, was desirous of loosening its ties, 
and became gradually disposed to adopt 
any expedient against the danger of Russian 
aggrandisement, which might relieve him 
from the necessity of engaging in a war, in 
which his chief confidence must necessarily 
have rested on so weak a stay as the French 








442 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


Government. Maria Theresa still enter¬ 
tained a rooted aversion for Frederic, whom 
she never forgave for robbing her of Silesia; 
and openly professed her abhorrence of the 
vices and crimes of Catharine, whom she 
never spoke of but in a tone of disgust, as 
“ that woman .” Her son Joseph, however, 
affected to admire, and, as far as he had 
power, to imitate the King of Prussia; and 
in spite of his mother’s repugnance, found 
means to begin a personal intercourse with 
him. Their first interview occurred at 
Neiss, in Silesia, in August, 1769, where 
they entered into a secret engagement to 
prevent the Russians from retaining Mol¬ 
davia and Wallachia. In September, 1770, 
a second took place at Neustadt in Moravia, 
where the principal subject seems also to 
have been the means of staying the progress 
of Russian conquest, and where despatches 
were received from Constantinople, desiring 
the mediation of both Courts in the nego¬ 
tiations for peace.* But these interviews, 
though lessening mutual jealousies, do not 
appear to have directly influenced their 
system respecting.Poland.f The mediation, 
however, then solicited, ultimately gave rise 
to that fatal proposition. 


* Memoires de Frederic II. 
t It was at one time believed, that the project 
of Partition was first suggested to Joseph by Fre¬ 
deric at Neustadt, if not at Neiss. Goertz’s papers 
(Memoires et Actes Authentiques relatifs aux 
Negotiations qui ont precedees le Partage de la 
Pologne, Weimar, 1810) demonstrate the contrary. 
These papers are supported by Yiomenil (Lettres), 
by the testimony of Prince Henry, by Rulhitie, 
and by the narrative of Frederic. Dohm (Denk- 
wurdigkeiten meiner Zeit) and Schoell (Histoire 
Abregee des Traitds de Paix) have also shown the 
impossibility of this supposition. Mr. Coxe (His¬ 
tory of the House of Austria, vol.iii. p.499.) has 
indeed adopted it, and endeavours to support it by 
the declarations of Hertzberg to himself: but when 
he examines the above authorities, the greater 
part of which have appeared since his work, he 
will probably be satisfied that he must have mis¬ 
understood the Prussian minister ; and he may 
perhaps follow the example of the excellent abbre- 
viator Koch, who, in the last edition of his useful 
work, has altered that part of his narrative which 
ascribed the first plan of partition to Frederic. 


Frederic had proposed a plan for the paci¬ 
fication of Poland, on condition of reasonable 
terms being made with the Confederates, and 
of the Dissidents being induced to moderate 
their demands. Austria had assented to this 
plan, and was willing that Russia should 
make an honourable peace, but insisted on 
the restitution of Moldavia and Wallachia, 
and declared, that if her mediation were 
slighted, she must at length yield to the in¬ 
stances of France, and take an active part 
for Poland and Turkey. These declarations 
Frederic communicated to the Court of 
Petersburgh *; and they alone seem sufficient 
to demonstrate that no plan of partition was 
then contemplated by that monarch. To 
these communications Catharine answered, 
in a confidential letter to the King, by a plan 
of peace, in which she insisted on the inde¬ 
pendence of the Crimea, the acquisition of a 
Greek island, and of a pretended independ¬ 
ence for Moldavia and Wallachia, which 
should make her the mistress of these pro¬ 
vinces. She spoke of Austria with great 
distrust and alienation; but, on the other 
hand, intimated her readiness to enter into a 
closer intimacy with that Court, if it were 
possible to disengage her from her present 
absurd system, and to make her enter into 
their views, by which means Germany would 
be restored to its natural state, and the House 
of Austria would be diverted, by other pro¬ 
spects , from those views on his Majesty’s pos¬ 
sessions, which her present connections kept 
up.f This correspondence continued during 
January and February, 1771; Frederic ob¬ 
jecting, in very friendly language, to the 
Russian demands, and Catharine adhering 
to them .I In January, Panin notified to the 
Court of Vienna his mistress’s acceptance of 
the good offices of Austria towards the paci¬ 
fication, though she declined a formal me¬ 
diation. This despatch is chiefly remarkable 


* Frederic to Count Solms, his Minister at 
Petersburgh, 12th Sept, and 13th Oct. 1770. Goertz, 
pp. 100—105. 

t Ibid. pp. 107.128. The French alliance is 
evidently meant. 

| X Ibid. pp. 129—146. 














AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 443 

for a declaration *, “ that the Empress had 
adopted, as an invariable maxim, never to de¬ 
sire any aggrandisement of her states .” When 
the Empress communicated her plan of peace 
to Kaunitz in May, that minister declared 
that his Court could not propose conditions 
of peace, which must be attended with ruin 
to the Porte, and with great danger to the 
Austrian monarchy. 

In the summer of the year 1770, Maria 
Theresa had caused her troops to take pos¬ 
session of the county of Zipps, a district an¬ 
ciently appertaining to Hungary, but which 
had been enjoyed by Poland for about 360 
years, under a mortgage made by Sigismond, 
king of Hungary, on the strange condition 
that if it was not redeemed by a fixed time, 
it could only be so by payment of as many 
times the original sum as there had years 
elapsed since the appointed term. So un¬ 
ceremonious an adjudication to herself of this 
territory, in defiance of such an ancient pos¬ 
session, naturally produced a remonstrance 
even from the timid Stanislaus, which, how¬ 
ever, she coolly overruled. In the critical 
state of Poland, it was impossible that such 
a measure should not excite observation; 
and an occasion soon occurred, when it seems 
to have contributed to produce the most im¬ 
portant effects. 

Frederic, embarrassed and alarmed by the 
difficulties of the pacification, resolved to 
send his brother Henry to Petersburgh, with 
no other instructions than to employ all his 
talents and address in bringing Catharine to 
such a temper as might preserve Prussia 
from a new war. Henry arrived in that 
capital on the 9th December ; and it seems 
now to be certain, that the first open pro¬ 
posal of a dismemberment of Poland, arose 
in his conversations with the Empress, and 
appeared to be suggested by the difficulty 
of making peace on such terms as would be 
adequate to the successes of Russia, without 
endangering the safety of her neighbours.! 
It would be difficult to guess who first spoke 
out in a conversation about such a matter 
between two persons of great adroitness, and 

who were, doubtless, both equally anxious 
to throw the blame on each other. Unscru¬ 
pulous as both were, they were not so utterly 
shameless that each party would not use the 
utmost address to bring the dishonest plan 
out of the mouth of the other. A look, a 
smile, a hint, or a question were sufficiently 
intelligible. The best accounts agree, that 
in speaking of the entrance of the Austrian 
troops into Poland, and of a report that 
they had occupied the fortress of Czentokow, 
Catharine smiling, and casting down her 
eyes, said to Henry, “ It seems that in Poland 
you have only to stoop and take;" that he 
seized on the expression; and that she then, 
resuming an air of indifference, turned the 
conversation to other subjects. At another 
time, speaking of the subsidy which Frederic 
paid to her by treaty, she said, “I fear he 
will be weary of this burden, and will leave 
me. I wish I could secure him by some 
equivalent advantage.” “Nothing,” replied 
Henry, “ will be more easy. You have only 
to give him some territory to which he has 
pretensions, and which will facilitate the 
communication between his dominions.” 
Catharine, without appearing to understand 
a remark, the meaning of which could not be 
mistaken, adroitly rejoined, “that she would 
willingly consent, if the balance of Europe 
was not disturbed; and that she wished for 
nothing.”* In a conversation with Baron 
Saldern on the terms of peace, Henry sug¬ 
gested that a plan must be contrived which 
would detach Austria from Turkey, and by 
which the three Powers would gain. “Very 
well,” replied the former, “ provided that it 
is not at the expense of Poland ;”—“ as if,” 
said Henry, afterwards, when he told the 
story, “ there were any other country about 
which such plans could be formed.” Catha¬ 
rine, in one of the conferences in which she 
said to the Prince, “ I will frighten Turkey 
and flatter England; it is your business to 
gain Austria, that she may lull France to 
sleep,” became so eager, that she dipped her 
finger into ink, and drew with it the lines of 
partition on a map of Poland which lay be- 

* Goertz, p. 9. t Rulhiere, vol. iv. p. 209. 

* Fernand, vol. i. p. 140. 














444 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


fore them. “ The Empress,” says Frederic, 
“ indignant that any other troops than her 
own should give law to Poland, said to 
Prince Henry, that if the Court of Vienna 
wished to dismember Poland, the other 
neighbours had a right to do as much.”* 
Henry said that there were no other means 
of preventing a general war ; — “ Pour pre* 
venir ce malheur il ny a qu'un moyen,—de 
mettre trois tetes dans un bonnet; et cela ne 
peut pas se faire quaux depens (Tun quart." 
It is hard to settle the order and time of 
these fragments of conversation, which, in a 
more or less imperfect state, have found 
their way to the public. The probability 
seems to be, that Henry, who was not in¬ 
ferior in address, and who represented the 
weaker party, would avoid the first proposal 
in a case where, if it was rejected, the at¬ 
tempt might prove fatal to the objects of his 
mission. However that may be, it cannot be 
doubted that before he left Petersburgh, on 
the 30th of January, 1771, Catharine and he 
had agreed on the general outline to be pro¬ 
posed to his brother. 

On his return..to Berlin, he accordingly 
disclosed it to the King, who received it at 
first with displeasure, and even with indig¬ 
nation,-as either an extravagant chimera, or 
a snare held out to hin^by his artful and 
dangerous ally. For twenty-four hours this 

an^er lasted. It is natural to believe that 

© 

a ray of conscience shot across so great a 
mind, during one honest day; or, if then too 
deeply tainted by habitual kingcraft for 
sentiments worthy of his native superiority, 
that he shrunk for a moment from disgrace, 
and felt a transient but bitter foretaste of 
the lasting execration of mankind. On the 
next day, however, he embraced his brother, 
as if inspired, and declared that he was a 


♦ Memoires. This account is very much con¬ 
firmed by the well-informed writer who has pre¬ 
fixed his Recollections to the Letters of Viomenil, 
who probably was General Grimouard. His ac¬ 
count is from Prince Henry, who told it to him at 
Paris in 1788, calling the news of the Austrian 
proceedings in Poland, and Catharine’s observa¬ 
tions on it, a fortunate accident, which suggested the 
plan of partition. 


second time the saviour of the monarchy.* 
He was still, however, not without appre¬ 
hensions from the inconstant councils of a 
despotic government, influenced by so many 
various sorts of favourites, as that of Russia. 
Orlow, who still held the office of Catharine’s 
lover, was desirous of continuing the war. 
Panin desired peace, but opposed the Parti¬ 
tion, which he probably considered as the 
division of a Russian province. But the 
great body of lovers and courtiers who had 
been enriched by grants of forfeited estates 
in Poland, were favourable to a project 
which would secure their former booty, and, 
by exciting civil war, lead to new and richer 
forfeitures. The Czernitchefis were sup¬ 
posed not to confine their hopes to confisca¬ 
tion, but to aspire to a principality to be 
formed out of the ruins of the republic. It 
appears that Frederic, in his correspondence 
with Catharine, urged, perhaps sincerely, 
his apprehension of general censure: her 
reply was, — “I take all the blame upon 
myself.” f 

The consent of the Court of Vienna, how¬ 
ever, was still to be obtained; where the 
most formidable and insuperable obstacles 
were still to be expected in the French al¬ 
liance, in resentment towards Prussia, and 
in the conscientious character of Maria The¬ 
resa. Prince Henry, on the day of his re¬ 
turn to Berlin, in a conversation with Van 
Swieten, the Austrian minister, assured him, 
on the part of Catharine, “ that if Austria 
would favour her negotiations with Turkey, 
she would consent to a considerable aug¬ 
mentation of the Austrian territory.” On 
Van Swieten asking “where?” Henry re¬ 
plied, “ You know as well as I do what your 
Court might take, and what it is in the power 


* Ferrand, vol. i. p. 149. 

f This fact was communicated by Sabatier, the 
French resident at Petersburgh, to his Court, in a 
despatch of the 11th of February, 1774. Ferrand, 
vol. i. p. 152. It transpired at that time, on oc¬ 
casion of an angry correspondence between the two 
Sovereigns, in which the King reproached the Em¬ 
press with having desired the Partition, and quoted 
the letter in which she had offered to take on herself 
the whole blame. 
















AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 445 


of Russia and Prussia to cede to her.” The 
cautious minister was silent; but it was im¬ 
possible that he should either have mistaken 
the meaning of Henry, or have failed to 
impart such a declaration to his Court.* As 
soon as the Court of Petersburgh had van¬ 
quished the scruples or fears of Frederic, 
they required that he should sound that of 
Vienna, which he immediately did through 
Van Swieten.f The state of parties there 
was such, that Kaunitz thought it necessary 
to give an ambiguous answer. That cele¬ 
brated coxcomb, who had grown old in the 
ceremonial of courts and the intrigues of 
cabinets, and of whom we are told that the 
death of his dearest friend never shortened 
his toilet nor retarded his dinner, still felt 
some regard to the treaty with France, which 
was his own work; and was divided between 
his habitual submission to the Empress 
Queen and the court which he paid to the 
young Emperor. It was a difficult task to 
minister to the ambition of Joseph, without 
alarming the conscience of Maria Theresa. 
That Princess had, since the death of her 
husband, “ passed several hours of every day 
in a funereal apartment, adorned by cruci¬ 
fixes and death’s heads, and by a portrait 
of the late Emperor, painted when he had 
breathed his last, and by a picture of herself, 
as it was supposed she would appear, when 
the paleness and cold of death should take 
from her countenance the remains of that 
beauty which made her one of the finest 
women of her age.” J Had it been possible, 
in any case, to rely on the influence of the 
conscience of a sovereign over measures of 
state, it might be supposed that a princess, 
occupied in the practice of religious aus¬ 
terities, and in the exercise of domestic 
affections, advanced in years, loving peace, 
beloved by her subjects, respected in other 
countries, professing remorse for the blood¬ 
shed which her wars had occasioned, and 


* Ferrand, vol. i. p. 149. 

f Memoires de Frederic II. The King does not 
give the dates of this communication. It probably 
was in April, 1771. 

J Rulhi&re, vol. iv. p. 167. 


with her children about to ascend the great¬ 
est thrones of Europe, would not have tar¬ 
nished her name by co-operating with one 
monarch whom she detested, and another 
whom she scorned and disdained, in the most 
faithless and shameless measures which had 
ever dishonoured the Christian world. Un¬ 
happily, she was destined to be a signal 
example of the insecurity of such a reliance. 
But she could not instantly yield; and Kau¬ 
nitz was obliged to temporise. On the one 
hand, he sent Prince Lobkowitz on an em¬ 
bassy to Petersburgh, where no minister of 
rank had of late represented Austria ,* while, 
on the other, he continued his negotiation 
for a defensive alliance with Turkey. After 
having first duly notified to Frederic that 
his Court disapproved the impracticable pro¬ 
jects of Partition, and was ready to withdraw 
their troops from the district which they had 
occupied in virtue of an ancient claim *, he 
soon after proposed neutrality to him, in the 
event of a war between Austria and Russia. 
Frederic answered, that he was bound by 
.treaty to support Russia; but intimated that 
Russia might probably recede from her de¬ 
mand of Moldavia and Wallachia. Both 
parts of the answer seem to have produced 
the expected effect on Kaunitz, who now saw 
' his country placed between a formidable war 
and a profitable peace. Even then, proba¬ 
bly, if he could have hoped for effectual aid 
from France, he might have chosen the road 
of honour. But the fall of the Due de 
Choiseul, and the pusillanimous rather than 
pacific policy of his successors, destroyed all 
hope of French succour, and disposed Kau¬ 
nitz to receive more favourably the advances 
of the Courts of Berlin and Petersburgh. 
He seems to have employed the time, from 
June to October, in surmounting the repug¬ 
nance of his Court to the new system. 

The first certain evidence of a favourable 


* The want of dates in the King of Prussia’s 
narrative is the more unfortunate, because the 
Count de Goertz has not published the papers re¬ 
lating to the negotiations between Austria and 
Prussia, — an omission which must be owned to be 
somewhat suspicious. 









446 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


disposition at Vienna towards tlie plan of 
the two Powers, is in a despatch of Prince 
Galitzin at Vienna to Count Panin, on the 
25th of October*, in which he gives an 
account of a conversation with Kaunitz on 
the day before. The manner of the Austrian 
minister was more gracious and cordial than 
formerly; and, after the usual discussions 
about the difficulties of the terms of peace, 
Galitzin at last asked him — “ What equiva¬ 
lent do you propose for all that you refuse 
to allow us ? It seems to me that there can 
be none.” Kaunitz, suddenly assuming an 
air of cheerfulness, pressed his hand, and 
said, “ Sir, since you point out the road, I 
will tell you, but in such strict confidence, 
that it must be kept a profound secret at 
your Court; for if it were to transpire and 
be known even to the ally and friend of 
Russia, my Court would solemnly retract 
and disavow this communication.” He then 
proposed a moderate plan of peace, but 
added, that the Court of Vienna could not 
use its good offices to cause it to be adopted, 
unless the Court of Petersburgh would give 
the most positive assurances that she would 
not subject Poland to dismemberment for 
her own advantage, or for that of any other; 
provided always, that their Imperial Majes¬ 
ties were to retain the county of Zipps, but 
to evacuate every other part of the Polish 
territory which the Austrian troops might 
have occupied. Galitzin observed, that the 
occupation of Zipps had much the air of a 
dismemberment. This Kaunitz denied; but 
said that his Court would co-operate with 
Russia in forcing the Poles to put an end to 
their dissensions. The former observed, that 
the plan of pacification showed the perfect 
disinterestedness of her Imperial Majesty 
towards Poland, and that no idea of dismem¬ 
berment had ever entered into her mind, or 
into that of her ministers. “ I am happy,” 
said Kaunitz, “ to hear you say so.” Panin, 
in his answer, on the 16th of December f, to 
Galitzin, seems to have perfectly well under¬ 
stood the extraordinary artifice of the Aus¬ 
trian minister. “ The Court of Vienna,” says 


* Goertz, p. 75. * Ibid. p. 153. 


he, “ claims the thirteen towns, and disclaims 
dismemberment: but there is no state which 
does not keep claims open against its neigh¬ 
bours, and the right to enforce them when 
there is an opportunity; and there is none 
which does not feel the necessity of the 
balance of power to secure the possession of 
each. To be sincere, we must not conceal 
that Russia is also in a condition to produce 
well-grounded claims against Poland, and 
that we can with confidence say the same of 
our ally the King of Prussia; and if the 
Court of Vienna finds it expedient to enter 
into measures with us and our ally to com¬ 
pare and arrange our claims, we are ready 
to agree.” The fears of Kaunitz for the 
union of France and England were unhap¬ 
pily needless. These great Powers, alike 
deserters of the rights of nations, and be¬ 
trayers of the liberties of Europe, saw the 
crime consummated without stretching forth 
an arm to prevent it. 

In the midst of the conspiracy, a mag¬ 
nificent embassy from France arrived at 
Vienna early in January, 1772.* At the 
head of it was the Prince Louis de Rohan, 
then appointed to grace the embassy by his 
high birth; while the business continued to 
be in the hands of M. Durand, a diplomatist 
of experience and ability. Contrary to all 
reasonable expectation, the young Prince 
discovered the secret which had escaped the 
sagacity of the veteran minister. Durand, 
completely duped by Kaunitz, warned Ro¬ 
han to hint no suspicions of Austria in his 
despatches to Versailles. About the end of 
February, Rohan received information of the 
treachery of the Austrian Court so secretly f, 


* Memoires de l’Abbe Georgel, vol. i. p. 219. 
t The Abbe Georgel ascribes the detection to his 
master the ambassador; but it is more probably 
ascribed by M. Schoell (Histoire de Trade's, 
vol. xiv. p. 76.) to a young native of Strasburg, 
named Barth, the second secretary of the French 
Legation, who by his knowledge of German, and 
intimacy with persons in inferior office, detected 
the project, but required the ambassador to conceal 
it even from Georgel. Schoell quotes a passage of 
a letter from Barth to a friend at Strasburg, which 
puts his early knowledge of it beyond dispute. 








AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 447 


that lie was almost obliged to represent it as 
a discovery made by his own penetration. 
He complained to Kaunitz, that no assist¬ 
ance was given to the Polish Confederates, 
who had at that moment brilliantly dis¬ 
tinguished themselves by the capture of the 
Castle of Cracow. Kaunitz assured him, 
that “ the Empress Queen never would suf¬ 
fer the balance of power to be disturbed by 
a dismemberment which would give too 
much preponderance to neighbouring and 
rival Courts.” The ambassador suspected 
the intentions that lurked beneath this 
equivocal and perfidious answer, and com¬ 
municated them to his Court, in a despatch 
on the 2nd of March, giving an account of 
the conference. But the Due d’Aiguillon, 
either deceived or willing to appear so, 
rebuked the Prince for his officiousness, 
observing, that “the ambassador’s conjec¬ 
tures being incompatible with the positive 
assurances of the Court of Vienna, con¬ 
stantly repeated by Count Mercy, the am¬ 
bassador at Paris, and with the promises 
recently made to M. Durand, the thread 
which could only deceive must be quitted.” 
In a private letter to M. d’Aiguillon, to be 
shown only to the King, referring to a pri¬ 
vate audience with the Empress, he says: — 
“I have indeed seen Maria Theresa weep 
over the misfortunes of oppressed Poland; 
but that Princess, practised in the art of 
concealing her designs, has tears at com¬ 
mand. With one hand she lifts her hand¬ 
kerchief to her eyes to wipe away her tears; 
with the other she wields the sword for the 
Partition of Poland.” * * 


* Georgel, vol. i. p. 264. The letter produced 
some remarkable effects. Madame Du Barri got 
possession of it, and read the above passage aloud 
at one of her supper parties. An enemy of Rohan, 
who was present, immediately told the Dauphiness 
of this attack on her mother. The young Princess 
was naturally incensed at such language, especially 
as she had been given to understand that the letter 
was written to Madame Du Barri. She became the 
irreconcileable enemy of the Prince, afterwards Car¬ 
dinal de Rohan, who, in hopes of conquering her 
hostility, engaged in the strange adventure of the 
Diamond Necklace, one of the secondary agents in 


In February and March, 1772, the three 
Powers exchanged declarations, binding 
themselves to adhere to the principle of 
equality in the Partition. In August fol¬ 
lowing, the treaties of dismemberment were 
executed at Petersburgh ; and in September, 
the demands and determinations of the com¬ 
bined Courts were made known at Warsaw. 
It is needless to characterise papers which 
have been universally regarded as carried to 
the extremity of human injustice and ef¬ 
frontery. An undisputed possession of cen¬ 
turies, a succession of treaties, to which all 
the European states were either parties or 
guarantees, — nay, the recent, solemn, and 
repeated engagements of the three Govern¬ 
ments themselves, were considered as form¬ 
ing no title to dominion. In answer, the 
Empress Queen and the King of Prussia 
appealed to some pretensions of their pre¬ 
decessors in the thirteenth century: the 
Empress of Russia alleged only the evils 
suffered by neighbouring states from the 
anarchy of Poland.* The remonstrances of 
the Polish Government, and their appeals to 
all those states who were bound to protect 
them as guarantees of the treaty of Oliva, 
were equally vain. When the Austrian 
ambassador announced the Partition at Ver¬ 
sailles, the old King said, “ If the other man 
(Choiseul) had been here, this would not 
have happened.” f But in truth, both 


promoting the French Revolution, and not the 
least considerable source of the popular prejudices 
against the Queen. 

* Martens, vol. i. p. 461. 

t It has been said that Austria did not accede 
to the Partition till France had refused to co¬ 
operate against it. Of this M. de Segur tells us, 
that he was assured by Kaunitz, Cobentzel, and 
Vergennes. The only circumstance which ap¬ 
proaches to a confirmation of his statement is, that 
there are traces in Ferrand of secret intimations 
conveyed by D’Aiguillon to Frederic, but there 
was no likelihood of France proceeding to ex¬ 
tremities in favour of Poland. This clandestine 
treachery is, however, very different from a public 
refusal. It has, on the other hand, been stated 
(Coxe, vol. ii. p. 516.) that the Due d’Aiguillon 
proposed to Lord Rochfort, that an English or 
French fleet should be sent to the Baltic to pre- 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


448 


France and Great Britain liad, at that 
time, lost all influence in the affairs of 
Europe : — France, from the imbecility of 
her Government, and partly, in the case of 
Poland, from reliance on the Court of 
Vienna; Great Britain, in consequence of 
her own treachery to Prussia, but in a still 
greater degree from the unpopularity of her 
Government at home, and the approaches of 
a revolt in the noblest part of her colonies. 
Had there been a spark of spirit, or a ray of 
wise policy in the councils of England and 
France, they would have been immediately 
followed by all the secondary Powers whose 
very existence depended on the general 
reverence for justice. 

The Poles made a gallant stand. The 
Government was compelled to call a Diet; 
and the three Powers insisted on its unani¬ 
mity in the most trivial act. In spite, how¬ 
ever, of every species of corruption and 
violence, the Diet, surrounded as it was by 
foreign bayonets, gave powers to deputies 
to negotiate with the three Powers, by a 
majority of only one; and it was not till 
September, 1773, that it was compelled to 
cede, by a pretended treaty, some of her 
finest provinces, with nearly five millions of 
her population. The conspirators were 
resolved to deprive the remains of the Polish 
nation of all hope of re-establishing a 
vigorous government, or attaining domestic 
tranquillity; and the Liberum Veto, the 
elective monarchy, and all the other institu¬ 
tions which tended to perpetuate disorder, 
were again imposed. 

Maria Theresa had the merit of confessing 


vent the dismemberment. But such a proposal, if 
it occurred at all, must have related to transactions 
long antecedent to the Partition, and to the ad¬ 
ministration of D’Aiguillon, for Lord Rochfort was 
recalled from the French embassy in 1768, to be 
made Secretary of State, on the resignation of 
Lord Shelburne. Neither can the application have 
been to him as Secretary of State; for France was 
not in his department. It is to be regretted that 
Mr. Coxe should, in the same place, have quoted a 
writer so discredited as the Abbe Soulavie (Md- 
moires de Louis XVI.), from whom he quotes a 
memorial, without doubt altogether imaginary, of 
D’Aiguillon to Louis XV. 


her fault. On the 19th of February, 1775, 
when M. de Breteuil, the ambassador of 
Louis XVI., had his first audience, after 
some embarrassed remarks on the subject of 
Poland, she at length exclaimed, in a tone of 
sorrow, “ I know, Sir, that I have brought a 
deep stain on my reign, by what has been 
done in Poland; but I am sure that I should 
be forgiven, if it could be known what re¬ 
pugnance I had to it, and how many circum¬ 
stances combined against my principles.” * 
The guilt of the three parties to the Par¬ 
tition was very unequal. Frederic, the 
weakest, had most to apprehend, both from 
a rupture with his ally, and from the acci¬ 
dents of a general war; while, on the other 
hand, some enlargement seemed requisite to 
the defence of his dominions. The House 
of Austria entered late and reluctantly into 
the conspiracy, which she probably might 
have escaped, if France had been under a 
more vigorous Government. Catharine was 
the great criminal. She had for eight years 
oppressed, betrayed, and ravaged Poland, — 
had imposed on her King, — had prevented 
all reformation of the Government, — had 
fomented divisions among the nobility, — in 
a word, had created and maintained that 
anarchy, which she at length used as a pre¬ 
tence for the dismemberment. Her vast 
empire needed no accession of territory for 
defence, or, it might have been hoped, even 
for ambition. Yet, by her insatiable avidity, 
was occasioned the pretended necessity for 
the Partition. To prevent her from acquir¬ 
ing the Crimea, Moldavia, and Wallachia, 
the Courts of Vienna and Berlin agreed to 
allow her to commit an equivalent robbery 
on Poland. Whoever first proposed it, 
Catharine was the real cause and author of 
the whole monstrous transaction; and, should 
any historian,—dazzled by the splendour of 
her reign, or more excusably seduced by her 
genius, her love of letters, her efforts in 
legislation, and her real services to her sub¬ 
jects, — labour to palliate this great offence, 
he will only share her infamy in the vain 
attempt to extenuate her guilt. 


* Flassan, vol. vii. p. 125. 








AN ACCOUNT OF TIIE PARTITION OF POLAND. 449 


The defects of the Polish Government pro¬ 
bably contributed to the loss of independ¬ 
ence most directly by their influence on the 
military system. The body of the gentry 
retaining the power of the sword, as well as 
the authority of the state in their own hands, 
were too jealous of the Crown to strengthen 
the regular army; though even that body 
was more in the power of the great officers 
named by the Diet, than in that of the King. 
They continued to serve on horseback as in 
ancient times, and to regard the Pospolite , 
or general armament of the gentry, as the 
impenetrable bulwark of the commonwealth. 
Nor, indeed, unless they had armed their 
slaves, would it have been possible to have 
established a formidable native infantry. 
Their armed force was adequate to the short 
irruptions or sudden enterprises of ancient 
war ; but a body of noble cavalry was alto¬ 
gether incapable of the discipline, which is 
of the essence of modern armies ; and their 
military system was irreconcileable with the 
acquisition of the science of war. In war 
alone, the Polish nobility were barbarians; 
while war was the only part of civilisation 
which the Russians had obtained. In one 
country, the sovereign nobility of half a mil¬ 
lion durst neither arm their slaves, nor trust 
a mercenary army: in the other, the Czar 
naturally employed a standing army, re¬ 
cruited, without fear, from the enslaved pea¬ 
santry. To these military conscription was 
a reward, and the station of a private soldier 
a preferment; and they were fitted by their 
previous condition to be rendered, by mili¬ 
tary discipline, the most patient and obedient 
of soldiers, — without enterprise, but with¬ 
out fear, and equally inaccessible to discon¬ 
tent and attachment, passive and almost in¬ 
sensible members of the great military 
machine. There are many circumstances in 
the institutions and destiny of a people, 
which seem to arise from original peculiari¬ 
ties of national character, of which it is often 
impossible to explain the origin, or even to 
show the nature. Denmark and Sweden are 
countries situated in the same region of the 
globe, inhabited by nations of the same de¬ 
scent, language, and religion, and very similar 


in their manners, their ancient institutions, 
and modern civilisation: yet he would be a 
bold speculator who should attempt to ac¬ 
count for the talent, fame, turbulence, and 
revolutions of the former; and for the quiet 
prosperity and obscure mediocrity, which 
have formed the character of the latter. 

There is no political doctrine more false 
or more pernicious than that which repre¬ 
sents vices in its internal government as an 
extenuation of unjust aggression against a 
country, and a consolation to mankind for 
the destruction of its independence. As no 
government is without great faults, such a 
doctrine multiplies the grounds of war, gives 
an unbounded scope to ambition, and fur¬ 
nishes benevolent pretexts for every sort of 
rapine. However bad the government of 
Poland may have been, its bad qualities do 
not in the least degree abate the evil con¬ 
sequence of the Partition, in weakening, by 
its example, the security of all other nations. 
An act of robbery on the hoards of a worth¬ 
less miser, though they be bestowed on the 
needy and the deserving, does not the less 
shake the common basis of property. The 
greater number of nations live under go¬ 
vernments which are indisputably bad ; but 
it is a less evil that they should continue in 
that state, than that they should be gathered 
under a single conqueror, even with a chance 
of improvement in their internal administra¬ 
tion. Conquest and extensive empire are 
among the greatest evils, and the division of 
mankind into independent communities is 
among the greatest advantages which fall to 
the lot of men. The multiplication of such 
communities increases the reciprocal control 
of opinion, strengthens the principles of gene¬ 
rous rivalship, makes every man love his own 
ancient and separate country with a warmer 
affection, brings nearer to all mankind the 
objects of noble ambition, and adds to the 
incentives to which we owe works of genius 
and acts of virtue. There are some peculi¬ 
arities in the condition of every civilised 
country which are peculiarly favourable to 
some talents or good qualities. To destroy 
the independence of a people, is to annihilate 
a great assemblage of intellectual and moral 


G G 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


450 


qualities, forming the character of a nation, 
and distinguishing it from other communi¬ 
ties, which no human skill can bring to¬ 
gether. As long as national spirit exists, 
there is always reason to hope that it will 
work real reformation: when it is destroyed, 
though better forms may be imposed by a 
a conqueror, there is no farther hope of 
those only valuable reformations which re¬ 
present the sentiments, and issue from the 
heart of a people. The barons at Runny- 
mede continued to be the masters of slaves ; 
but the noble principles of the charter 
shortly began to release these slaves from 
bondage. Those who conquered at Mara¬ 
thon and Plataea were the masters of slaves; 
yet, by the defeat of Eastern tyrants, they 
preserved knowledge, liberty, and civilisa¬ 
tion itself, and contributed to that progress 
of the human mind which will one day banish 
slavery from the world. Had the people of 
Scotland been conquered by Edward H. or 
by Henry VIII., a common observer would 
have seen nothing in the event but that a 
race of turbulent barbarians was reduced to 
subjection by a more civilised state. 

After this first Partition was completed in 
1776, Poland was suffered for sixteen years 
to enjoy an interval of more undisturbed 
tranquillity than it had known for a cen¬ 
tury. Russian armies ceased to vex it: the 
dispositions of other foreign powers became 
more favourable. Frederic II. now entered 
on that honourable portion of his reign, in 
which he made a just war for the defence of 
the integrity of Bavaria, and of the inde¬ 
pendence of Germany. Still attempts were 
not wanting to seduce him into new enter¬ 
prises against Poland. When, in the year 
1782, reports were current that Potemkin 
was to be made King of Poland, that haughty 
and profligate barbarian told the Count de 
Goertz, then Prussian ambassador at Peters- 
burgh, that he despised the Polish nation 
too much to be ambitious of reigning over 
them.* He desired the ambassador to com¬ 
municate to his master a plan for a new 
Partition, observing “ that the first was only 


* Dolim, yol. ii. p. 45. 


child’s play, and that if they had taken all, 
the outcry would not have been greater.” 
Every man who feels for the dignity of 
human nature, will rejoice that the illus¬ 
trious monarch firmly rejected the proposal. 
Potemkin read over his refusal three times 
before he could believe his eyes, and at 
length exclaimed, in language very common 
among certain politicians, “ I never could 
have believed that King Frederic was 
capable of romantic ideas.”* As soon as 
Frederic returned to counsels worthy of 
himself, he became unfit for the purposes of 
the Empress, who, in 1780, refused to renew 
her alliance with him, and found more suit¬ 
able instruments in the restless character, 
and shallow understanding, of Joseph II., 
whose unprincipled ambition was now re¬ 
leased from the restraint which his mother’s 
scruples had imposed on it. The project 
of re-establishing an Eastern empire now 
occupied the Court of Petersburgh, and a 
portion of the spoils of Turkey was a suffi¬ 
cient lure to Joseph. The state of Europe 
tended daily more and more to restore some 
degree of independence to the remains of 
Poland. Though France, her most ancient 
and constant ally, was then absorbed in the 
approach of those tremendous convulsions 
which have for more than thirty years agi¬ 
tated Europe, other Powers now adopted a 
policy, the influence of which was favourable 
to the Poles. Prussia, as she receded from 
Russia, became gradually connected with 
England, Holland, and Sweden; and her 
honest policy in the case of Bavaria placed 
her at the head of all the independent mem¬ 
bers of the Germanic Confederacy. Turkey 
declared war against Russia. The Austrian 
Government was disturbed by the discontent 
and revolts which the precipitate innovations 
of Joseph had excited in various provinces 
of the monarchy. A formidable combina- 

* It was about this time that Goertz gave an 
account of the Court of Russia to the Prince Royal 
of Prussia, who was about to visit Petersburgh, of 
which the following passage is a curious specimen: 
— “ Le Prince Bariatinski est reconnu scelerat, et 
meme comme tel employe encore de terns en terns.” 
Dohm, vol. ii. p. 32. 









AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 451 


tion against the power of Russia was in time 
formed. In the treaty between Prussia and 
the Porte, concluded at Constantinople in 
January, 1790, the contracting parties bound 
themselves to endeavour to obtain from 
Austria the restitution of those Polish pro¬ 
vinces, to which she had given the name of 
Galicia.* 

During the progress of these auspicious 
changes, the Poles began to entertain the 
hope that they might at length be suffered 
to reform their institutions, to provide for 
their own quiet and safety, and to adopt 
that policy which might one day enable them 
to resume their ancient station among Eu¬ 
ropean nations. From 1778 to 1788, no 
great measures had been adopted, but no 
tumults disturbed the country; while reason¬ 
able opinions made some progress, and a 
national spirit was slowly reviving. The 
nobility patiently listened to plans for the 
establishment of a productive revenue and 
a regular army; a disposition to renounce 
their dangerous right of electing a king 
made perceptible advances; and the fatal 
law of unanimity had been so branded as an 
instrument of Russian policy, that in the 
Diets of these ten years, no nuncio was 
found bold enough to employ his negative. 
At the breaking out of the Turkish war, the 
Poles ventured to refuse not only an alliance 
offered by Catharine, but even permission to 
her to raise a body of cavalry in the terri¬ 
tories of the republic, f 

In the midst of these excellent symptoms 
of public sense and temper, a Diet assembled 
at Warsaw in October, 1788, from whom the 
restoration of the republic was hoped, and 
by whom it would have been accomplished, 
if their prudent and honest measures had 
not been defeated by one of the blackest 
acts of treachery recorded in the annals of 
mankind. Perhaps the four years which 
followed present more signal examples than 
any other part of history, — of patience, 
moderation, wisdom, and integrity, in a 
popular assembly, — of spirit and unanimity 


* Schoell, vol. xiv. p. 473. 
f Ferrand, vol. ii. p. 336. 


among a turbulent people, — of inveterate 
malignity in an old oppressor, — and of the 
most execrable perfidy in a pretended friend. 
The Diet applied itself with the utmost 
diligence and caution to reform the state, 
watching the progress of popular opinion, 
and proposing no reformation till the public 
seemed ripe for its reception. While the 
spirit of the French revolution was every 
where prevalent, these reformers had the 
courageous prudence to avoid whatever was 
visionary in its principles, or violent in their 
execution. They refused the powerful but 
perilous aid of the enthusiasm which it 
excited long before its excesses and atrocities 
had rendered it odious. They were content 
to be reproached by their friends for the 
slowness of their reformatory measures; and 
to be despised for the limited extent of these 
by many of those generous minds who then 
aspired to bestow a new and more perfect 
liberty on mankind. After having taken 
measures for the re-establishment of the 
finances and the army, they employed the 
greater part of the year 1789 in the discus¬ 
sion of constitutional reforms.* A committee 
appointed in September, before the conclu¬ 
sion of the year, made a report which con¬ 
tained an outline of the most necessary 
alterations. No immediate decision was 
made on these propositions ; but the sense of 
the Diet was, in the course of repeated dis¬ 
cussions, more decisively manifested. It was 
resolved, without a division, that the Elector 
of Saxony should be named successor to the 


* Schoell, vol. xiv. p. 117. On the 12th of Oc¬ 
tober, 1788, the King of Prussia had offered, by 
Buckholz, his minister at Warsaw, to guarantee 
the integrity of the Polish territory. Ferrand, 
vol. ii. p. 452. On the 19th of November, he ad¬ 
vises them not to be diverted from “ ameliorating 
their form of government;” and declares, “that 
he will guarantee their independence without 
mixing in their internal affairs, or restraining the 
liberty of their discussions, which, on the contrary, 
he will guarantee.” Ibid, p.457. The negotia¬ 
tions of Prince Czartorinski at Berlin, and the 
other notes of Buckholz, seconded by Mr. Hailes, 
the English minister, agree entirely in language 
and principles with the passages which have been 
cited. 


G G 2 








452 MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


crown ; which determination, — the prelude 
to the establishment of hereditary monarchy, 
was confirmed by the Dietines, or electoral 
assemblies. The elective franchise, formerly 
exercised by all the nobility, was limited to 
landed proprietors. Many other funda¬ 
mental principles of a new constitution were 
perfectly understood to be generally ap¬ 
proved, though they were not formally 
established. In the mean time, as the Diets 
were biennial, the assembly approached to 
the close of its legal duration; and as it was 
deemed dangerous to entrust the work of 
reformation to an entirely new one, and 
equally so to establish the precedent of an 
existence prolonged beyond the legal period, 
an expedient was accordingly adopted, not 
indeed sanctioned by law, but founded in 
constitutional principles, the success of which 
afforded a signal proof of the unanimity of 
the Polish nation. New writs were issued to 
all the Dietines, requiring them to choose 
the same number of nuncios as usual. These 
elections proceeded regularly ; and the new 
members being received by the old, formed 
with them a double Diet. Almost all the 
Dietines instructed their new representatives 
to vote for hereditary monarchy, and de¬ 
clared their approbation of the past conduct 
of the Diet. 

On the 16th of December, 1790, this 
double Diet assembled with a more direct, 
deliberate, formal, and complete authority, 
from the great majority of the freemen, to 
reform the abuses of the Government, than 
perhaps any other representative assembly in 
Europe ever possessed. They declared the 
pretended guarantee of Russia in 1776 to 
be “ null, an invasion of national independ¬ 
ence, incompatible with the natural rights of 
every civilised society, and with the political 
privileges of every free nation.” * They felt 
the necessity of incorporating, in one law, 
all the reforms which had passed, and all 
those which had received the unequivocal 
sanction of public approbation. The state 


* Ferrand, vol. iii. p. 55. The absence of dates 
in this writer obliges us to fix the time of this 
decree by conjecture. 


of foreign affairs, as well as the general 
voice at home, loudly called for the imme¬ 
diate adoption of such a measure; and the 
new Constitution was presented to the Diet 
on the 3rd of May following*, after having 
been read and received the night before with 
unanimous and enthusiastic applause by far 
the greater part of the members of both 
Houses, at the palace of Prince Radzivil. 
Only twelve dissentient voices opposed it in 
the Diet. Never were debates and votes 
more free: these men, the most hateful 
of apostates, were neither attacked, nor 
threatened, nor insulted. The people, on 
this great and sacred occasion, seemed to 
have lost all the levity and turbulence of 
their character, and to have already learnt 
those virtues which are usually the slow 
fruit of that liberty which they were then 
only about to plant. 

This constitution confirmed the rights of 
the Established Church, together with re¬ 
ligious liberty, as dictated by the charity 
which religion inculcates and inspires. It 
established an hereditary monarchy in the 
Electoral House of Saxony; reserving to 
the nation the right of choosing a new race 
of Kings, in case of the extinction of that 
family. The executive power was vested in 
the King, whose ministers were responsible 
for its exercise. The Legislature was divided 
into two Houses, — the Senate and the 
House of Nuncios, with respect to whom 
the ancient constitutional language and 
forms were preserved. The necessity of 
unanimity was taken away, and, with it» 
those dangerous remedies of confederation 
and confederate Diets which it had rendered 
necessary. Each considerable town received 
new rights, with a restoration of all their 
ancient privileges. The burgesses recovered 
the right of electing their own magistrates. 
All their property within their towns was 
declared to be inheritable and inviolable. 
They were empowered to acquire land in 


* The particular events of the 3rd of May are 
related fully by Ferrand, and shortly in the Annual 
Register of 1791,—a valuable narrative, though 
not without considerable mistakes. 








AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 453 


Poland, as they always had done in Lithuania. 
All the offices of the state, the law, the 
church, and the army, were thrown open to 
them. The larger towns were empowered 
to send deputies to the Diet, with a right to 
vote on all local and commercial subjects, 
and to speak on all questions whatsoever. 
All these deputies became noble, as did 
every officer of the rank of captain, and 
every lawyer who filled the humblest office 
of magistracy, and every burgess who ac¬ 
quired a property in land, paying 51. of 
yearly taxes. Two hundred burgesses were 
ennobled at the moment, and a provision 
was made for ennobling thirty at every 
future diet. Industry was perfectly un¬ 
fettered. Immunity from arrest till after 
conviction was extended to the burgesses; 
— the extension of which most inconvenient 
privilege was well adapted to raise traders 
to a level with the gentry. The same object 
was promoted by a provision, that no noble¬ 
man, by becoming a merchant, a shopkeeper, 
or artisan, should forfeit his privileges, or be 
deemed to derogate from his rank. Nume¬ 
rous paths to nobility were thus thrown open; 
and every art was employed to make the 
ascent easy. The wisdom and liberality of 
the Polish gentry, if they had not been de¬ 
feated by flagitious enemies, would, by a 
single act of legislation, have accomplished 
that fusion of the various orders of society, 
which it has required the most propitious 
circumstances, in a long course of ages, to 
effect, in the freest and most happy of the 
European nations. Having thus communi¬ 
cated political privileges to hitherto disre¬ 
garded freemen, the new constitution ex¬ 
tended to all serfs the full protection of law, 
which before was enjoyed only by those of 
the royal demesnes; while it facilitated and 
encouraged voluntary manumission, by rati¬ 
fying all contracts relating to it, — the first 
step to be taken in every country towards 
the accomplishment of the highest of all the 
objects of human legislation. 

The course of this glorious revolution was 
not dishonoured by popular tumult, by san¬ 
guinary excesses, or by political executions. 
So far did the excellent Diet carry its wise 


regard to the sacredness of property, that, 
though it was in urgent need of financial 
resources, it postponed, till after the death 
of present incumbents, the application to 
the relief of the state of the income of those 
ecclesiastical offices which were no longer 
deemed necessary. History will one day do 
justice to that illustrious body, and hold out 
to posterity their work, as the perfect model 
of a most arduous reformation. 

The storm which demolished this noble 
edifice came from abroad. On the 29th of 
March, of the preceding year, a treaty of 
alliance had been concluded at Warsaw 
between the King of Prussia and the 
Republic, containing, among others, the 
following stipulation : — “If any foreign 
Power, in virtue of any preceding acts and 
stipulations whatsoever, should claim the 
right of interfering in the internal affairs of 
the republic of Poland, at what time, or in 
what manner soever, his Majesty the King 
of Prussia will first employ his good offices 
to prevent hostilities in consequence of such 
pretension; but, if his good offices should 
be ineffectual, and that hostilities against 
Poland should ensue, his Majesty the King 
of Prussia, considering such an event as a 
case provided for in this treaty, will assist 
the republic according to the tenor of the 
4th article of the present treaty.” * The 
aid here referred to was, on the part of 
Prussia, 22,000 or 30,000 men, or, in case of 
necessity, all its disposable force. The un¬ 
disputed purpose of the article had been to 
guard Poland against an interference in her 
affairs by Russia, under pretence of the 
guarantee of the Polish constitution in 1775. 

Though the King of Prussia had, after 
the conclusion of the treaty, urgently 
pressed the Diet for the cession of the cities 
of Dantzick and Thorn, his claim had been 
afterwards withdrawn and disavowed. On 
the 13th of May, in the present year, Goltz, 
then Prussian Charge d’Affaires at Warsaw, 
in a conference with the Deputation of the 
Diet for Foreign Affairs, said, “ that he had 
received orders from his Prussian Majesty 


* Martens, vol. iii. pp. 161—165. 








454 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


to express to them his satisfaction at the 
happy revolution which had at length given 
to Poland a wise and regular constitution.” * 
On the 23rd of May, in his answer to the 
letter of Stanislaus, announcing the adoption 
of the constitution, the same Prince, after 
applauding the establishment of hereditary 
monarchy in the House of Saxony, (which, 
it must be particularly borne in mind, was a 
positive breach of the constitution guaranteed 
by Russia in 1775,) proceeds to say, “Icon¬ 
gratulate myself on having contributed to 
the liberty and independence of Poland; 
and my most agreeable care will be, to pre¬ 
serve and strengthen the ties which unite 
us.” On the 21st of June, the Prussian 
minister, on occasion of alarm expressed by 
the Poles that the peace with Turkey might 
prove dangerous to them, declares, that if 
such dangers were to arise, “ the King of 
Prussia, faithful to all his obligations, will 
have it particularly at heart to fulfil those 
which were last year contracted by him.” 
If there was any reliance in the faith of 
treaties, or on the honour of kings, Poland 
might have confidently hoped, that, if she 
was attacked by Russia, in virtue of the 
guarantee of 1775, her independence and 
her constitution would be defended by the 
whole force of the Prussian monarchy. 

The remaining part of the year 1791 
passed in quiet, but not without apprehen¬ 
sion. On the 9th of January, 1792, Catha¬ 
rine concluded a peace with Turkey at 
Jassy; and being thus delivered from all 
foreign enemies, began once more to mani¬ 
fest intentions of interfering in the affairs of 
Poland. Emboldened by the removal of 
Herztberg from the councils of Prussia, and 
by the death of the Emperor Leopold, a 
prince of experience and prudence, she re¬ 
solved to avail herself of the disposition then 
arising in all European Governments, to sa¬ 
crifice every other object to a preparation for 
a contest with the principles of the French 


* Ferrand, vol. iii. p. 121. See the letter of the 
King of Prussia to Goltz, expressing his admira¬ 
tion and applause of the new constitution. Segur, 
vol. iii. p. 252. 


Revolution. A small number of Polish 
nobles furnished her with that very slender 
pretext, with which she was always content. 
Their chiefs were Rzewuski, who, in 1768, 
had been exiled to Siberia, and Felix Po- 
tocki, a member of a potent and illustrious 
family, which was inviolably attached to the 
cause of the republic. These unnatural 
apostates deserting their long-suffering coun¬ 
try at the moment when, for the first time, 
hope dawned on her, were received by Ca¬ 
tharine with the honours due from her to 
aggravated treason in the persons of the 
Confederates of Targowitz. On the 18th of 
May, the Russian minister at Warsaw de¬ 
clared that the Empress, “ called on by many 
distinguished Poles who had confederated 
against the pretended constitution of 1791, 
would, in virtue of her guarantee, march an 
army into Poland to restore the liberties of 
the republic.” The hope, meantime, of help 
from Prussia was speedily and cruelly de¬ 
ceived. Lucchesini, the Prussian minister 
at Warsaw, in an evasive answer to a com¬ 
munication made to him respecting the pre¬ 
parations for defence against Russia, said 
coldly, “ that his master received the com¬ 
munication as a proof of the esteem of the 
King and Republic of Poland, but that he 
could take no cognisance of the affairs which 
occupied the Diet.” On Stanislaus himself 
claiming his aid, Frederic, on the 8th of 
June, answered: — “In considering the new 
constitution which the republic adopted, 
without my knowledge and without my con¬ 
currence, I never thought of supporting or 
protecting it.” So signal a breach of faith 
is not to be found in the modern history of 
great states. It resembles rather the vulgar 
frauds and low artifices which, under the 
name of “reason of state,” made up the 
policy of the petty tyrants of Italy in the 
fourteenth century. 

Assured of the connivance of Prussia, 
Catharine now poured an immense army 
into Poland, along the whole line of frontier, 
from the Baltic to the neighbourhood of the 
Euxine. But the spirit of the Polish nation 
was unbroken. A series of brilliant actions 
occupied the summer of 1792, in which the 







AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 455 

Polish army, under Poniatowski and Kos¬ 
ciusko, alternately victorious and van¬ 
quished, gave equal proofs of unavailing 
gallantry. 

Meantime Stanislaus, who had remained 
in his capital, willing to be duped by the 
Russian and Prussian ambassadors, whom he 
still suffered to continue there, made a vain 
attempt to disarm the anger of the Empress, 
by proposing that her grandson Constantine 
should be the stock of the new constitutional 
dynasty; to which she haughtily replied, that 
he must re-establish the old constitution, and 
accede to the Confederation of Targowitz;— 

“ perhaps,” says M. Ferrand, “ because a 
throne acquired without guilt or perfidy 
might have few attractions for her.” * Hav¬ 
ing on the 4th of July published a procla¬ 
mation, declaring “ that he would not survive 
his country,” on the 22nd of the same month, 
as soon as he received the commands of 
Catharine, this dastard prince declared his 
accession to the Confederation of Targowitz, 
and thus threw the legal authority of the 
republic into the hands of that band of con¬ 
spirators. The gallant army, over whom the 
Diet had intrusted their unworthy King with 
absolute authority, were now compelled, by 
his treacherous orders, to lay down their 
arms amidst the tears of their countrymen, 
and the insolent exultation of their barbarous 
enemies.f The traitors of Targowitz were, 
for a moment, permitted by Russia to rule 
over the country which they had betrayed, 
to prosecute the persons and lay waste the 
property of all good citizens, and to re¬ 
establish every ancient abuse. 

Such was the unhappy state of Poland 

during the remainder of the year 1792, a 
period which will be always memorable for 
the invasion of France by a German army, 
their ignominious retreat, the eruption of 
the French forces into Germany and Flan¬ 
ders, the dreadful scenes which passed in the 
interior of France, and the apprehension 
professed by all governments of the progress 
of the opinions to which these events were 
ascribed. The Empress of Russia, among 
the rest, professed the utmost abhorrence of 
the French Revolution, made war against it 
by the most vehement manifestoes, stimu¬ 
lated every other power to resist it, but 
never contributed a battalion or a ship to 
the confederacy against it. Frederic-William 
also plunged headlong into the coalition 
against the advice of his wisest counsellors.* 
At the moment of the Duke of Brunswick’s 
entry into France, in July—if we may be¬ 
lieve M. Ferrand, himself a zealous royalist, 
who had evidently more than ordinary means 
of information — the ministers of the prin¬ 
cipal European Powers met at Luxemburg, 
provided with various projects for new ar¬ 
rangements of territory, in the event which 
they thought inevitable, of the success of the 
invasion. The Austrian ministers betrayed 
the intention of their Court, to renew its 
attempt to compel the Elector of Bavaria to 
exchange his dominions for the Low Coun¬ 
tries, which, by the dissolution of their trea¬ 
ties with France, they deemed themselves 
entitled again to propose. The King of 
Prussia, on this alarming disclosure, showed 
symptoms of an inclination to abandon an 
enterprise, which many other circumstances 
combined to prove was impracticable, at 

* Ferrand, vol. iii. p. 217. 

f A curious passage of De Thou shows the ap¬ 
prehension early entertained of the Russian power. 

“ Livonis prudente et reipublicae Christianse utili 
consilio navigatio illuc interdicta fuerat, ne com- 
mercio nostrorum Barbari varias artes ipsis ignotas, 
et quae ad rem navalem et militarem pertinent, 
edocerentur. Sic enim eximistabant Moscos, qui 
maximam Septentrionis partem tenerent, Narvae 
condito emporio, et constructo armamentario, non 
solum in Livoniam, sed etiam in Germaniam effuso 
exercitu penetraturos.” Lib. xxxix. cap. 8. 

* Prince Henry and Count Hertzberg, who 
agreed perhaps in nothing else. Tie du Prince 
Henri, p. 297. In the same place, we have a very 
curious extract from a letter of Prince Henry, of 
the 1st of November, 1792, in which he says, that 
“ every year of war will make the conditions of 
peace worse for the Allies.” Henry was not a De¬ 
mocrat, nor even a Whig. His opinions were con¬ 
firmed by all the events of the first war, and are 
certainly not contradicted by occurrences towards 
the close of a second war, twenty years afterwards, 
and in totally new circumstances. 








456 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

least with the number of troops with which 
he had presumptuously undertaken it. These 
dangerous projects of the Court of Vienna 
made him also feel the necessity of a closer 
connection with Russia; and in an interview 
with the Austrian and Russian ministers at 
Verdun, he gave them to understand that 
Prussia could not continue the war without 
being assured of an indemnity. Russia 
eagerly adopted a suggestion which engaged 
Prussia more completely in her Polish 
schemes; and Austria willingly listened to 
a proposal which would furnish a precedent 
and a justification for similar enlargements 
of her own dominions: while both the Im¬ 
perial Courts declared, that they would ac¬ 
quiesce in the occupation of another portion 
of Poland by the Prussian armies.* 

Whether in consequence of the supposed 
agreement at Verdun or not, the fact at least 
is certain, that Frederic-William returned 
from his French disgraces to seek consolation 
in the plunder of Poland. Nothing is more 
characteristic of a monarch without ability, 
without knowledge, without resolution, whose 
life had been divided between gross liber¬ 
tinism and abject superstition, than that, 
after flying before the armies of a powerful 
nation, he should instantly proceed to attack 
an oppressed, and, as he thought, defenceless 
people. In January, 1793, he entered Po¬ 
land ; and, while Russia was charging the 
Poles with the extreme of royalism, he chose 
the very opposite pretext, that they propa¬ 
gated anarchical principles, and had esta¬ 
blished Jacobin clubs. Even the criminal 
Confederates of Targowitz were indignant 
at these falsehoods, and remonstrated, at 
Berlin and Petersburgh, against the entry 
of the Prussian troops. But the complaints 
of such apostates against the natural results 
of their own crimes were heard with con¬ 
tempt. The Empress of Russia, in a De¬ 
claration of the 9th of April, informed the 
world that, acting in concert with Prussia, 
and with the consent of Austria, the only 
means of controlling the Jacobinism of 
Poland was, “by confining it within more 

narrow limits, and by giving it proportions 
which better suited an intermediate power.” 
The King of Prussia, accordingly, seized 
Great Poland; and the Russian army 
occupied all the other provinces of the 
republic. It was easy, therefore, for Catha¬ 
rine to determine the extent of her new 
robbery. 

In order, however, to give it some shadow 
of legality, the King was compelled to call a 
Diet, from which every one was excluded 
who was not a partisan of Russia, and an 
accomplice of the Confederates of Targo¬ 
witz. The unhappy assembly met at Grodno 
in June; and, in spite of its bad composition, 
showed still many sparks of Polish spirit. 
Sievers, the Russian ambassador, a man ap¬ 
parently worthy of his mission, had recourse 
to threats, insults, brutal violence, military 
imprisonment, arbitrary exile, and every 
other species of outrage and intimidation 
which, for near thirty years, had constituted 
the whole system of Russia towards the 
Polish legislature. In one note he tells them 
that, unless they proceed more rapidly, “ he 
shall be under the painful necessity of re¬ 
moving all incendiaries, disturbers of the 
public peace, and partisans of the 3rd of 
May, from the Diet.” * In another, he ap¬ 
prises them that he must consider any longer 
delay “ as a declaration of hostility; in which 
case, the lands, possessions, and dwellings of 
the malcontent members, must be subject to 
military execution.” “ If the King adheres 
to the Opposition, the military execution 
must extend to his demesnes, the pay of the 
Russian troops will be stopped, and they will 
live at the expense of the unhappy pea¬ 
sants.” f Grodno was surrounded by Russian 
troops; loaded cannon were pointed at the 
palace of the King and the hall of the Diet; 
four nuncios were carried away prisoners by 
violence in the night; and all the members 
were threatened with Siberia. In these cir¬ 
cumstances, the captive Diet was compelled, 
in July and September, to sign two treaties 
with Russia and Prussia, stipulating such 
cessions as the plunderers were pleased to 

* Ferrand, vol. iii. pp. 252—255. 

* Ferrand, vol. iii. p. 369. f Ibid. p. 372. 








AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 457 


dictate, and containing a repetition of the 
same insulting mockery which had closed 
every former act of rapine — a guarantee of 
the remaining possessions of the republic.* 
It had the consolation of being allowed to 
perform one act of justice — that of depriv¬ 
ing the leaders of the Confederation of 
Targowitz, Felix Potocki, Rzewuski, and 
Braneki, of the great offices which they dis¬ 
honoured. It may hereafter be discovered, 
whether it be actually true that Alsace and 
Lorraine were to have been the compensa¬ 
tion to Austria for forbearing to claim her 
share of the spoils of Poland at this period 
of the second Partition. It is already well 
known that the allied army refused to re¬ 
ceive the surrender of Strasburg in the 
name of Louis XVII., and that Valen¬ 
ciennes and Conde were taken in the name 
of Austria. 

In the beginning of 1794, a young officer 
named Madalinski, who had kept together, 
at the disbanding of the army, eighty gen¬ 
tlemen, gradually increased his adherents, 
till they amounted to a force of about four 
thousand men, and began to harass the Rus¬ 
sian posts. The people of Cracow expelled 
the Russian garrison; and, on the night of 
the 28th of March, the heroic Kosciusko, at 
the head of a small body of adherents, en¬ 
tered that city, and undertook its govern¬ 
ment and defence. Endowed with civil as 
well as military talents, he established order 
among the insurgents, and caused the legi¬ 
timate constitution to be solemnly proclaimed 
in the cathedral, where it was once more 
hailed with genuine enthusiasm. He pro¬ 
claimed a national confederation, and sent 
copies of his manifesto to Petersburgh, Ber¬ 
lin, and Vienna, treating the two first courts 
with deserved severity, but speaking ami¬ 
cably of the third, whose territory he en¬ 
joined his army to respect. These marks of 
friendship, the Austrian resident at Warsaw 
publicly disclaimed, imputing to Kosciusko 
and his friends “ the monstrous principles 
of the French Convention;” — a language 
which plainly showed that the Court of 


* Martens, vol. v. pp. 162. 202. 


Vienna, which had only consented to the 
last Partition, was willing to share in the 
next. Kosciusko was daily reinforced; and 
on the 17th of April rose on the Russian 
garrison of Warsaw, and compelled Igelstrom 
the commander, after an obstinate resistance 
of thirty-six hours, to evacuate the city with 
a loss of 2000 men wounded. The citizens 
of the capital, the whole body of a proud 
nobility, and all the friends of their country 
throughout Poland, submitted to the tem¬ 
porary dictatorship of Kosciusko, a private 
gentleman only recently known to the public, 
and without any influence but the reputation 
of his virtue. Order and tranquillity gene¬ 
rally prevailed; some of the burghers, per¬ 
haps excited by the agents of Russia, com¬ 
plained to Kosciusko of the inadequacy of 
their privileges. But this excellent chief, 
instead of courting popularity, repressed an 
attempt which might lead to dangerous divi¬ 
sions. Soon after, more criminal excesses 
for the first time dishonoured the Polish 
revolution, but served to shed a brighter 
lustre on the humanity and intrepidity of 
Kosciusko. The papers of the Russian em¬ 
bassy laid open proofs of the venality of 
many of the Poles who had betrayed their 
country. The populace of Warsaw, impa¬ 
tient of the slow forms of law, apprehensive 
of the lenient spirit which prevailed among 
the revolutionary leaders, and instigated by 
the incendiaries, who are always ready to 
flatter the passions of a multitude, put to 
death eight of these persons, and, by their 
clamours, extorted from the tribunal a pre¬ 
cipitate trial and execution of a somewhat 
smaller number. Kosciusko did not content 
himself with reprobating these atrocities. 
Though surrounded by danger, attacked by 
the most formidable enemies, betrayed by 
his own Government, and abandoned by all 
Europe, he flew from his camp to the capital, 
brought the ringleaders of the massacre to 
justice, and caused them to be immediately 
executed. We learn, from very respect¬ 
able authority, that during all the perils 
of his short administration, he persuaded 
the nobility to take measures for a more 
rapid enfranchisement of the peasantry, 







458 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


than the cautious policy of the Diet had 
hazarded.* 

Harassed by the advance of Austrian, 
Prussian, and Russian armies, Kosciusko 
concentrated the greater part of his army 
around Warsaw, against which Frederic- 
William advanced at the head of 40,000 
disciplined troops. With an irregular force 
of 12,000 he made an obstinate resistance 
for several hours on the 8th of June, and 
retired to his entrenched camp before the 
city. The Prussians having taken posses¬ 
sion of Cracow, summoned the capital to 
surrender, under pain of all the horrors of 
an assault. After two months employed in 
vain attempts to reduce it, the King of 
Prussia was compelled, by an insurrection 
in his lately acquired Polish province, to 
retire with precipitation and disgrace. But 
in the mean time, the Russians were advanc¬ 
ing, in spite of the gallant resistance of 
General Count Joseph Sierakowski, one of 
the most faithful friends of his country; 
and on the 4th of October, Kosciusko, with 
only 18,000 men, thought it necessary to 
hazard a battle at Macciowice, to prevent 
the junction of the two Russian divisions of 
Suwarrow and Fersen. Success was long 
and valiantly contested. According to some 
narrations, the enthusiasm of the Poles 
would have prevailed, but for the treachery 
or incapacity of Count Poninski.f Kos¬ 
ciusko, after the most admirable exertions of 
judgment and courage, fell, covered with 
wounds; and the Polish army fled. The 
Russians and Cossacks were melted at the 
sight of their gallant enemy, who lay insen¬ 
sible on the field. When he opened his 
eyes, and learnt the full extent of the dis¬ 
aster, he vainly implored the enemy to put 
an end to his sufferings. The Russian 
officers, moved with admiration and com¬ 
passion, treated him with tenderness, and 
sent him, with due respect, a prisoner of war 
to Petersburgh, where Catharine threw him 


* Segur, Rfegne de Frederic-Guillaume II., tome 
iii. p. 169. These important measures are not men¬ 
tioned in any other narration which I have read, 
t Ibid. p. 171. 


into a dungeon ; from which he was released 
by Paul on his succession, perhaps partly 
from hatred to his mother, and partly from 
one of those paroxysms of transient gene¬ 
rosity, of which that brutal lunatic was not 
incapable. 

From that moment the farther defence of 
Poland became hopeless. Suwarrow ad¬ 
vanced to the capital, and stimulated his 
army to the assault of the great suburb of 
Praga, by the barbarous promise of a licence 
to pillage for forty-eight hours. A dreadful 
contest ensued on the 4th of November, in 
which the inhabitants performed prodigies of 
useless valour, making a stand in every 
street, and almost at every house. All the 
horrors of war, which the most civilised 
armies practised on such occasions, were here 
seen with tenfold violence. No age or sex» 
or condition was spared, the murder of 
children forming a sort of barbarous sport 
for the assailants. The most unspeakable 
outrages were offered to the living and the 
dead. The mere infliction of death was an 
act of mercy. The streets streamed with 
blood. Eighteen thousand human carcasses 
were carried away after the massacre had 
ceased. Many were burnt to death in the 
flames which consumed the town. Multi¬ 
tudes were driven by the bayonet into the 
Vistula. A great body of fugitives perished 
by the fall of the great bridge over which 
they fled. These tremendous scenes closed 
the resistance of Poland, and completed the 
triumph of her oppressors. The Russian 
army entered Warsaw on the 9th of No¬ 
vember, 1794. Stanislaus was suffered to 
amuse himself with the formalities of royalty 
for some months longer, till, in obedience to 
the order of Catharine, he abdicated on the 
25th of November, 1795,—a day which, 
being the anniversary of his coronation, 
seemed to be chosen to complete his humili¬ 
ation. Quarrels about the division of the 
booty retarded the complete execution of 
the formal and final Partition, till the be¬ 
ginning of the next year. 

Thus fell the Polish people, after a wise 
and virtuous attempt to establish liberty, 
and a heroic struggle to defend it, by the 







AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. 


flagitious wickedness of Russia, by the foul 
treachery of Prussia, by the unprincipled 
accession of Austria, and by the short-sighted, 
as well as mean-spirited, acquiescence of all 
the other nations of Europe. Till the first 
Partition, the right of every people to its 
own soil had been universally regarded as 
the guardian principle of European inde¬ 
pendence. But in the case of Poland, a 
nation was robbed of its ancient territory 
without the pretence of any wrong which 
could justify war, and without even those 
forms of war which could bestow on the 
acquisition the name of conquest. It is a 
cruel and bitter aggravation of this calamity, 
that the crime was perpetrated, under the 
pretence of the wise and just principle of 
maintaining the balance of power ; — as if 
that principle had any value but its ten¬ 
dency to prevent such crimes; — as if an 
equal division of the booty bore any re¬ 
semblance to a joint exertion to prevent 
the robbery. In the case of private high¬ 
waymen and pirates, a fair division of the 
booty tends, no doubt, to the harmony of 
the gang and the safety of its members, but 
renders them more formidable to the honest 
and peaceable part of mankind.* 

For about eleven years the name of Poland 
was erased from the map of Europe. By 
the Treaty of Tilsit, in 1807, the Prussian 
part of that unfortunate country was re¬ 
stored to as much independence as could 
then be enjoyed, under the name of the 
Grand Duchy of Warsaw ; and this revived 
state received a considerable enlargement in 
1809, by the treaty of Schoenbrunn, at the 
expense of Austria. 

When Napoleon opened the decisive cam¬ 
paign of 1812, in what he called in his 
proclamations “ the Second Polish War,” he 
published a Declaration, addressed to the 
Poles, in which he announced that Poland 
would be greater than she had been under 


* The sentiments of wise men on the first Par¬ 
tition are admirably stated in the Annual Register 
of 1772, in the Introduction . to the History of 
Europe, which could scarcely have been written by 
any man but Mr. Burke. 


459 

Stanislaus, and that the Archduke, who 
then governed Wurtsburg, was to be their 
sovereign; and when on the 12th of July in 
that year, Wybicki, at the head of a depu¬ 
tation of the Diet, told him, at Wilna, with 
truth, “ The interest of your empire requires 
the re-establishment of Poland; the honour 
of France is interested in it,” — he replied, 
“ that he had done all that duty to his sub¬ 
jects allowed him to restore their country; 
that he would second their exertions; and 
that he authorised them to take up arms, 
every where but in the Austrian provinces, 
of which he had guaranteed the integrity, 
and which he should not suffer to be dis¬ 
turbed.” In his answer, — too cold and 
guarded to inspire enthusiasm, — he pro¬ 
mised even less than he had acquired the 
power of performing; for, by the secret 
articles of his treaty with Austria, concluded 
in March, provision had been made for an 
exchange of the Illyrian provinces (which 
he had retained at his own disposal) for such 
a part of Austrian Poland as would be 
equivalent to them.* What his real designs 
respecting Poland were, it is not easy to 
conjecture. That he was desirous of re¬ 
establishing its independence, and that he 
looked forward to such an event as the 
result of his success, cannot be doubted. 
But he had probably grown too much of a 
politician and an emperor, to trust, or to 
love that national feeling and popular en¬ 
thusiasm to which he had owed the splendid 
victories of his youth. He was now rather 
willing to' owe every thing to his policy and 
his army. Had he thrown away the scabbard 
in this just cause,—had he solemnly pledged 
himself to the restoration of Poland, — had 
he obtained the exchange of Galicia for 
Dalmatia, instead of secretly providing for 
it, — had he considered Polish independence, 
not merely as the consequence of victory, 
but as one of the most powerful means of 
securing it, — had he, in short, retained 
some part of his early faith in the attach¬ 
ment of nations, instead of relying exclu¬ 
sively on the mechanism of armies, perhaps 

* Schoell, vol. x. p. 129. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


460 


the success of that memorable campaign 
might have been more equally balanced. 
Seventy thousand Poles were then fighting 
under his banners.* Forty thousand are 
supposed to have fallen in the French 
armies from the destruction of Poland to 
the battle of Waterloo, f There are few 
instances of the affection of men for their 
country more touching than that of these 
gallant Poles, who, in voluntary exile, 
amidst every privation, without the hope of 
fame, and when all the world had become 
their enemies, daily sacrificed themselves in 
the battles of a foreign nation, in the faint 
hope of its one day delivering their own 
from bondage. Kosciusko had originally 
encouraged his countrymen to devote them¬ 
selves for this chance; but when he was 
himself offered a command in 1807, this 
perfect hero refused to quit his humble 
retreat, unless Napoleon would pledge him¬ 
self Tor the restoration of Poland. 

When Alexander entered France in 1814, 
as the avowed patron of liberal institutions, 
Kosciusko addressed a letter to him J, in 
which he makes three requests,—that the 
Emperor would grant an universal amnesty, 
a free constitution, resembling, as nearly as 
possible, that of England, with means of 
general education, and, after the expiration 
of ten years, an emancipation of the peasants. 
It is but justice to Alexander to add, that 
when Kosciusko died, in 1817, after a public 
and private life worthy of the scholar of 
Washington, the Emperor, on whom the 
Congress of Vienna had then bestowed 

* Schoell, vol. x. p. 139. 

f Julien, Notice Biographique sur Kosciusko. 

X Published, in M. Julien’s interesting little 
work. 


the greater part of the duchy of Warsaw, 
with the title of King of Poland, allowed 
his Polish subjects to pay due honours to 
the last of their heroes; and that Prince 
Jablonowski was sent to attend his remains 
from Switzerland to Cracow, there to be in¬ 
terred in the only spot of the Polish terri¬ 
tory which is now not dishonoured by a 
foreign master. He might have paid a still 
more acceptable tribute to his memory, by 
executing his pure intentions, and acceding 
to his disinterested prayers. 

The Partition of Poland was the model of 
all those acts of rapine which have been 
committed by monarchs or republicans 
during the wars excited by the French re¬ 
volution. No single cause has contributed 
so much to alienate mankind from ancient 
institutions, and loosen their respect for 
established governments. When monarchs 
show so signal a disregard to immemorial 
possession and legal right, it is in vain for 
them to hope that subjects will not copy the 
precedent. The law of nations is a code 
without tribunals, without ministers, and 
without arms, which rests only on a general 
opinion of its usefulness, and on the influ¬ 
ence of that opinion in the councils of states, 
and most of all, perhaps, on a habitual re¬ 
verence, produced by the constant appeal to 
its rules even by those who did not observe 
them, and strengthened by the elaborate 
artifice to which the proudest tyrants deigned 
to submit, in their attempts to elude an 
authority which they did not dare to dis¬ 
pute. One signal triumph over such an 
authority was sufficient to destroy its power. 
Philip II. and Louis XIV. had often vio¬ 
lated the law of nations; but the spoilers of 
Poland overthrew it. 













SKETCH 

OF THE 

ADMINISTRATION AND FALL OF STRUENSEE.* 


On the arrival of Charles VII. of Denmark, 
at Altona, in need of a physician,—an at¬ 
tendant whom his prematurely broken con¬ 
stitution made peculiarly essential to him 
even at the age of nineteen,—Struensee, the 
son of a Lutheran bishop in Holstein, had 
just begun to practise medicine, after having 
been for some time employed as the editor 
of a newspaper in that city. He was now 
appointed physician to the King, at the 
moment when he was projecting a profes¬ 
sional establishment at Malaga, or a voyage 
to India, which his imagination, excited by 
the perusal of the elder travellers, had 
covered with “ barbaric pearl and gold.” 
He was now twenty-nine years old, and 
appears to have been recommended to the 
royal favour, by an agreeable exterior, pleas¬ 
ing manners, and some slight talents and 
superficial knowledge, with the subserviency 
indispensable in a favourite, and the power 
of amusing his listless and exhausted master. 
His name appears in the publications of the 
time as “ Doctor Struensee,” among the 
attendants of his Danish Majesty in England; 
and he received, in that character, the hono¬ 
rary degree of Doctor of Medicine from the 
University of Oxford. 

Like all other minions, his ascent was 
rapid, or rather his flight to the pinnacle of 
power was instantaneous; for the passion 
of an absolute prince on such occasions 
knows no bounds, and brooks no delay. Im¬ 
mediately after the King’s return to Copen¬ 
hagen, Struensee was appointed a cabinet 
minister. While his brother was made a 


* From the Edinburgh Review, vol. xliv. p. 366. 

— Ed. 


counsellor of justice, he appointed Brandt, 
another adventurer, to superintend the 
palace and the imbecile King; and intrusted 
Rantzau, a disgraced Danish minister, who 
had been his colleague in the editorship of 
the Altona Journal, with the conduct of 
foreign affairs. He and his friend Brandt 
were created earls. Stolk, his predecessor 
in favour, had fomented and kept up an ani¬ 
mosity between the King and Queen : Stru¬ 
ensee (unhappily for himself as well as for 
her) gained the confidence of the Queen, by 
restoring her to the good graces of her hus¬ 
band. Caroline Matilda, sister of George III., 
who then had the misfortune to be Queen of 
Denmark, is described by Falkenskiold * as 
the handsomest woman of the Court, as of a 
mild and reserved character, and as one who 
was well qualified to enjoy and impart hap- 


* General Falkenskiold was a Danish gentleman 
of respectable family, who, after having served in 
the French army during the Seven Years’ War, 
and in the Russian army during the first war of 
Catharine II. against the Turks, was recalled to 
his country under the administration of Struensee, 
to take a part in the reform of the military esta¬ 
blishment, and to conduct the negotiation at 
Petersburgh, respecting the claims of the Imperial 
family to the duchy of Holstein. He was involved 
in the fall of Struensee, and was, without trial, 
doomed to imprisonment for life at Munkholm, a 
fortress situated on a rock opposite to Drontheim. 
After five years’ imprisonment he was released, 
and permitted to live, first at Montpellier, and 
afterwards at Lausanne, at which last city (with 
the exception of one journey to Copenhagen) he 
passed the latter part of his life, and where he died 
in September, 1820, in the eighty-third year of his 
age. He left his Memoirs for publication to his 
friend, M. Secretan, first judge of the canton of 
Vaud. 









462 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


piness, if it liad been her lot to be united to 
an endurable husband. Brandt seems to 
have been a weak coxcomb, and Rantzau a 
turbulent and ungrateful intriguer. 

The only foreign business which Stfu- 
ensee found pending on his entrance into 
office, was a negotiation with Russia, con¬ 
cerning the pretensions of that formidable 
competitor to a part of Holstein, which 
Denmark had unjustly acquired fifty years 
before. Peter III., the head of the house of 
Holstein, was proud of his German ancestry, 
and ambitious of recovering their ancient 
dominions. After his murder, Catharine 
claimed these possessions, as nominal Regent 
of Holstein, during the minority of her son. 
The last act of Bernstorff’s administration 
had been a very prudent accommodation, in 
which Russia agreed to relinquish her claims 
on Holstein, in consideration of the cession 
to her by Denmark of the small principality 
of Oldenburg, the very ancient patrimony of 
the Danish royal family. Rantzau, who in 
his exile had had some quarrel with the 
Russian Government, prevailed on the inex¬ 
perienced Struensee to delay the execution 
of this politic convention, and aimed at 
establishing the influence of France and 
Sweden at Copenhagen instead of that of 
Russia, which was then supported by Eng¬ 
land. He even entertained the chimerical 
project of driving the Empress from Peters- 
burgh. Falkenskiold, who had been sent on 
a mission to Petersburgh, endeavoured, after 
his return, to disabuse Struensee, and to 
show him the ruinous tendency of such rash 
counsels, proposing to him even to recall 
Bernstorff, to facilitate the good understand¬ 
ing which could hardly be restored as long 
as Counts Osten and Rantzau, the avowed 
enemies of Russia, were in power. Struensee, 
like most of those who must be led by 
others, was exceedingly fearful of being 
thought to be so. When Falkenskiold 
warned him against yielding to Rantzau, his 
plans were shaken: but when the same 
weapon was turned against Falkenskiold, 
Struensee returned to his obstinacy. Even 
after Rantzau had become his declared 
enemy, he adhered to the plans of that in¬ 


triguer, lest he should be suspected of yield¬ 
ing to Falkenskiold. Wherever there were 
only two roads, it was easy to lead Struensee, 
by exciting his fear of being led by the 
opposite party. 

Struensee’s measures of internal policy 
appear to have been generally well-meant, 
but often ill-judged. Some of his reforms 
were in themselves excellent: but he showed, 
on the whole, a meddling and restless spirit, 
impatient of the necessary delay, often em¬ 
ployed in petty change, choosing wrong 
means, braving prejudices that might have 
been softened, and offending interests that 
might have been conciliated. He was a 
sort of inferior Joseph II.; like him, rather 
a servile copyist than an enlightened fol¬ 
lower of Frederic II. His dissolution of 
the Guards (in itself a prudent measure of 
economy) turned a numerous body of volun¬ 
teers into the service of his enemies. The 
removal of Bernstorff was a very blamable 
means of strengthening himself. The sup¬ 
pression of the Privy Council, the only 
feeble restraint on despotic power, was still 
more reprehensible in itself, and excited the 
just resentment of the Danish nobility. The 
repeal of a barbarous law, inflicting capital 
punishment on adultery, was easily mis¬ 
represented to the people as a mark of 
approbation of that vice. 

Both Struensee and Brandt had embraced 
the infidelity at that time prevalent among 
men of the world, which consisted in little 
more than a careless transfer of implied 
faith from Luther to Voltaire. They had 
been acquainted with the leaders of the 
Philosophical party at Paris, and they in¬ 
troduced the conversation of their masters 
at Copenhagen. In the same school they 
were taught to see clearly enough the dis¬ 
tempers of European society; but they were 
not taught (for their teachers did not know) 
which of these maladies were to be endured, 
which were to be palliated, and what were 
the remedies and regimen by which the re¬ 
mainder might, in due time, be effectually 
and yet safely removed. The dissolute man¬ 
ners of the Court contributed to their un¬ 
popularity; rather, perhaps, because the 






THE ADMINISTRATION" AND FALL OF STRUENSEE. 463 


nobility resented tbe intrusion of upstarts 
into the sphere of their privileged vice, than 
because there was any real increase of licen¬ 
tiousness. 

It must not J)e forgotten that Struensee 
was the first minister of an absolute mo¬ 
narchy who abolished the torture, and that 
he patronised those excellent plans for the 
emancipation of the enslaved husbandmen 
which were first conceived by Reverdil, a 
Swiss, and the adoption of which by the 
second Bernstorff has justly immortalised 
that statesman. He will be honoured by 
after ages for what offended the Lutheran 
clergy,—the free exercise of religious wor¬ 
ship granted to Calvinists, to Moravians, 
and even to Catholics; for the Danish clergy 
were ambitious of retaining the right to 
persecute, not only long after it was impos¬ 
sible to exercise it, but even after they had 
lost the disposition to do so; — at first to 
overawe, afterwards to degrade non-con¬ 
formists ; in both stages, as a badge of the 
privileges and honour of an established 
church. 

No part, however, of Struensee’s private 
or public conduct can be justly considered 
as the cause of his downfall. His irreligion, 
his immoralities, his precipitate reforms, his 
parade of invidious favour, were only the 
instruments or pretexts by which his com¬ 
petitors for office were able to effect his 
destruction. Had he either purchased the 
good-will, or destroyed the power of his 
enemies at Court, he might long have go¬ 
verned Denmark, and perhaps have been 
gratefully remembered by posterity as a re¬ 
former of political abuses. He fell a victim 
to an intrigue for a change of ministers, 
which, under such a King, was really a 
struggle for the sceptre. 

His last act of political imprudence illus¬ 
trates both the character of his enemies, and 
the nature of absolute government. When 
he was appointed Secretary of the Cabinet, 
he was empowered to execute such orders as 
were very urgent, without the signature of 
the King, on condition, however, that they 
should be weekly laid before him, to be 
confirmed or annulled under his own hand. 


This liberty had been practised before his 
administration; and it was repeated in many 
thousand instances after his downfall. Under 
any monarchy, the substantial fault would 
have consisted rather in assuming an inde¬ 
pendence of his colleagues, than in encroach¬ 
ing on any royal power which was real or 
practicable. Under so wretched a pageant 
as the King of Denmark, Struensee showed 
his folly in obtaining, by a formal order, the 
power which he might easily have continued 
to execute without it. But this order was 
the signal of a clamour against him, as an 
usurper of royal prerogative. The Guards 
showed symptoms of mutiny; the garrison 
of the capital adopted their resentment; the 
populace became riotous. Rantzau, partly 
stimulated by revenge against Struensee for 
having refused a protection to him against 
his creditors, being secretly favoured by 
Count Osten, found means of gaining over 
Guldberg, an ecclesiastic of obscure birth, 
full of professions of piety, the preceptor of 
the King’s brother, who prevailed on that 
prince and the Queen Dowager to engage in 
the design of subverting the Administration. 
Several of Struensee’s friends warned him 
of his danger ; but, whether from levity or 
magnanimity, he neglected their admonitions. 
Rantzau himself, either jealous of the as¬ 
cendant acquired by Guldberg among the 
conspirators, or visited by some compunc¬ 
tious remembrances of friendship and grati¬ 
tude, spoke to Falkenskiold confidentially 
of the prevalent rumours, and tendered his 
services for the preservation of his former 
friend. Falkenskiold distrusted the advances 
of Rantzau, and answered coldly, “ Speak 
to Struensee.” Rantzau turned away, say¬ 
ing, “ He will not listen to me .” 

Two days afterwards, on the 16th of 
January, 1772, there was a brilliant masked 
ball at Court, where the conspirators and 
their victims mingled in the festivities (as 
was observed by some foreign ministers pre¬ 
sent) with more than usual gaiety. At four 
o’clock in the morning, the Queen Dowager, 
who was the King’s step-mother, her son, 
and Count Rantzau, entered the King’s bed¬ 
chamber, compelled his valet to awaken him, 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


464 


and required him to sign an order to appre¬ 
hend the Queen, the Counts Struensee and 
Brandt, who, with other conspirators, they 
pretended were then engaged in a plot to 
depose, if not to murder him. Christian is 
said to have hesitated, from fear or obsti¬ 
nacy — perhaps from some remnant of hu¬ 
manity and moral restraint; but he soon 
yielded; and his verbal assent, or perhaps a 
silence produced by terror, was thought a 
sufficient warrant. Rantzau, with three 
officers, rushed with his sword drawn into 
the apartment of the Queen, compelled her 
to rise from her bed, and, in spite of her 
tears and threats, sent her, half dressed, a 
prisoner to the fortress of Cronenbourg, to¬ 
gether with her infant daughter Louisa, 
whom she was then suckling, and Lady 
Mostyn, an English lady who attended her. 
Struensee and Brandt were' in the same 
night thrown into prison, and loaded with 
irons. On the next day, the King was pa¬ 
raded through the streets in a carriage 
drawn by eight milk-white horses, as if tri¬ 
umphing after a glorious victory over his 
enemies, in which he had saved his country: 
the city was illuminated. The preachers of 
the Established Church are charged by seve¬ 
ral concurring witnesses with inhuman and 
unchristian invectives from the pulpit against 
the Queen and the fallen ministers; the 
good, doubtless, believing too easily the tale 
of the victors, the base paying court to the 
dispensers of preferment, and the bigoted 
greedily swallowing the most incredible ac¬ 
cusations against unbelievers. The populace, 
inflamed by these declamations, demolished 
or pillaged from sixty to a hundred houses. 

The conspirators distributed among them¬ 
selves the chief offices. The King was suf¬ 
fered to fall into his former nullity; the 
formality of his signature was dispensed 
with; and the affairs of the kingdom were 
conducted in his name, only till his son was 
of an age to assume the regency. Guldberg, 
under the modest title of “ Secretary of the 
Cabinet,” became Prime Minister. Rantzau 
was appointed a Privy Councillor; and Osten 
retained the department of Foreign Affairs; 
but it is consolatory to add, that, after a few 


months, both were discarded at the instance 
of the Court of Petersbttrgh, to complete 
the desired exchange of Holstein for Old- 
enburgh. 

The object of the conspiracy being thus 
accomplished, the conquerors proceeded, as 
usual, to those judicial proceedings against 
the prisoners, which are intended formally 
to justify the violence of a victorious faction, 
but substantially aggravate its guilt. A 
commission was appointed to try the ac¬ 
cused : its leading members were the chiefs 
of the conspiracy. Guldberg, one of them, 
had to determine, by the sentence which he 
pronounced, whether he was himself a rebel. 
General Eichstedt, the president, had per¬ 
sonally arrested several of the prisoners, and 
was, by his judgment on Struensee, who had 
been his benefactor, to decide, that the cri¬ 
minality of that minister was of so deep a 
dye as to cancel the obligations of gratitude. 
To secure his impartiality still more, he was 
appointed a minister, and promised the office 
of preceptor of the hereditary prince — the 
permanence of which appointments must 
have partly depended on the general con¬ 
viction that the prisoners were guilty. 

The charges against Struensee and Brandt 
are dated on the 21st of April. The defence 
of Struensee was drawn up by his counsel 
on the 22nd; that of Brandt was prepared 
on the 23rd. Sentence was pronounced 
against both on the 23rd. Oil the 27th, it 
was approved, and ordered to be executed 
by the King. On the 28th, after their right 
hands had been cut off on the scaffold, they 
were beheaded. For three months they had 
been closely and very cruelly imprisoned. 
The proceedings of the commission were 
secret: the prisoners were not confronted 
with each other; they heard no witnesses; 
they read no depositions; they do not appear 
to have seen any counsel till they had re¬ 
ceived the indictments. It is characteristic 
of this scene to add, that the King went to 
the Opera on the 25th, after signifying his 
approbation of the sentence; and that on the 
27th, the day of its solemn confirmation, 
there was a masked ball at Court. On the 
day of the execution, the King again went 







THE ADMINISTRATION AND FALL OF STRUENSEE. 4G5 


to the Opera. The passion which prompts 
an absolute monarch to raise an unworthy 
favourite to honour, is still less disgusting 
than the levity and hardness with which, on 
the first alarm, he always abandons the same 
favourite to destruction. It may be ob¬ 
served, that the very persons who had repre¬ 
sented the patronage of operas and masque¬ 
rades as one of the offences of Struensee, 
were the same who thus unseasonably pa¬ 
raded their unhappy sovereign through a 
succession of such amusements. 

The Memoirs of Falkenskiold contain the 
written answers of Struensee to the pre¬ 
liminary questions of the commission, the 
substance of the charges against him, and 
the defence made by his counsel. The first 
were written on the 14th of April, when he 
was alone in a dungeon, with irons on his 
hands and feet, and an iron collar fastened 
to the wall round his neck. The indictment 
is prefaced by a long declamatory invective 
against his general conduct and character, 
such as still dishonour the criminal proceed¬ 
ings of most nations, and from which Eng¬ 
land has probably been saved by the scho¬ 
lastic subtlety and dryness of her system of 
what is called “ special pleading.” Laying 
aside his supposed connection with the 
Queen, which is reserved for a few separate 
remarks, the charges are either perfectly 
frivolous, or sufficiently answered by his 
counsel, in a defence which he was allowed 
only one day to prepare, and which bears 
evident marks of being written with the fear 
of the victorious faction before the eyes of 
the feeble advocate. One is, that he caused 
the young Prince to be trained so hardily as 
to endanger his life; in answer to which, he 
refers to the judgment of physicians, appeals 
to the restored health of the young Prince, 
and observes, that even if he had been 
wrong, his fault could have been no more 
than an error of judgment. The truth is, 
that he was guilty of a ridiculous mimicry of 
the early education of Emile, at a time when 
all Europe was intoxicated by the writings 
of Rousseau. To the second charge, that he 
had issued, on the 21st of December pre¬ 
ceding, unknown to the King, an order for 


the incorporation of the Foot Guards with 
the troops of the line, and on their refusal 
to obey, had, on the 24th, obtained an order 
from him for their reduction, he answered, 
that the draught of the order had been read 
and approved by the King on the 21st, 
signed and sealed by him on the 23rd, and 
finally confirmed by the order for reducing 
the refractory Guards, as issued by his Ma¬ 
jesty on the 24th, so that he could scarcely 
be said to have been even in form guilty of 
a two days’ usurpation. It might have been 
added, that it was immediately fully par¬ 
doned by the royal confirmation; that Rant- 
zau, and others of his enemies, had taken an 
active share in it; and that it was so recent, 
that the conspirators must have resolved on 
their measures before its occurrence. He 
was further charged with taking or granting 
exorbitant pensions; and he answered, seem¬ 
ingly with truth, that they were not higher 
than those of his predecessors. He was ac¬ 
cused also of having falsified the public 
accounts ; to which his answer is necessarily 
too detailed for our purpose, but appears to 
be satisfactory. Both these last offences, if 
they had been committed, could not have 
been treated as high treason in any country 
not wholly barbarous; and the evidence on 
which the latter and more precise of the 
charges rested, was a declaration of the im¬ 
becile and imprisoned King on an intricate 
matter of account reported to him by an 
agent of the enemies of the prisoner. 

Thus stands the case of the unfortunate 
Struensee on all the charges but one, as it 
appears in the accusation which his enemies 
had such time and power to support, and on 
the defence made for him under such cruel 
disadvantages. That he was innocent of the 
political offences laid to his charge, is ren¬ 
dered highly probable by the Narrative of 
his Conversion, published soon after his 
execution by Dr. Munter, a divine of Copen¬ 
hagen, appointed by the Danish Government 
to attend him * — a composition which bears 
the strongest marks of the probity and sin- 


* Reprinted by the late learned and exemplary 
Mr. Rennell of Kensington. London, 1824. 


HH 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


466 


cerity of the writer, and is a perfect model 
of the manner in which a person, circum¬ 
stanced like Struensee, ought to be treated 
by a kind and considerate minister of reli¬ 
gion. Men of all opinions, who peruse this 
narrative, must own that it is impossible, 
with more tenderness, to touch the wounds 
of a sufferer, to reconcile the agitated peni¬ 
tent to himself, to present religion as the 
consoler, not as the disturber of his dying 
moments; gently to dispose him to try his 
own actions by a higher test of morality, to 
fill his mind with indulgent benevolence to¬ 
wards his fellow men, and to exalt it to a 
reverential love of boundless perfection. Dr. 
Munter deserved the confidence of Struen¬ 
see, and seems entirely to have won it. The 
unfortunate man freely owned his private 
licentiousness, his success in corrupting the 
principles of the victims of his desires, his 
rejection, not only of religion, but also in 
theory, though not quite in feeling, of what¬ 
ever ennobles and elevates the mind in 
morality, the imprudence and rashness by 
which he brought ruin on his friends, and 
plunged his parents in deep affliction; and 
the ignoble and impure motives of all his 
public actions, which, in the eye of reason, 
deprived them of that pretension to virtuous 
character to which their outward appearance 
might seem to entitle them. He felt for his' 
friends with unusual tenderness. Instead of 
undue concealment from Munter, he is, 
perhaps, chargeable with betraying to him 
secrets which were not exclusively his own: 
but he denies the truth of the political 
charges against him — more especially those 
of peculation and falsification of accounts. 

The charges against Brandt would be 
altogether unworthy of consideration, were 
it not for the light which one of them throws 
on the whole of this atrocious procedure. 
The main accusation against him was, that 
he had beaten, flogged, and scratched the 
sacred person of the King. His answer 
was, that the King, who had a passion for 
wrestling and boxing, had repeatedly chal¬ 
lenged him to a match, and had severely 
beaten him five or six times; that he did 
not gratify his master’s taste till after these 


provocations ; that two of the witnesses 
against him, servants of the King, had in¬ 
dulged their master in the same sport: and 
that he received liberal gratifications, and 
continued to enjoy the royal favour for 
months after this pretended treason. The 
King inherited this perverse taste in amuse¬ 
ments from his father, whose palace had 
been the theatre of the like kingly sports. 
It is impossible to entertain the least doubt 
of the truth of this defence: it affords a 
natural and probable explanation of a fact 
which would be otherwise incomprehensible. 

A suit for divorce was commenced against 
the Queen, on the ground of criminal con¬ 
nection with Struensee, who was himself 
convicted of high treason for that connec¬ 
tion. This unhappy princess had been 
sacrificed, at the age of seventeen, to the 
brutal caprices of a husband who, if he had 
been a private man, would have been deemed 
incapable of the deliberate consent which is 
essential to marriage. She had early suf¬ 
fered from his violence, though she so far 
complied with his fancies as to ride with him 
in male apparel, — an indecorum for which 
she had been sharply reprehended by her 
mother, the Princess-Dowager of Wales, in 
a short interview between them, during a 
visit which the latter had paid to her brother 
at Gotha, after an uninterrupted residence 
of thirty-four years in England. The King 
had suffered the Russian minister at Copen¬ 
hagen to treat her with open rudeness ; and 
had disgraced his favourite cousin, the Prince 
of Hesse, for taking her part. He had never 
treated her with common civility, till they 
were reconciled by Struensee, at that period 
of overflowing good-nature when that minis¬ 
ter obtained the recall from banishment of 
the ungrateful Rantzau. 

The evidence against her consisted of a 
number of circumstances (none of them 
incapable of an innocent explanation) sworn 
to by attendants, who had been employed as 
spies on her conduct. She owned that she 
had been guilty of much imprudence; but 
in her dying moments she declared to M. 
Roques, pastor of the French church at 
Zell, that she never had been unfaithful to 







THE ADMINISTRATION AND FALL OF STRUENSEE. 467 


her husband.* It is true, that her own sig¬ 
nature affixed to a confession was alleged 
against her: but if General Falkenskiold 
was rightly informed (for he has every mark 
of honest intention), that signature proves 
nothing but the malice and cruelty of her 
enemies. Schack, the counsellor sent to 
interrogate her at Cronenbourg, was received 
by her with indignation when he spoke to 
her of connection with Struensee. When 
he showed Struensee’s confession to her, he 
artfully intimated that the fallen minister 
would be subjected to a very cruel death if 
he was found to have falsely criminated the 
Queen. “ What! ” she exclaimed, “ do you 
believe that if I was to confirm this decla¬ 
ration, I should save the life of that un¬ 
fortunate man?” Schack answered by a 
profound bow. The Queen took a pen, 
wrote the first syllable of her name, and 
fainted away. Schack completed the signa¬ 
ture, and carried away the fatal document 
in triumph. 

Struensee himself, however, had confessed 
his intercourse to the Commissioners. It is 
said that this confession was obtained by 
threats of torture, facilitated by some hope 
of life, and influenced by a knowledge that 
the proceeding against the Queen could not 
be carried beyond divorce. But his repeated 
and deliberate avowals to Dr. Munter do not 
(it must be owned) allow of such an expla¬ 
nation. Scarcely any supposition favourable 
to this unhappy Princess remains, unless it 
should be thought likely, that as Dr. Hun¬ 
ter’s Narrative was published under the eye 
of her oppressors, they might have caused 
the confessions of Struensee to be inserted 
in it by their own agents, without the con¬ 
sent — perhaps without the knowledge — of 
Munter; whose subsequent life is so little 
known, that we cannot determine whether 
he ever had the means of exposing the 
falsification. It must be confessed, that 
internal evidence does not favour this hy¬ 
pothesis ; for the passages of the Narrative, 
which contain the avowals of Struensee, 


* Communicated by him to M. Secretan on the 
7th of March, 1780. 


have a striking appearance of genuineness. 
If Caroline betrayed her sufferings to 
Struensee, — if she was led to a dangerous 
familiarity with a pleasing young man who 
had rendered essential services to her, — if 
mixed motives of confidence, gratitude, dis¬ 
gust, and indignation, at last plunged her 
into an irretrievable fault, the reasonable 
and the virtuous will reserve their abhor¬ 
rence for the conspirators who, for the pur¬ 
poses of their own ambition, punished her 
infirmity by ruin, endangered the succession 
to the crown, and disgraced their country in 
the eyes of Europe. It is difficult to contain 
the indignation which naturally arises from 
the reflection, that at this very time, and 
with a full knowledge of the fate of the 
Queen of Denmark, the Royal Marriage 
Act was passed in England, for the avowed 
purpose of preventing the only marriages of 
preference, which a princess, at least, has 
commonly the opportunity of forming. Of 
a monarch, who thought so much more of 
the pretended degradation of his brother 
than of the cruel misfortunes of his sister, 
less cannot be said than that he must have 
had more pride than tenderness. Even the 
capital punishment of Struensee, for such 
an offence, will be justly condemned by all 
but English lawyers, who ought to be 
silenced by the consciousness that the same 
barbarous disproportion of a penalty to an 
offence is sanctioned in the like case by their 
own law. 

Caroline Matilda died at Zell about three 
years after her imprisonment. The last 
tidings which reached the Princess-Dowager 
of Wales on her death-bed, was the im¬ 
prisonment of this ill-fated daughter, which 
was announced to her in a letter dictated to 
the King of Denmark by his new masters, 
and subscribed with his own hand. Two 
days before her death, though in a state of 
agony, she herself wrote a letter to the 
nominal sovereign, exhorting him to be at 
least indulgent and lenient towards her 
daughter. After hearing the news from 
Copenhagen she scarcely swallowed any 
nourishment. The intelligence was said to 
have accelerated her death ; but the dread- 


HH 2 







468 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


ful malady* under which she suffered, 
neither needed the co-operation of sorrow, 
nor was of a nature to be much affected 
by it. 

What effects were produced by the inter¬ 
ference of the British Minister for the 
Queen? — How far the conspirators were 
influenced by fear of the resentment of 
King George III. ? — and In what degree 
that Monarch himself may have acquiesced 
in the measures finally adopted towards his 
sister ? — are questions which must be 
answered by the historian from other sources 
than those from which we reason on the 
present occasion. The only legal proceed¬ 
ing ever commenced against the Queen was 
a suit for a divorce, jvhich was in form per¬ 
fectly regular: for in all Protestant countries 
but England, the offended party is entitled 
to release from the bands of marriage by the 
ordinary tribunals. It is said that two legal 
questions were then agitated in Denmark, 
and “ even occasioned great debates among 
the Commissioners : — 1st. Whether the 
Queen, as a sovereign, could be legally tried 
by her subjects; and, 2dly, Whether, as a 
foreign princess, she was amenable to the 
law of Denmark ? ” But it is quite cer¬ 
tain on general principles, (assuming that 
no Danish law had made their Queen a par¬ 
taker of the sovereign power, or otherwise 
expressly exempted her from legal respon¬ 
sibility,) that however high in dignity and 
honour, she was still a subject; and that as 
such, she, as well as every other person 
wherever born, resident in Denmark, was, 
during her residence at least, amenable to 
the laws of that country. 

It was certain that there was little pro¬ 
bability of hostility from England. Engaged 
in a contest with the people at home, and 
dreading the approach of a civil war with 
America, Lord North was not driven from 
an inflexible adherence to his pacific system 
by the Partition of Poland itself. An ad¬ 
dress for the production of the diplomatic 
correspondence respecting the French con- 


* An affection of the throat which precluded the 
passage of all nourishment. — Ed. 


quest, or purchase, of Corsica, was moved in 
the House of Commons on the 17th of No¬ 
vember, 1768, for the purpose of condemning 
that unprincipled transaction, and with a 
view indirectly to blame the supineness of 
the English ministers respecting it. The 
motion was negatived by a majority of 230 
to 84, on the same ground as that on which 
the like motions respecting Naples and Spain 
were resisted in 1822 and 1823 ; — that such 
proposals were too little if war was intended, 
and too much if it was not. The weight of 
authority, however, did not coincide with 
the power of numbers. Mr. Grenville, the 
most experienced statesman, and Mr. Burke, 
the man of greatest genius and wisdom in 
the House, voted in the minority, and argued 
in support of the motion. “ Such,” said the 
latter, “ was the general zeal for the Corsi¬ 
cans, that if the Ministers would withdraw 
the Proclamation issued by Lord Bute’s 
Government, forbidding British subjects to 
assist the Corsican ‘ rebels,’ ” (a measure 
similar to our Foreign Enlistment Act), 
“ private individuals would supply the brave 
insurgents with sufficient means of defence.” 
The young Duke of Devonshire, then at 
Florence, had sent 400 1 . to Corsica, and 
raised 2000Z. more for the same purpose by 
a subscription among the English in Italy.* 
A Government which looked thus passively 
at such breaches of the system of Europe on 
occasions when the national feeling was 
favourable to a more generous, perhaps a 
more wise policy, would hardly have been 
diverted from its course by any indignities 
or outrages which a foreign Government 
could offer to an individual of however illus¬ 
trious rank. Little, however, as the likeli¬ 
hood of armed interference by England was, 
the apprehension of it might have been suffi- 


* These particulars are not to be found in the 
printed debate, which copies the account of this 
discussion given in the Annual Register by Mr. 
Burke, written, like his other abstracts of par¬ 
liamentary proceedings, with the brevity and 
reserve, produced by his situation as one of the 
most important parties in the argument, and 
by the severe notions then prevalent on such 
publications. 








THE ADMINISTRATION AND FALL OF STRUENSEE. 469 


cient to enable the more wary of the Danish 
conspirators to restrain the rage of their 
most furious accomplices. The ability and 
spirit displayed by Sir Robert Murray 
Keith on behalf of the Queen was soon after 
rewarded by his promotion to the embassy 
at Vienna, always one of the highest places 
in English diplomacy. His vigorous remon¬ 
strances in some measure compensated for 
the timidity of his government; and he 
powerfully aided the cautious policy of 
Count Osten, who moderated the passions of 
his colleagues, though giving the most spe¬ 
cious colour to their acts in his official cor¬ 
respondence with foreign powers. 

Contemporary observers of enlarged minds 
considered these events in Denmark not so 
much as they affected individuals, or were 
connected with temporary policy, as in the 
higher light in which they indicated the 
character of nations, and betrayed the pre¬ 
valence of dispositions inauspicious to the 
prospects of mankind. None of the un¬ 
avowed writings of Mr. Burke, and perhaps 
few of his acknowledged ones, exhibit more 
visible marks of his hand than the History 
of Europe in the Annual Register of 1772, 
which opens with a philosophical and elo¬ 
quent vindication of the policy which watched 
over the balance of power, and with a pro¬ 
phetic display of the evils which were to 
flow from the renunciation of that policy by 
France and England, in suffering the parti¬ 
tion of Poland. The little transactions of 
Denmark, which were despised by many as a 
petty and obscure intrigue, and affected the 
majority only as a part of the romance or 
tragedy of real life, appeared to the philo¬ 
sophical statesman pregnant with melan¬ 
choly instruction. “ It has,” says he, “ been 
too hastily and too generally received as an 
opinion with the most eminent writers, and 
from them too carelessly received by the 
world, that the Northern nations, at all 
times and without exception, have been 
passionate admirers of liberty, and tenacious 
to an extreme of their rights. A little 
attention will show that this opinion ought 
to be received with many restrictions. 
Sweden and Denmark have, within little 


more than a century, given absolute demon¬ 
stration to the contrary ; and the vast nation 
of the Russes, who overspread so great a 
part of the North, have, at all times, so long 
as their name has been known, or their acts 
remembered by history, been incapable of 
any other than a despotic government. And 
notwithstanding the contempt in which we 
hold the Eastern nations, and the slavish 
disposition we attribute to them, it may be 
found, if we make a due allowance for the 
figurative style and manner of the Orientals, 
that the official papers, public acts, and 
speeches, at the Courts of Petersburgh, 
Copenhagen, and Stockholm, are in as un¬ 
manly a strain of servility and adulation as 
those of the most despotic of the Asiatic 
governments.” 

It was doubtless an error to class Russia 
with the Scandinavian nations, merely be¬ 
cause they were both comprehended within 
the same parallels of latitude. The Russians 
differ from them in race, — a circumstance 
always to be considered, though more liable 
to be exaggerated or underrated, than any 
other which contributes to determine the 
character of nations. No Sarmatian people 
has ever been free. The Russians profess a 
religion, founded on the blindest submission 
of the understanding, which is, in their 
modern modification of it, directed to their 
temporal sovereign. They were for ages 
the slaves of the Tartars; the larger part of 
their dominions is Asiatic; and they were, 
till lately, with justice, more regarded as an 
Eastern than as a Western nation. But the 
nations of Scandinavia were of that Teutonic 
race, who were the founders of civil liberty; 
they early embraced the Reformation, which 
ought to have taught them the duty of exer¬ 
cising reason freely on every subject: and 
their spirit has never been broken by a 
foreign yoke. Writing in the year when 
despotism was established in Sweden, and 
its baneful effects so strikingly exhibited in 
Denmark, Mr. Burke may be excused for 
comparing these then unhappy countries 
with those vast regions of Asia which have 
been the immemorial seat of slavery. The 
revolution which we have been considering 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


470 


shows the propriety of the parallel in all its 
parts. If it only proved that absolute power 
corrupts the tyrant, there are many too 
debased to dread it on that account. But it 
shows him at Copenhagen, as at Ispahan, 
reduced to personal insignificance, a pageant 
occasionally exhibited by his ministers, or a 
tool in their hands, compelled to do what¬ 
ever suits their purpose, without power to 
save the life even of a minion, and without 
security, in cases of extreme violence, for 
his own. Nothing can more clearly prove 
that under absolute monarchy, good laws, if 
they could by a miracle be framed, must 
always prove utterly vain; that civil cannot 
exist without politic#! liberty; and that the 
detestable distinction, lately attempted in 
this country by the advocates of intolerance *, 
between freedom and political power, never 
can be allowed in practice without, in the 
first instance, destroying all securities for 
good government, and very soon introducing 
every species of corruption and oppression. 

The part of Mr. Burke’s History which 
we have quoted, is followed by a memorable 
passage which seems, in later times, to have 
escaped the notice, both of his opponents 
and adherents, and was probably forgotten 
by himself. After speaking of the final 
victory of Louis XY. over the French Par¬ 
liaments, of whom he says, “ that their fate 
seems to be finally decided I, and the few 
remains of public liberty that were preserved 
in these illustrious bodies are now no more,” 
he proceeds to general reflection on the con¬ 
dition and prospects of Europe. “In a 
word, if we seriously consider the mode of 
supporting great standing armies, which be¬ 
comes daily more prevalent, it will appear 
evident, that nothing less than a convulsion 
that will shake the globe to its centre, can 
ever restore the European nations to that 


* This was written in 1826. — Ed. 
f They were re-established four years after¬ 
wards : but as this arose, not from the spirit of the 
nation, but from the advisers of the young King, 
who had full power to grant or withhold their 
restoration, the want of foresight is rather apparent 
than substantial. 


liberty by which they were once so much 
distinguished. The Western world was its 
seat until another more western was dis¬ 
covered : and that other will probably be its 
asylum when it is hunted down in every 
other part of the world. Happy it is that 
the worst of times may have one refuge left 
for humanity.” 

This passage is not so much a prophecy 
of the French Revolution, as a declaration 
that without a convulsion as deep and dread¬ 
ful as that great event, the European nations 
had no chance of being restored to their 
ancient dignity and their natural rights. 
Had it been written after, or at least soon 
after the event, it might have been blamed 
as indicating too little indignation against 
guilt, and compassion for suffering. Even 
when considered as referring to the events 
of a distant futurity, it may be charged with 
a pernicious exaggeration, which seems to 
extenuate revolutionary horrors by repre¬ 
senting them as inevitable, and by laying it 
down falsely that Wisdom and Virtue can 
find no other road to Liberty. It would, 
however, be very unjust to charge such a 
purpose on Mr. Burke, or indeed to impute 
such a tendency to his desponding anticipa¬ 
tions. He certainly appears to have fore¬ 
seen that the progress of despotism would at 
length provoke a general and fearful resist¬ 
ance, the event of which, with a wise scepti¬ 
cism, he does not dare to foretel; rather, 
however, as a fond, and therefore fearful, 
lover of European liberty, foreboding that 
she will be driven from her ancient seats, 
and leave the inhabitants of Europe to be 
numbered with Asiatic slaves. The fierce¬ 
ness of the struggle he clearly saw, and 
most distinctly predicts; for he knew that 
the most furious passions of human nature 
would be enlisted on both sides. He does 
not conclude, from this dreadful prospect, 
that the chance of liberty ought to be relin¬ 
quished rather than expose a country to the 
probability or possibility of such a contest; 
but, on the contrary, very intelligibly de¬ 
clares by the melancholy tone in which he 
adverts to the expulsion of Liberty, that 
every evil is to be hazarded for her pre- 







THE ADMINISTRATION AND FALL OF STRUENSEE. 471 


servation. It would be well if his professed 
adherents would bear in mind, that such is 
the true doctrine of most of those whom 
they dread and revile as incendiaries. The 
friends of freedom only profess that those 
who have recourse to the only remaining 
means of preserving or acquiring liberty, 
are not morally responsible for the evils 
which may arise in an inevitable combat. 

The Danish dominions continued to be 
administered in the name of Christian VII., 
for the long period of thirty-six years after 
the deposition of Struensee. The mental 
incapacity under which he always laboured, 
was not formally recognised till the associa¬ 
tion of his son, now King of Denmark, with 
him in the government. He did not cease 
to breathe till 1808, after a nominal reign of 
forty-three years, and an animal existence 
of near sixty. During the latter part of 
that period, the real rulers of the country 
were wise and honest men. It enjoyed a 
considerable interval of prosperity under 
the moderate administration of Bernstorff, 
whose merit in forbearing to join the coa¬ 
lition against France in 1793, is greatly 
enhanced by his personal abhorrence of the 
Revolution. His adoption of Reverdil’s 
measures of enfranchisement, sheds the 
purest glory on his name. 

The fate of Denmark, after the ambition 
of Napoleon had penetrated into the North, 
— the iniquity with which she was stripped 
by Russia of Norway, for adherence to an 
alliance which Russia had compelled her to 
join, and as a compensation to Sweden for 
Finland, of which Sweden had been robbed 
by Russia, are events too familiarly known 
to be recounted here. She is now no more 


than a principality, whose arms are still sur¬ 
mounted by a royal crown. A free and 
popular government, under the same wise 
administration, might have arrested many of 
these calamities, and afforded a new proof 
that the attachment of a people to a govern¬ 
ment in which they have a palpable interest 
and a direct share, is the most secure found¬ 
ation of defensive strength. 

The political misfortunes of Denmark 
disprove the commonplace opinion, that all 
enslaved nations deserve their fate: for the 
moral and intellectual qualities of the Danes 
seem to qualify them for the firm and pru¬ 
dent exercise of the privileges of freemen. 
All those by whom they are well known, 
commend their courage, honesty, and indus¬ 
try. The information of the labouring 
classes has made a considerable progress 
since their enfranchisement. Their litera¬ 
ture, like that of the other Northern nations, 
has generally been dependent on that of 
Germany, with which country they are closely 
connected in language and religion. In the 
last half century, they have made persever¬ 
ing efforts to build up a national literature. 
The resistance of their fleet in 1801, has 
been the theme of many Danish poets ; but 
we believe that they have been as unsuccess¬ 
ful in their bold competition with Campbell, 
as their mariners in their gallant contest 
with Nelson. However, a poor and some¬ 
what secluded country, with a small and 
dispersed population, which has produced 
Tycho Brahe, Oelilenschkeger, and Thor- 
waldsen, must be owned to have contributed 
her full contingent to the intellectual great¬ 
ness of Europe. 







STATEMENT 

OF THE CASE OF 

DONNA MARIA DA GLORIA, 

AS A 

CLAIMANT TO THE CROWN OF PORTUGAL.* 


Before the usurpation of Portugal by Philip 
II. of Spain in 1580, the Portuguese nation, 
though brilliantly distinguished in arts and 
arms, and, as a commercial and maritime 
power, in some measure filling up the inter¬ 
val between the decline of Venice and the 
rise of Holland, had not yet taken a place in 
the political system of Europe. From the 
restoration of her independence under the 
House of Braganza in 1640, to the peace of 
Utrecht, Spain was her dangerous enemy, 
and France, the political opponent of Spain, 
was her natural protector. Her relation to 
France was reversed as soon as a Bourbon 
King was seated on the throne of Spain. 
From that moment the union of the two 
Bourbon monarchies gave her a neighbour 
far more formidable than the Austrian 
princes who had slumbered for near a cen¬ 
tury at the Escurial. It became absolutely 
necessary for her safety that she should 
strengthen herself against this constantly 
threatening danger by an alliance, which, 
being founded in a common and permanent 
interest, might be solid and durable. Eng¬ 
land, the political antagonist of France, 
whose safety would be endangered by every 
aggrandisement of the House of Bourbon, 
and who had the power of rapidly succour¬ 
ing Portugal, without the means of oppress¬ 
ing her independence, was evidently the 


* From the Edinburgh Review, vol. xlv. p. 202. 
— Ed. 


only state from which friendship and aid, at 
once effectual, safe, and lasting, could be 
expected: — hence the alliance between 
England and Portugal, and the union, closer 
than can be created by written stipulations, 
between these two countries. 

The peril, however, was suspended during 
forty years of the dissolute and unambitious 
government of Louis XV. till the year 1761, 
when, by the treaty known under the name 
of the “ Family Compact,” the Due de 
Choiseul may be justly said (to borrow the 
language of Boman ambition) to have re¬ 
duced Spain to the form of a province. A 
separate and secret convention was executed 
on the same day (15th of August), by which 
it was agreed, that if England did not make 
peace with France by the 1st of May, 1762, 
Spain should then declare war against the 
former power. The sixth article fully dis¬ 
closed the magnitude of the danger which, 
from that moment to this, has hung over the 
head of Portugal. His Most Faithful Ma¬ 
jesty was to be desired to accede to the 
convention; “ it not being just,” in the judg¬ 
ment of these royal jurists, “ that he should 
remain a tranquil spectator of the disputes 
of the two Courts with England, and con¬ 
tinue to enrich the enemies of the two 
Sovereigns, by keeping his ports open to 
them.” The King of Portugal refused to 
purchase a temporary exemption from at¬ 
tack by a surrender of his independence. 
The French and Spanish Ministers declared, 







CASE OF DONNA MAEIA. 473 


“ that the Portuguese alliance with England, 
though called ‘ defensive ,’ became in reality 
offensive , from the situation of the Portu¬ 
guese dominions, and from the nature of the 
English power.” * A war ensued, — being 
probably the first ever waged against a 
country, on the avowed ground of its geo¬ 
graphical position. It was terminated by 
the Treaty of Paris in 1763, without, how¬ 
ever, any proposition on the part of France 
and Spain that Portugal should be cut away 
from the Continent, and towed into the 
neighbourhood of Madeira, — where perhaps 
she might re-enter on her right as an inde¬ 
pendent state to observe neutrality, and to 
provide for her security by defensive alli¬ 
ances. This most barefaced act of injustice 
might be passed over here in silence, if it 
did not so strongly illustrate the situation of 
Portugal, since Spain became a dependent 
ally of France; and if we could resist the 
temptation of the occasion to ask whether 
the authors of such a war were as much less 
ambitious than Napoleon, as they were be¬ 
neath him in valour and genius. 

In the American war, it does not appear 
that any attempt was made, on principles of 
geography , to compel Portugal to make war 
on England.f The example of the Family 
Compact, however, was not long barren. As 
soon as the French Republic had re-estab¬ 
lished the ascendant of France at Madrid, 
they determined to show that they inherited 
the principles as well as the sceptre of their 
monarchs. Portugal, now overpowered, was 
compelled to cede Olivenza to Spain, and to 
shut her ports on English ships, j Thus ter¬ 
minated the second war made against her to 
oblige her to renounce the only ally capable 
of assisting her, and constantly interested in 
her preservation. But these compulsory 
treaties were of little practical importance, 

* Note of Don Joseph Torrero and Don Jacques 
O’Dun, Lisbon, 1st April, 1762. Annual Register. 

f Portugal did indeed accede to the Armed 
Neutrality; but it was not till the 15th of July, 
1782, on the eve of a general peace. Martens, 
Recueil de Traitds, vol. ii. p. 208. 

J By the Treaty between France and Spain of 
the 19th August, 1796. Martens, vol. vi. p. 656. 


being immediately followed by the Peace of 
Amiens. They only furnished a new proof 
that the insecurity of Portugal essentially 
arose from the dependence of Spain on 
France, and could not be lessened by any 
change in the government of the latter 
country. 

When the war, or rather wars, against 
universal monarchy broke out, the Regent 
of Portugal declared the neutrality of his 
dominions.* For four years he was indulged 
in the exercise of this right of an independ¬ 
ent prince, in spite of the geographical posi¬ 
tion of the kingdom. At the end of that 
period the “geographical principle” was 
enforced against him more fully and vigor¬ 
ously than on the former instances of its 
application. The Portuguese monarchy was 
confiscated and partitioned in a secret con¬ 
vention between France and Spain, executed 
at Fontainebleau on the 27th of October, 
1807, by which considerable parts of its 
continental territory were granted to the 
Prince of the Peace, and to the Spanish 
Princess, then called Queen of Etruria, in 
sovereignty, but as feudatories of the crown 
of Spain, f A French army under Junot 
marched against Portugal, and the Royal 
Family were compelled, in November fol¬ 
lowing, to embark for Brazil; a measure 
which was strongly suggested by the con¬ 
stant insecurity to which European Portugal 
was doomed by the Family Compact, and 
which had been seriously entertained by the 
Government since the treaty of Badajoz. 

The events which followed in the Spanish 
Peninsula are too memorable to be more 
than alluded to. Portugal was governed by 
a Regency nominated by the King. The 
people caught the generous spirit of the 
Spaniards, took up arms against the con¬ 
querors, and bravely aided the English army 
to expel them. The army, delivered from 
those unworthy leaders to whom the abuses 


* Treaties of Badajoz, 6th of June; of Madrid, 
20th of September, 1801. Martens, Supplement, 
vol. ii. pp. 340. 539. 

t Schoell, Histoire Abregee des Trails de Paix, 
&c., vol. ix. p. 110. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


474 

of despotism had subjected them, took an 
ample share in the glorious march from 
Torres Yedras to Toulouse, which forms one 
of the most brilliant pages in history. 

The King opened the ports of his Ameri¬ 
can territories to all nations ; — a measure 
in him of immediate necessity, but fraught 
with momentous consequences. He cement¬ 
ed his ancient relations with Great Britain 
(which geography no longer forbad) by new 
treaties ; and he bestowed on Brazil a sepa¬ 
rate administration, with the title of a king¬ 
dom. The course of events in the spring of 
1814 had been so rapid, that there was no 
minister in Europe authorised to represent 
the Court of Rio Janeiro at the Treaty of 
Paris: but so close was the alliance with 
England then deemed, that Lord Castlereagh 
took it upon him, on the part of Portugal, 
to stipulate for the restoration of French 
Guiana, which had been conquered by the 
Portuguese arms. At the Congress of Vienna 
in the following year, the Portuguese pleni¬ 
potentiaries protested against the validity of 
this restoration, and required the retroces¬ 
sion of Olivenza, which had been wrested 
from them at Badajoz in a war in which 
they had been the allies of England. The 
good offices of the European Powers to ob¬ 
tain this last restoration were then solemnly 
promised, but have hitherto been in vain. 

In 1816, John VI. refused to return to 
Lisbon, though a squadron under Sir John 
Beresford had been sent to convey him 
thither; partly because he was displeased at 
the disregard of his rights, shown by the 
Congress of Vienna; partly because the 
unpopularity of the Commercial Treaty had 
alienated him from England; but probably 
still more, because he was influenced by the 
visible growth of a Brazilian party which now 
aimed at independence. Henceforward, in¬ 
deed, the separation manifestly approached. 
The Portuguese of Europe began to despair 
of seeing the seat of the monarchy at Lis¬ 
bon; the Regency were without strength; 
all appointments were obtained from the 
distant Court of Rio Janeiro; men and 
money were drawn away for the Brazilian 
war on the Rio de la Plata; the army left 


behind was unpaid : in fine, all the materials 
of formidable discontent were heaped up in 
Portugal, when, in the beginning of 1820, 
the Spanish Revolution broke out. Six 
months elapsed without a spark having fal¬ 
len in Portugal. Marshal Beresford went 
to Rio Janeiro to solicit the interference of 
the King : but that Prince made no effort to 
prevent the conflagration; and perhaps no 
precaution would then have been effectual. 

In August the garrison of Oporto declared 
for a revolution; and being joined on their 
march to the capital by all the troops on 
their line, were received with open arms by 
the garrison of Lisbon. It was determined 
to bestow on Portugal a still more popular 
constitution than that of Spain. With what 
prudence or justice the measures of the 
popular leaders in the south of Europe were 
conceived or conducted, it is happily no part 
of our present business to inquire. Those 
who openly remonstrated against their errors 
when they seemed to be triumphant, are 
under no temptation to join the vulgar cry 
against the fallen. The people of Portugal, 
indeed, unless guided by a wise and vigor¬ 
ous Government, were destined by the very 
nature of things, in any political change 
made at that moment, to follow the course 
of Spain. The Regency of Lisbon, by the 
advice of a Portuguese Minister*, at once 
faithful to his Sovereign, and friendly to the 
liberty of his country, made an attempt to 
stem the torrent, by summoning an assembly 
of the Cortes. The attempt was too late; 
but it pointed to the only means of saving 
the monarchy. 

The same Minister, on his arrival in Brazil, 
at the end of the year, advised the King to 
send his eldest son to Portugal as Viceroy, 
with a constitutional charter; recommending 
also the assembling of the most respectable 
Brazilians at Rio Janeiro, to consider of the 
improvements which seemed practicable in 
Brazil. But while these honest, and not 
unpromising, counsels were the objects of 
longer discussions than troublous times allow, 
a revolution broke out in Brazil, in the 


* Count Palmella. — Ed. 












CASE OF DONNA MARIA. 


spring of 1821, the first professed object of 
which was, not the separation of that 
country, but the adoption of the Portuguese 
Constitution. It was acquiesced in by the 
King, and espoused with the warmth of 
youth, by his eldest son Don Pedro. But 
in April, the King, disquieted by the com¬ 
motions which encompassed him, determined 
to return to Lisbon, and to leave the con¬ 
duct of the American revolution to his son. 
Even on the voyage he was advised to stop 
at the Azores, as a place where he might 
negociate with more independence: but he 
rejected this counsel; and on his arrival in 
the Tagus, on the 3rd of July, nothing re¬ 
mained but a surrender at discretion. The 
revolutionary Cortes were as tenacious of 
the authority of the mother country, as the 
Royal Administration ; and they accordingly 
recalled the Heir-apparent to Lisbon. But 
the spirit of independence arose among the 
Brazilians, who, encouraged by the example 
of the Spanish-Americans, presented ad¬ 
dresses to the Prince, beseeching him not to 
yield to the demands of the Portuguese 
Assembly, who desired to make him a 
prisoner, as they had made his father; but, 
by assuming the crown of Brazil, to provide 
for his own safety, as well as for their 
liberty. In truth it is evident, that he 
neither could have continued in Brazil with¬ 
out acceding to the popular desire, nor could 
have then left it without insuring the de¬ 
struction of monarchy in that country. He 
acquiesced therefore in the prayer of these 
flattering petitions: the independence of 
Brazil was proclaimed ; and the Portuguese 
monarchy was finally dismembered. 

In the summer of 1823, the advance of 
the French army into Spain excited a revolt 
of the Portuguese Royalists. The infant 
Don Miguel, the King’s second son, at¬ 
tracted notice, by appearing at the head of 
a battalion who declared against the Consti¬ 
tution ; and the inconstant soldiery, equally 
ignorant of the object of their revolts against 
the King or the Cortes, were easily induced 
to overthrow the slight work of their own 
hands. Even in the moment of victory, 
however, John YI. solemnly promised a free 


475 

government to the Portuguese nation.* A 
few weeks afterwards, he gave a more deli¬ 
berate and decisive proof of what was then 
thought necessary for the security of the 
throne, and the well-being of the people, by 
a Royal Decree f, which, after pronouncing 
the nullity of the constitution of the Cortes, 
proceeds as follows: — “ Conformably to my 
feelings, and the sincere promises of my 
Proclamations, and considering that the 
ancient fundamental laws of the monarchy 
cannot entirely answer my paternal pur¬ 
poses, without being accommodated to the 
present state of civilisation, to the mutual 
relations of the different parts which com¬ 
pose the monarchy, and to the form of 
representative governments established in 
Europe, I have appointed a Junta to pre¬ 
pare the plan of a charter of the fundamental 
laws of the Portuguese monarchy, which shall 
be founded on the principles of public law, 
and open the way to a progressive reform¬ 
ation of the administration.” 

Count Palmella was appointed President 
of this Junta, composed of the most distin¬ 
guished men in the kingdom. They com¬ 
pleted their work in a few months, and 
presented to the King the plan of a Consti¬ 
tutional Charter, almost exactly the same 
with that granted in 1826 by Don Pedro. 
John VI. was favourable to it, considering 
it as an adaptation of the ancient funda¬ 
mental laws to present circumstances. While 
the Revolution was triumphant, the more 
reasonable Royalists regretted that no at¬ 
tempt had been made to avoid it by timely 
concession; and in the first moment of es¬ 
cape, the remains of the same feelings dis¬ 
posed the Court to concede something. But 
after a short interval of quiet, the possessors 
of authority relapsed into the ancient and 
fatal error of their kind, — that of placing 
their security in maintaining the unbounded 
power which had proved their ruin. A re¬ 
sistance to the reform of the constitution 
which grew up in the interior of the Court, 


* Proclamations from Villa Francha of the 31st 
of May and 3rd of June, 
f Of the 18th of June. 







476 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

was fostered by foreign influence, and, after 
a struggle of some months, prevented the 
promulgation of the Charter. 

In April, 1824, events occurred at Lisbon, 
on which we shall touch as lightly as pos¬ 
sible. It is well known that part of the 
garrison of Lisbon surrounded the King’s 
palace, and hindered the access of his ser¬ 
vants to him; that some of his ministers 
were imprisoned; that the diplomatic body, 
including the Papal Nuncio, the French 
Ambassador, and the Russian as well as 
English Ministers, were the means of re¬ 
storing him to some degree of liberty, which 
was, however, so imperfect and insecure, 
that, by the advice of the French Ambas¬ 
sador, the King took refuge on board an 
English ship of war lying in the Tagus, from 
whence he was at length able to assert his 
dignity, and re-establish his authority. Over 
the part in these transactions, into which 
evil counsellors betrayed the inexperience 
of Don Miguel, it is peculiarly proper to 
throw a veil, in imitation of his father, who 
forgave these youthful faults as “ involuntary 
errors.” This proof of the unsettled state 
of the general opinion and feeling respecting 
the Government, suggested the necessity of 
a conciliatory measure, which might in some 
measure compensate for the defeat of the 
Constitutional Charter in the preceding year. 
The Minister who, both in Europe and in 
America, had attempted to avert revolution 
by reform, was not wanting to his Sovereign 
and his country at this crisis. Still coun¬ 
teracted by foreign influence, and opposed 
by a colleague who was a personal favourite 
of the King, he could not again propose the 
Charter, nor even obtain so good a substitute 
for it as he desired: but he had the merit of 
being always ready to do the best practicable. 
By his counsel, the King issued a Proclama¬ 
tion on the 4th of June, for restoring the 
ancient constitution of the Portuguese mo¬ 
narchy, with assurances that an assembly of 
the Cortes, or Three Estates of the Realm, 
should be speedily held with all their legal 
rights, and especially with the privilege of 
laying before the King, for his consideration, 
the heads of such measures as they might 

deem necessary for the public good. To 
that assembly was referred the consideration 
of the periodical meetings of succeeding 
Cortes, and “ the means of progressively 
ameliorating the administration of the state.” 
The Proclamation treats this re-establisli- 
ment of the ancient constitution as being 
substantially the same with the Constitu¬ 
tional Charter drawn up by the Junta in the 
preceding year; and it was accordingly fol¬ 
lowed by a Decree, dissolving that Junta, 
as having performed its office. Though these 
representations were not scrupulously true, 
yet when we come to see what the rights of 
the Cortes were in ancient times, the lan¬ 
guage of the Proclamation will not be found 
to deviate more widely into falsehood than 
is usual in the preambles of Acts of State. 
Had the time for the convocation of the 
Cortes been fixed, the restoration of the 
ancient constitution might, without much 
exaggeration, have been called the establish¬ 
ment of liberty. For this point the Marquis 
Palmella made a struggle; but the King 
thought that he had done enough, in grant¬ 
ing such a pledge to the Constitutionalists, 
and was willing to soothe the Absolutists, by 
reserving to himself the choice of a time. 
On the next day he created a Junta, to pre¬ 
pare, “ without loss of time,” the regulations 
necessary “ for the convocation of the Cortes, 
and for the election of the members.” As a 
new proof of the growing conviction that a 
free constitution was necessary, and as a 
solemn promise that it should be established, 
the Declaration of the 4th of June is by no 
means inferior in force to its predecessors. 
Nay, in that light it may be considered as 
deriving additional strength from those ap¬ 
pearances of reserve and reluctance which 
distinguish it from the more ingenious, and 
really more politic, Declarations of 1823. 
But its grand defect was of a practical na¬ 
ture, and consisted in the opportunity which 
indefinite delay affords, for evading the per¬ 
formance of a promise. 

Immediately after the counter-revolution 
in 1823, John VI. had sent a mission to Rio 
Janeiro, requiring the submission of his son 
and his Brazilian subjects. But whatever 











CASE OF DONNA MARIA. 477 


might be the wishes of Don Pedro, he had 
no longer the power to transfer the allegiance 
of a people who had tasted independence, 
who were full of the pride of their new ac¬ 
quisition, who valued it as their only security 
against the old monopoly, and who may 
well be excused for thinking it more advan- 
tageous to name at home the officers of their 
own government, than to receive rulers and 
magistrates from the intrigues of courtiers 
at Lisbon. Don Pedro could not restore to 
Portugal her American empire; but he might 
easily lose Brazil in the attempt. A nego- 
ciation was opened at London in the year 
1825, under the mediation of Austria and 
England. The differences between the two 
branches of the House of Braganza were, it 
must be admitted, peculiarly untractable. 
Portugal was to surrender her sovereignty, 
or Brazil to resign her independence. Union, 
on equal terms, was equally objected to by 
both. It was evident that no amicable issue 
of such a negociation was possible, which did 
not involve acquiescence in the separation; 
and the very act of undertaking the media¬ 
tion, sufficiently evinced that this event was 
contemplated by the mediating Powers. The 
Portuguese minister in London, Count Villa- 
Real, presented projects which seemed to 
contain every concession short of independ¬ 
ence ; but the Brazilian deputies who, 
though not admitted to the conference, had 
an unofficial intercourse with the British 
Ministers, declared, as might be expected, 
that nothing short of independence could be 
listened to. It was agreed, therefore, that 
Sir Charles Stuart, who was then about to 
go to Rio Janeiro to negociate a treaty be¬ 
tween England and Brazil, should take 
Lisbon on his way, and endeavour to dispose 
the Portuguese Government to consent to a 
sacrifice which could no longer be avoided. 
He was formally permitted by his own Go¬ 
vernment to accept the office of Minister 
Plenipotentiary from Portugal to Brazil, if 
it should be proposed to him at Lisbon. 
Certainly no man could be more fitted for 
this delicate mediation, both by his extraor¬ 
dinary knowledge of the ancient constitution 
of Portugal, and by the general confidence 


which he had gained while a minister of the 
Regency during the latter years of the war. 
After a series of conferences with the Count 
de Porto Santo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
which continued from the 5th of April to the 
23rd of May, and in the course of which two 
points were considered as equally under¬ 
stood— that John VI. should cede to Don 
Pedro the sovereignty of Brazil, and that 
Don Pedro should preserve his undisputed 
right as heir of Portugal — he set sail for 
Rio Janeiro, furnished with full powers, as 
well as instructions, and more especially with 
Royal Letters-Patent of John VI., to be 
delivered on the conclusion of an amicable 
arrangement, containing the following im¬ 
portant and decisive clause : — “And as the 
succession of the Imperial and Royal Crowns 
belongs to my beloved son Don Pedro, I do, 
by these Letters-Patent, cede and transfer 
to him the full exercise of sovereignty in the 
empire of Brazil, which is to be governed 
by him; nominating him Emperor of Brazil, 
and Prince Royal of Portugal and the 
Algarves.” 

A treaty was concluded on the 29th of 
August, by Sir Charles Stuart, recognising 
the independence and separation of Brazil; 
acknowledging the sovereignty of that coun¬ 
try to be vested in Don Pedro; allowing the 
King of Portugal also to assume the Im¬ 
perial title; binding the Emperor of Brazil 
to reject the offer of any Portuguese colony 
to be incorporated with his dominions ; and 
containing some other stipulations usual in 
treaties of peace. It was ratified at Lisbon, 
on the 5th of November following, by Let¬ 
ters-Patent *, from which, at the risk of some 
repetition, it is necessary to extract two 
clauses, the decisive importance of which will 
be shortly seen : — “I have ceded and trans¬ 
ferred to my beloved son, Don Pedro de 
Alcantara, heir and successor of these king¬ 
doms, all my rights over that country, re¬ 
cognising its independence with the title 
of empire.” “We recognise our said son, 
Don Pedro de Alcantara, Prince of Portugal 
and the Algarves, as Emperor, and having 


* Gazeta de Lisbon, of the 15th of November. 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


478 


the exercise of sovereignty in the whole 
empire.” 

The part of this proceeding which is in¬ 
tended to preserve the right of succession to 
the crown of Portugal to Don Pedro, is 
strictly conformable to diplomatic usage, 
and to the principles of the law of nations. 
Whatever relates to the cession of a claim 
is the proper subject of agreement between 
the parties, and is therefore inserted in the 
treaty. The King of Portugal, the former 
Sovereign of Brazil, cedes his rights or pre¬ 
tensions in that country to his son. He re¬ 
leases all his former subjects from their alle¬ 
giance. He abandons those claims which 
alone could give him any colour or pretext 
for interfering in" the internal affairs of that 
vast region. Nothing could have done this 
effectually, solemnly, and notoriously, but 
the express stipulation of a treaty. Had 
Don Pedro, therefore, been at the same time 
understood to renounce his right of suc¬ 
cession to the crown of Portugal, an explicit 
stipulation in the treaty to that effect would 
have been necessary: for such a renunciation 
would have been the cession of a right. Had 
it even been understood, that the recognition 
of his authority as an independent monarch 
implied the abdication of his rights as heir- 
apparent to the Portuguese crown, it would 
have been consonant to the general tenor of 
the treaty, explicitly to recognise this abdi¬ 
cation. The silence of the treaty is a proof 
that none of the parties to it considered these 
rights as taken away or impaired, by any 
previous or concomitant circumstance. Sti¬ 
pulations were necessary when the state of 
regal rights was to be altered; but they 
would be at least impertinent where it re¬ 
mained unchanged. Silence is in the latter 
case sufficient, since, where nothing is to be 
done, nothing needs be said. There is no 
stipulation in the treaty by which Don Pedro 
acknowledges the sovereignty of his father 
in Portugal, because that sovereignty is left 
in the same condition in which it was before. 
For the very same reason the treaty has no 
article for the preservation of Don Pedro’s 
right of succession to Portugal. Had Don 
Pedro required a stipulation in the treaty 


for the maintenance of these rights, he would 
have done an act which would have tended 
more to bring them into question than to 
strengthen them. As they were rights which 
John VI. could not take away, it was fit and 
wise to treat them also as rights which no act 
of his could bestow or confirm. 

But though a provision for the pre¬ 
servation of these rights in the treaty was 
needless, and would have been altogether 
misplaced, there were occasions on which the 
recognition of them was fit, and, as a matter 
of abundant caution, expedient. These oc¬ 
casions are accordingly not passed over. The 
King of Portugal styles Don Pedro the heir 
of Portugal, both in the first Letters-Patent, 
addressed to his Brazilian subjects, in which 
he recognises the independence of Brazil, 
and in the second, addressed to his Portu¬ 
guese subjects, where he ratifies the treaty 
which definitively established that independ¬ 
ence. Acknowledged to be the monarch, 
and for the time the lawgiver of Portugal, 
and necessarily in these acts claiming the 
same authority in Brazil, he announces to 
the people of both countries that the right 
of his eldest son to inherit the crown was, 
in November, 1825, inviolate, unimpaired, 
unquestioned. 

The ratifications are, besides, a portion of 
the treaty; and when they are exchanged, 
they become as much articles of agreement 
between the parties, as any part of it which 
bears that name. The recognition repeated 
in this Ratification proceeded from John VI., 
and was accepted by Don Pedro. Nothing 
but express words could have taken away so 
important a right as that of succession to the 
crown: in this case, there are express words 
which recognise it. Though it has been 
shown that silence would have been suffi¬ 
cient, the same conclusion would unanswer¬ 
ably follow, if the premises were far more 
scanty. The law of nations has no esta¬ 
blished forms, a deviation from which is fatal 
to the validity of the transactions to which 
they are appropriated. It admits no merely 
technical objections to conventions formed 
under its authority, and is bound by no 
positive rules in the interpretation of them. 







CASE OF DONNA MARIA. 


Wherever the intention of contracting par¬ 
ties is plain, it is the sole interpreter of a 
contract. Now, it is needless to say that, in 
the Treaty of Rio Janeiro, taken with the 
preceding and following Letters-Patent, the 
manifest intention of John YI. was not to 
impair, but to recognise, the rights of his 
eldest son to the inheritance of Portugal. 

On the 10th of March, 1826, John VI. 
died at Lisbon. On his death-bed, how¬ 
ever, he had made provision for the tem¬ 
porary administration of the government. 
By a Royal Decree, of the 6th *, he com¬ 
mitted the government to his daughter, the 
Infanta Donna Isabella Maria, assisted by 
a council during his illness, or, in the event 
of his death, till “ the legitimate heir and suc¬ 
cessor to the crown should make other pro¬ 
vision in this respect.” These words have 
no ambiguity. In every hereditary monarchy 
they must naturally, and almost necessarily, 
denote the eldest son of the King, when he 
leaves a son. It would, in such a case, re¬ 
quire the strongest evidence to warrant the 
application of them to any other person. 
It is clear that the King must have had an 
individual in view, unless we adopt the most 
extravagant supposition that, as a dying 
bequest to his subjects, he meant to leave 
them a disputed succession and a civil war. 
Who could that individual be, but Don 
Pedro, his eldest son, whom, according to 
the ancient order of succession to the crown 
of Portugal, he had himself called “ heir 
and successor ,” on the 13th of May and 5th 
of November preceding. Such, accordingly, 
was the conviction, and the correspondent 
conduct of all whose rights or interests were 
concerned. The Regency was immediately 
installed, and universally obeyed at home, 
as well as acknowledged, without hesitation 
or delay, by all the Powers of Europe. 
The Princess Regent acted in the name, 
and on the behalf of her brother, Don 
Pedro. It was impossible that the succes¬ 
sion of any Prince to a throne could be 
more quiet and undisputed. 

The Regency, without delay, notified the 


* Gazeta de Lisbon, of the 7th of March. 


479 

demise of the late King to their new So¬ 
vereign : and then the difficulties of that 
Prince’s situation began to show themselves. 
Though the treaty had not weakened his 
hereditary right to Portugal, yet the main 
object of it was to provide, not only for the 
independence of Brazil, but for its “ sepa¬ 
ration ” from Portugal, which undoubtedly 
imported a separation of the crowns. Pos¬ 
sessing the government of Brazil, and in¬ 
heriting that of Portugal, he became bound 
by all the obligations of the treaty between 
the two states. Though he inherited the 
crown of Portugal by the laws of that coun¬ 
try, yet he was disabled by treaty from per¬ 
manently continuing to hold it with that of 
Brazil. But if, laying aside unprofitable 
subtleties, we consult only conscience and 
common sense, we shall soon discover that 
these rights and duties are not repugnant, 
but that, on the contrary, the legal right is 
the only means of performing the federal 
duty. The treaty did not expressly de¬ 
termine which of the two crowns Don Pedro 
was bound to renounce; it therefore left 
him to make an option between them. For 
the implied obligations of a contract extend 
only to those acts of the parties which are 
necessary to the attainment of its professed 
object. If he chose, — as he has chosen, — 
to retain the crown of Brazil, it could not, 
by reasonable implication, require an instan¬ 
taneous abdication of that of Portugal; be¬ 
cause such a limitation of time was not ne¬ 
cessary, and might have been very injurious 
to the object. It left the choice of time, 
manner, and conditions to himself, requiring 
only good faith, and interdicting nothing 
but fraudulent delay. Had he not (accord¬ 
ing to the principle of all hereditary mo- 
narchs) become King of Portugal at the 
instant of his father’s demise, there would 
have been no person possessed of the legal 
and actual power in both countries neces¬ 
sary to carry the treaty of separation into 
effect. If the Portuguese had not ac¬ 
quiesced in his authority, they must have 
voluntarily chosen anarchy; for no one 
could have the power to discharge the duty 
imposed by treaty, or to provide for any of 









480 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


the important changes which it might oc¬ 
casion. The most remarkable example of 
this latter sort, was the order of succession. 
The separation of the two crowns rendered 
it absolutely impossible to preserve that 
order in both monarchies; for both being 
hereditary, the legal order required that 
both crowns should descend to the same 
person, the eldest son of Don Pedro — the 
very union which it was the main or sole 
purpose of the treaty to prevent. A breach 
in the order of succession became therefore 
inevitable, either in Portugal or Brazil. 
Necessity required the deviation. But the 
same necessity vested in Don Pedro, as a 
king and a father, the power of regulating, 
in this respect, tfie rights of his family ; and 
the permanent policy of monarchies required 
that he should carry the deviation no farther 
than the necessity. 

As the nearer female would inherit be¬ 
fore the more distant male, Don Miguel had 
no right which was immediately involved in 
the arrangement to be adopted. It is ac¬ 
knowledged, that the two daughters of 
John VI., married and domiciled in Spain, 
had lost their rights as members of the 
Royal Family. Neither the Queen, nor 
indeed any other person, had a legal title to 
the Regency, which in Portugal, as in 
France and England, was a case omitted in 
the constitutional laws, and, as no Cortes 
had been assembled for a century, could 
only be provided for by the King, who, of 
necessity, was the temporary lawgiver. The 
only parties who could be directly affected 
by the allotment of the two crowns, were 
the children of Don Pedro, the eldest of 
whom was in her sixth year. The more 
every minute part of this case is considered, 
the more obvious and indisputable will ap¬ 
pear to be the necessity, that Don Pedro 
should retain the powers of a King of Por¬ 
tugal, until he had employed them for the 
quiet and safety of both kingdoms, as far as 
these might be endangered by the separa¬ 
tion. He held, and holds, that crown as 
a trustee for the execution of the treaty. 
To hold it after the trust is performed, 
would be usurpation: to renounce it be¬ 


fore that period, would be treachery to the 
trust. 

That Don Pedro should have chosen 
Brazil, must always have been foreseen ; for 
his election was almost determined by his 
preceding conduct. He preferred Brazil, 
where he had been the founder of a state, 
to Portugal, where the most conspicuous 
measures of his life could be viewed with no 
more than reluctant acquiescence. The 
next question which arose was, whether the 
inevitable breach in the order of succession 
was to be made in Portugal or Brazil; or, 
in other words, of which of these two dis¬ 
joined kingdoms, the Infant Don Sebastian 
should be the heir-apparent. The father 
made the same choice for his eldest son as 
for himself. As Don Sebastian preserved 
his right of succession in Brazil, tfie prin¬ 
ciple of the least possible deviation from the 
legal order required that the crown of Por¬ 
tugal should devolve on his sister Donna 
Maria, the next in succession of the Royal 
Family. 

After this exposition of the rights and 
duties of Don Pedro, founded on the prin¬ 
ciples of public law, and on the obligations 
of treaty, and of the motives of policy which 
might have influenced him in a case where 
he was left free to follow the dictates of his 
own judgment, let us consider very shortly 
what a conscientious ruler would, in such a 
case, deem necessary to secure to both por¬ 
tions of his subjects all the advantages of 
their new position. He would be desirous 
of softening the humiliation of one, of ef¬ 
facing the recent animosities between them, 
and of reviving their ancient friendship, by 
preserving every tie which reminded them 
of former union and common descent. He 
would therefore, even if he were impartial, 
desire that they should continue under the 
same Royal Family which had for centuries 
ruled both. He would labour, as far as the 
case allowed, to strengthen the connexions 
of language, of traditions, of manners, and 
of religion, by the resemblance of laws and 
institutions. He would clearly see that his 
Brazilian subjects never could trust his 
fidelity to their limited monarchy, if he 






CASE OF DONNA MARIA. 481 


maintained an absolute government in Por¬ 
tugal ; and that the Portuguese people 
would not long endure to be treated as 
slaves, while those whom they were not ac¬ 
customed to regard as their superiors were 
thought worthy of the most popular con¬ 
stitution. However much a monarch was 
indifferent or adverse to liberty, these con¬ 
siderations would lose nothing of their po¬ 
litical importance : for a single false step in 
this path might overthrow monarchy in 
Brazil, and either drive Portugal into a re¬ 
volution, or seat a foreign army in her pro¬ 
vinces, to prevent it. It is evident that 
popular institutions can alone preserve mo¬ 
narchy in Brazil from falling before the 
principles of republican America; and it 
will hardly be denied, that, though some 
have questioned the advantage of liberty, 
no people were ever so mean spirited as not 
to be indignant at being thought unworthy 
of it as a privilege. Viewing liberty with 
the same cold neutrality, a wise statesman 
would have thought it likely to give stability 
to a new government in Portugal, and to be 
received there as some consolation for loss 
of dominion. Portugal, like all the other 
countries between the Rhine and the Medi¬ 
terranean, had been convulsed by conquest 
and revolution. Ambition and rapacity, 
fear and revenge, political fanaticism and 
religious bigotry, — all the ungovernable 
passions which such scenes excite, still 
agitated the minds of those who had been 
actors or victims of them. Experience has 
proved, that no expedient can effectually 
allay these deep-seated disorders, but the 
institution of a government in which all 
interests and opinions are represented, — 
which keeps up a perpetual negociation be¬ 
tween them, — which compels each in its 
turn to give up some part of its pretensions, 
— and which provides a safe field of contest 
in those cases where a treaty cannot be con¬ 
cluded. Of all the stages in the progress of 
human society, the period which succeeds 
the troubles of civil and foreign war is that 
which most requires this remedy: for it is 
that in which the minds of men are the most 
dissatisfied, the most active, and the most 


aspiring. The experiment has proved most 
eminently successful in the Netherlands, 
now beyond all doubt the best governed 
country of the Continent. It ought to be 
owned, that it has also in a great measure 
succeeded in France, Italy, and Spain. Of 
these countries we shall now say nothing 
but that, being occupied by foreign armies, 
they cannot be quoted. If any principle be 
now universally received in government, it 
seems to be, that the disorders of such a 
country must either be contained by foreign 
arms, or composed by a representative con¬ 
stitution. 

But there were two circumstances which 
rendered the use of this latter remedy pecu¬ 
liarly advisable in Portugal. The first is, 
that it was so explicitly, repeatedly, and 
solemnly promised by John VI. In the 
second place, the establishment of a free 
constitution in Portugal, afforded an oppor¬ 
tunity of sealing a definitive treaty of peace 
between the most discordant parties, by 
opening (after a due period of probation) to 
the Prince whom the Ultra-Royalist faction 
had placed in their front, a prospect of being 
one day raised to a higher station, under the 
system of liberty, than he could have ex¬ 
pected to reach if both Portugal and Brazil 
had continued in slavery.* 

It is unworthy of a statesman, or of a phi¬ 
losopher, to waste time in childishly regret¬ 
ting the faults of a Prince’s personal charac¬ 
ter. The rulers of Portugal can neither 
create circumstances, nor form men accord¬ 
ing to their wishes. They must take men 
and things as they find them; and their 
wisdom will be shown, by turning both to 
the best account. The occasional occurrence 
of great personal faults in princes, is an 
inconvenience of hereditary monarchy, which 
a wise limitation of royal power may abate 
and mitigate. Elective governments are not 
altogether exempt from the same evils, be- 


* This was written in the month of December, 
1826, before the plan for conciliating the two op¬ 
posite political parties by means of a matrimonial 
alliance between Donna Maria and her uncle was 
abandoned. — Ed. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


482 

sides being liable to others. All comparison 
of the two systems is, in the present case, 
a mere exercise of ingenuity: for it is ap¬ 
parent, that liberty has at this time no 
chance of establishment in Portugal, in any 
other form than that of a limited monarchy. 
The situation of Don Miguel renders it 
possible to found the constitution on an 
union between him, as the representative of 
the Ultra-Royalists, and a young Princess, 
whose rights will be incorporated with the 
establishment of liberty. 

As soon as Don Pedro was informed of 
his father’s death, he proceeded to the per¬ 
formance of the task which had devolved on 
him. He began, on the 20th of April, by 
granting a Constitutional Charter to Por¬ 
tugal. On the 26th, he confirmed the Re¬ 
gency appointed by his father, till the pro¬ 
clamation of the constitution. On the 2nd 
of May he abdicated the crown in favour of 
his daughter, Donna Maria; on condition, 
however, “ that the abdication should not 
be valid, and the Princess should not quit 
Brazil, until it be made officially known to 
him, that the constitution had been sworn 
to, according to his orders ; and that the 
espousals of the Princess with Don Miguel 
should have been made, and the marriage 
concluded; and that the abdication and 
cession should not take place, if either of 
these two conditions should fail.” * On the 
26th of April, Letters-Patent, or writs of 
summons, had issued, addressed to each of 
those who were to form the House of Peers, 
of which the Duke de Cadaval was named 
President, and the Patriarch Elect of Lisbon 
Vice-President. A decree had also been 
issued on the same day, commanding the 
Regency of Portugal to take the necessary 
measures for the immediate election of mem¬ 
bers of the other House, according to the 
tenor of the constitutional law.f When 
these laws and decrees were received at 
Lisbon, the Regency proceeded instantly to 
put them into execution; in consequence of 
which, the Constitution was proclaimed, the 


* Diario Fluminense, of the 20th of May. 
t Ibid. 3rd of May. 


Regency installed, the elections commenced, 
and the Cortes were finally assembled at 
Lisbon on the 30th of October. 

Whether the Emperor of Brazil had, by 
the laws of Portugal, the power to regulate 
the affairs of that kingdom, had hitherto 
given rise to no question. All parties within 
and without Portugal had treated his right 
of succession to his father in the throne of 
that kingdom as undisputed. But no sooner 
had he exercised that right, by the grant of 
a free constitution, than it was discovered 
by some Ultra-Royalists, that he had for¬ 
feited the right itself; that his power over 
Portugal was an usurpation, and his con¬ 
stitutional law an absolute nullity! Don 
Miguel, whose name was perpetually in the 
mouth of these writers, continued at Vienna. 
The Spanish Government and its 'officers 
breathed menace and invective. Foreign 
agency manifested itself in Portugal; and 
some bodies of troops, both on the northern 
and southern frontier, were excited to a 
sedition for slavery. “ All foreigners,” say 
the objectors, “ are, by the fundamental 
laws of Portugal, excluded from the succes¬ 
sion to the crown. This law passed at the 
foundation of the monarchy, by the cele¬ 
brated Cortes of Lamego, in 1143, was con¬ 
firmed, strengthened, and enlarged by the 
Cortes of 1641; and under it, on the last 
occasion, the King of Spain was declared an 
usurper, and the House of Braganza were 
raised to the throne. Don Pedro had, by the 
treaty which recognised him as Emperor of 
Brazil, become a foreign sovereign, and was 
therefore, at the death of his father, disquali¬ 
fied from inheriting the crown of Portugal.” 

A few years after the establishment of the 
Normans in England, Henry, a Burgundian 
prince, who served under the King of Cas¬ 
tile in his wars against the Moors, obtained 
from that monarch, as a fief, the newly- 
conquered territory between the rivers 
Douro and Minho. His son Alfonso threw 
off the superiority of Castile, and, after de¬ 
feating the Moors at the great battle of 
Campo Ouriquez, in 1139, was declared 
King by the Pope, and acknowledged in 
that character by an assembly of the prin- 








CASE OF DONNA MARIA. 483 


cipal persons of the community, held at La- 
mego in 1143,-composed of bishops, nobles 
of the court, and, as it should seem, of pro¬ 
curators of the towns. The crown, after 
much altercation, was made hereditary, first 
in males and then in females; but on con¬ 
dition “ that the female should always marry 
a man of Portugal, that the kingdom might 
not fall to foreigners ; and that if she should 
marry a foreign prince she should not be 
Queen; ” — “ because we will that our king¬ 
dom shall go only to the Portuguese , who, by 
their bravery , have made us King without 
foreign aid? On being asked whether the 
King should pay tribute to the King of 
Leon, they all rose up, and with naked 
swords uplifted, answered, “ Our King is 
independent; our arms have delivered us; 
the King who consents to such things shall 
die.” The King, with his drawn sword in 
his hand, said, “ If any one consent to such 
let him die. If he should be my son, let 
him not reign.” 

The Cortes of 1641, renewing the laws of 
Lamego, determined that, according to these 
fundamental institutions, the Spanish Princes 
had been usurpers, and pronounced John, 
Duke of Braganza, who had already been 
seated on the throne by a revolt of the whole 
people, to be the rightful heir. This Prince, 
though he appears not to have had any pre¬ 
tensions as a male heir, yet seems to have 
been the representative of the eldest female 
who had not lost the right of succession by 
marriage to a foreigner; and, consequently, 
he was entitled to the crown, according to 
the order of succession established at La¬ 
mego. The Three Estates presented the 
Heads of laws to the King, praying that 
effectual means might be taken to enforce 
the exclusion of foreigners from the throne, 
according to the laws passed at Lamego. But 
as the Estates, according to the old constitu¬ 
tion of Portugal, presented their Chapters 
severally to the King, it was possible that 
they might differ; and they did so, in some 
respects, on this important occasion,—not 
indeed as to the end, for which they were 
equally zealous, but as to the choice of the best 
means of securing its constant attainment. 


The answer of the King to the Ecclesiastical 
Estate was as follows :—“ On this Chapter, for 
which I thank you, I have already answered 
to the Chapters of the States of the People 
and of the Nobles, in ordaining a law to be 
made in conformity to that ordained by Don 
John IV., with the declarations and modifi¬ 
cations which shall be most conducive to the 
conservation and common good of the king¬ 
dom.” Lawyers were accordingly appointed 
to draw up the law; but it is clear that the 
reserve of the King left him ample scope for 
the exercise of his own discretion, even if it 
had not been rendered necessary by the 
variation between the proposals of the three 
Orders, respecting the means of its execu¬ 
tion. But, in order to give our opponents 
every advantage, as we literally adopt their 
version, so we shall suppose (for the sake of 
argument) the royal assent to have been 
given to the Chapter of the Nobles without 
alteration, and in all its specific provisions; 
it being that on which the Absolutists have 
chosen to place their chief reliance. The 
Chapter stands thus in their editions: — 
“ The State of the Nobility prays your Ma¬ 
jesty to enact a law, ordaining that the suc¬ 
cession to the kingdom may never fall to a 
foreign prince, nor to his children, though 
they may be the next to the last in posses¬ 
sion ; and that, in case the King of Portugal 
should be called to the succession of another 
crown, or of a greater empire, he be com¬ 
pelled to live always there; and that if he 
has two or more male children, the eldest 
son shall assume the reins in the foreign 
country, and the second in Portugal, and 
the latter shall be the only recognised heir 
and legitimate successor; and, in case there 
should be only one child to inherit these 
two kingdoms, these said kingdoms shall be 
divided between the children of the latter, 
in the order and form above mentioned. In 
case there shall be daughters only, the eldest 
shall succeed in this kingdom, with the de¬ 
claration that she marry here with a native 
of the country, chosen and named by the 
Three Estates assembled in Cortes: should 
she marry without the consent of the States, 
she and her descendants shall be declared 


II 2 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


484 

incapable, and be ousted of the succession ; 
and the Three Estates shall be at liberty to 
choose a King from among the natives, if 
there be no male relation of the Royal Fa¬ 
mily to whom the succession should devolve.” 

Now the question is, whether Pedro IV. 
as the monarch of Brazil, a country sepa¬ 
rated from Portugal by treaty, became a 
foreign prince, in the sense intended by 
these ancient laws, and was thereby disabled 
from inheriting the crown of Portugal on 
the decease of John VI. ? 

This question is not to be decided by ver¬ 
bal chicane. The mischief provided against 
in these laws was twofold:—the supposed 
probability of mal-administration through 
the succession of a foreigner, ignorant of the 
country and not attached to it; and the loss 
of domestic government, if it fell by in¬ 
heritance to the sovereign of another, espe¬ 
cially a greater country. The intention of 
the lawgiver to guard against both these 
occurrences affords the only sure means of 
ascertaining the meaning of his words. But 
the present case has not even the slightest 
tendency to expose the country to either 
danger. Pedro IV. is a native Portuguese, 
presumed to have as much of the knowledge 
and feelings belonging to that character as 
any of his predecessors. The danger to 
Portuguese independence arises from the 
inheritance of the crown devolving in per¬ 
petuity , and without qualification , to a foreign 
sovereign. Such was the evil actually ex¬ 
perienced under Philip II. King of Spain, 
and his two successors; and the most cur¬ 
sory glance over the law of 1641 shows that 
the Cortes had that case in view. Had the 
present resembled it in the important quality 
of a claim to unconditional inheritance, the 
authority would have been strong. But, 
instead of being annexed to a foreign do¬ 
minion, Pedro IV. takes it only for the 
express purpose of effectually and perpe¬ 
tually disannexing his other territories from 
it; — a purpose which he immediately pro¬ 
ceeds to carry into execution, by establishing 
a different line of succession for the crowns 
of both countries, and by an abdication, 
which is to take effect as soon as he has 


plaoed the new establishment in a state of 
security. The case provided against by the 
law is, that of permanent annexation to a 
foreign crown : the right exercised by Pedro 
IV. is, that of a guardian and administrator 
of the kingdom, during an operation which 
is necessary to secure it against such an¬ 
nexation. The whole transaction is con¬ 
formable to the spirit of the two laws, and 
not repugnant to their letter. 

That a temporary administration is per¬ 
fectly consistent with these laws, is evident 
from the passage : — “K the King of Por¬ 
tugal should be called to the succession of 
another crown, and there should be only one 
child to inherit the two kingdoms, these said 
kingdoms shall be divided among the children 
of the latter ” — meaning after his death, 
and if he should leave children. Here then 
is a case of temporary administration ex¬ 
pressly provided for. The father is to rule 
both kingdoms, till there should be at least 
two children to render the division practi¬ 
cable. He becomes, for an uncertain, and 
possibly a long period, the provisional sove¬ 
reign of both; merely because he is presumed 
to be the most proper regulator of terri¬ 
tories which are to be divided between his 
posterity. Now, the principle of such an 
express exception is, by the rules of fair 
construction, applicable to every truly and 
evidently parallel case; and there is pre¬ 
cisely the same reason for the tutelary power 
of Pedro IV. as there would be for that of 
a father, in the event contemplated by the 
law of 1641. 

The effect of the Treaty of Rio Janeiro 
cannot be inconsistent with this temporary 
union. Even on the principle of our op¬ 
ponents, it must exist for a shorter or longer 
time. The Treaty did not deprive Pedro of 
his option between Portugal and Brazil: he 
must have possessed both crowns, when he 
was called upon to determine which of them 
he would lay down. But if it be acknow¬ 
ledged that a short but actual union is neces¬ 
sary, in order to effect the abdication, how 
can it be pretended that a longer union may 
not be equally justifiable, for the honest 
purpose of quiet and amicable separation ? 









CASE OF DONNA MARIA. 485 


The Treaty of Rio de Janeiro would have 
been self-destructive, if it had taken from 
Pedro the power of sovereignty in Portugal 
immediately on the death of his father : for 
in that case no authority would exist capable 
of carrying the Treaty into execution. It 
must have been left to civil war to determine 
who was to govern the kingdom; while, if 
we adopt the principle of Pedro’s hereditary 
succession by law, together with his obliga¬ 
tion by treaty to separate the kingdoms, the 
whole is consistent with itself, and every 
measure is quietly and regularly carried into 
effect. 

To these considerations we must add the 
recognition of Pedro “ as heir and successor” 
in the Ratification. Either John VI. had 
power to decide this question, or he had not. 
If he had not, the Treaty is null; for it is 
impossible to deny that the recognition is 
really a condition granted to Brazil, which 
is a security for its independence, and the 
breach of which would annul the whole con¬ 
tract. In that case, Portugal and Brazil are 
not legally separated. Pedro IV. cannot be 
called a “foreign prince;” and no law for¬ 
bids him to reside in the American provinces 
of the Portuguese dominions. In that case 
also, exercising all the power of his imme¬ 
diate predecessors, his authority in Portugal 
becomes absolute; he may punish the Abso¬ 
lutists as rebels, according to their own 
principles; and it will be for them to show, 
that his rights, as supreme lawgiver, can be 
bounded by laws called “fundamental.” 
But, — to take a more sober view, — can it 
be doubted, that, in a country where the 
monarch had exercised the whole legislative 
power for more than a century, his authori¬ 
tative interpretation of the ancient laws, 
especially if it is part of a compact with 
another state, must be conclusive ? By re¬ 
peatedly declaring in the introduction to the 
Treaty, and in the Ratification of it, that 
Pedro IY. was “heir and successor” of 
Portugal, and that he was not divested of 
that character by the Treaty, which recog¬ 
nised him as Sovereign of Brazil, John VI. 
did most deliberately and solemnly deter¬ 
mine, that his eldest son was not a “ foreign 


prince” in the sense in which these words 
are used by the ancient laws. Such too 
seems to have been the sense of all parties, 
even of those the most bitterly adverse to 
Pedro IV., and most deeply interested in 
disputing his succession, till he granted a 
Constitutional Charter to the people of 
Portugal. 

John VI., by his decree for the re-estab¬ 
lishment of the ancient constitution of Por¬ 
tugal, had really abolished the absolute 
monarchy, and in its stead established a 
government, which, with all its inconve¬ 
niences and defects, was founded on prin¬ 
ciples of liberty. For let it not be supposed 
that the ancient constitution of Portugal 
had become forgotten or unknown by disuse 
for centuries, like those legendary systems, 
under cover of which any novelty may be 
called a restoration. It was perfectly well 
known; it was long practised; and never 
legally abrogated. Indeed the same may be 
affirmed, with equal truth, of the ancient 
institutions of the other inhabitants of the 
Peninsula, who were among the oldest of 
free nations, but who have so fallen from 
their high estate as to be now publicly repre¬ 
sented as delighting in their chains and 
glorying in their shame. In Portugal, how¬ 
ever, the usurpation of absolute power was 
not much older than a century. We have 
already seen, that the Cortes of Lamego, the 
founders of the monarchy, proclaimed the 
right of the nation in a spirit as generous, 
and in a Latinity not much more barbarous, 
than that of the authors of Magna Charta 
about seventy years later. 

The Infant Don Miguel has sworn to 
observe and maintain the constitution. In 
the act of his espousals he acknowledges the 
sovereignty of the young Queen, and de¬ 
scribes himself as only her first subject. The 
mutinies of the Portuguese soldiers have 
ceased; but the conduct of the Court of 
Madrid still continues to keep up agitation 
and alarm : for no change was ever effected 
which did not excite discontent and turbu¬ 
lence enough to serve the purposes of a 
neighbour straining every nerve to vex and 
disturb a country. The submission of Don 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


486 

Miguel to his brother and sovereign are, we 
trust, sincere. He will observe his oath to 
maintain the constitution, and cheerfully 
take his place as the first subject of a limited 
monarchy. The station to which he is des¬ 
tined, and the influence which must long, 
and may always belong to it, form together 
a more attractive object of ambition than 
any which he could otherwise have hoped 
peaceably and lawfully to attain. No man 
of common prudence, whatever may be his 
political opinions, will advise the young 
Prince to put such desirable prospects to 


hazard. He will be told by all such coun¬ 
sellors of every party that he must now 
adapt himself to occurrences which he may 
learn to consider as fortunate ; that loyalty 
to his brother and his country would now be 
his clearest interest, if they were not his 
highest duty; that he must forget all his 
enmities, renounce all his prejudices, and 
even sacrifice some of his partialities; and 
that he must leave full time to a great part 
of the people of Portugal to recover from 
those prepossessions and repugnances which 
they may have contracted. 


CHARACTER 

03? 

CHARLES, FIRST MARQUIS CORNWALLIS.* 


Charles, Marquis Cornwallis, the repre¬ 
sentative of a family of ancient distinction, 
and of no modern nobility, had embraced in 
early youth the profession of arms. The 
sentiments which have descended to us from 
ancient times have almost required the sacri¬ 
fice of personal ease, and the exposure of 
personal safety, from those who inherit dis¬ 
tinction. All the superiority conferred by 
society must either be earned by previous 
services, or at least justified by subsequent 
merit. The most arduous exertions are 
therefore imposed on those who enjoy advan¬ 
tages which they have not earned. Noble¬ 
men are required to devote themselves to 
danger for the safety of their fellow-citizens, 
and to spill their blood more readily than 
others in the public cause. Their choice is 
almost limited to that profession which de¬ 
rives its dignity from the contempt of danger 


* This character formed the chief part of a dis¬ 
course delivered at Bombay soon after the decease 
of Lord Cornwallis. 


and death, and which is preserved from 
mercenary contamination by the severe but 
noble renunciation of every reward except 
honour. 

In the early stages of his life there were 
no remarkable events. His sober and well- 
regulated mind probably submitted to that 
industry which is the excellence of a subor¬ 
dinate station, and the basis of higher use- 
fulness in a more elevated sphere. The 
brilliant irregularities which are the am¬ 
biguous distinctions of the youth of others, 
found no place in his. He first appeared in 
the eye of the public during the unhappy 
civil war between Great Britain and her 
colonies, which terminated in the division of 
the empire. His share in that contest was 
merely military : in that, as well as in every 
subsequent part of his life, he was happily 
free from those conflicts of faction in which 
the hatred of one portion of our fellow- 
citizens is ensured by those acts which are 
necessary to purchase the transient and ca¬ 
pricious attachment of the other. A soldier, 














CHARACTER OF CHARLES, FIRST MARQUIS CORNWALLIS. 487 


more fortunate, deserves, and generally re¬ 
ceives, the unanimous thanks of his country. 

It would be improper here to follow him 
through all the vicissitudes of that eventful 
war. There is one circumstance, however, 
which forms too important a part of his cha¬ 
racter to be omitted — he was unfortunate. 
But the moment of misfortune was, perhaps, 
the most honourable moment of his life. So 
unshaken was the respect felt, that calamity 
did not lower him in the eyes of that public 
which is so prone to estimate men merely by 
the effect of their counsels. He was not re¬ 
ceived with those frowns which often unde¬ 
servedly await the return of the unsuccessful 
general: his country welcomed him with as 
much honour as if fortune had attended his 
virtue; and his Sovereign bestowed on him 
new marks of confidence and favour. This 
was a most signal triumph. Chance mingles 
with genius and science in the most renowned 
victories; but merit and well-earned repu¬ 
tation alone can preserve an unfortunate 
general from sinking in popular estimation. 

In 1786 his public life became more con¬ 
nected with that part of the British Empire 
which we now inhabit. This choice was 
made under circumstances which greatly in¬ 
creased the honour. No man can recollect 
the situation of India at that period, or the 
opinions concerning it in Great Britain, 
without remembering the necessity, univer¬ 
sally felt and acknowledged, for committing 
the government of our Asiatic territories to 
a person peculiarly and conspicuously dis¬ 
tinguished for prudence, moderation, in¬ 
tegrity, and humanity. On these grounds 
he was undoubtedly selected; and it will not 
be disputed by any one acquainted with the 
history of India that his administration jus¬ 
tified the choice. 

Among the many wise and honest mea¬ 
sures which did honour to his government, 
there are two which are of such importance 
that they cannot be passed over in silence. 
The first was, the establishment of a fixed 
land-rent throughout Bengal, instead of 
those annually varying, and often arbitrary, 
exactions to which the landholders of that 
great province had been for ages subject. 


This reformation, one of the greatest, per¬ 
haps, ever peaceably effected in an extensive 
and opulent country, has since been followed 
in the other British territories in the East; 
and it is the first certain example in India 
of a secure private property in land, which 
the extensive and undefined territorial 
claims of Indian Princes had, in former 
times, rendered a subject of great doubt and 
uncertainty. The other distinguishing mea¬ 
sure of his government was that judicial 
system which was necessary to protect and 
secure the property thus ascertained, and 
the privileges thus bestowed. By the com¬ 
bined influence of these two great measures, 
he may confidently be said to have imparted 
to the subjects of Great Britain in the East 
a more perfect security of person and pro¬ 
perty, and a fuller measure of all the advan¬ 
tages of civil society, than had been enjoyed 
by the natives of India within the period of 
authentic history;—a portion of these ines¬ 
timable benefits larger than appears to have 
been ever possessed by any people of Asia, 
and probably not much inferior to the share 
of many flourishing states of Europe in an¬ 
cient and modern times. It has sometimes 
been objected to these arrangements, that 
the revenue of the sovereign was sacrificed 
to the comfort and prosperity of the subject. 
This would have been impossible: the in¬ 
terests of both are too closely and inseparably 
connected. The security of the subject will 
always enrich him; and his wealth will 
always overflow into the coffers of his sove¬ 
reign. But if the objection were just in 
point of policy, it would be the highest tri¬ 
bute to the virtue of the governor. To 
sacrifice revenue to the well-being of a people 
is a blame of which Marcus Aurelius would 
have been proud ! * 


* The facility with which he applied his sound 
and strong understanding to subjects the most 
distant from those which usually employed it, is 
proved in a very striking manner by a fact which 
ought not to be forgotten by those who wish to 
form an accurate estimate of this venerable noble¬ 
man. The Company’s extensive investment from 
Bengal depended in a great measure on manufac¬ 
tures, which had fallen into such a state of decay 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


488 


The war in which he was engaged during 
his Indian government, it belongs to the 
historian to describe. In this place it is 
sufficient to say that it was founded in the 
just defence of an ally, that it was carried 
on with vigour, and closed with exemplary 
moderation. 

In 1793 Lord Cornwallis returned to 
Europe, leaving behind him a greater and 
purer name than that of any foreigner who 
had ruled over India for centuries. 

It is one of the most remarkable circum¬ 
stances in the history of his life, that great 
offices were scarcely ever bestowed on him 
in times when they could be mere marks of 
favour, or very desirable objects of pursuit; 
but that he was always called upon to under¬ 
take them in those seasons of difficulty when 
the acceptance became a severe and painful 
duty. One of these unhappy occasions arose 
in the year 1798. A most dangerous rebel¬ 
lion had been suppressed in Ireland, without 
extinguishing the disaffection that threatened 
future rebellions. The prudence, the vigil¬ 
ance, the unspotted humanity, the inflexible 
moderation of Marquis Cornwallis, pointed 
him out as the most proper person to com¬ 
pose the dissensions of that generous and 
unfortunate people. He was accordingly 
chosen for that mission of benevolence, and 
he most amply justified the choice. Besides 
the applause of all good men and all lovers 
of their country, he received the still more 
unequivocal honour of the censure of the 
violent, and the clamours of those whose 
ungovernable resentments he refused to 
gratify. He not only succeeded in allaying 
the animosities of a divided nation, but he 
was happy enough to be instrumental in a 


as to be almost hopeless. The Court of Directors 
warmly recommended this very important part of 
their interest to Marquis Cornwallis. He applied 
his mind to the subject with that conscientious zeal 
which always distinguished him as a servant of 
the public. He became as familiarly acquainted 
with its most minute details as most of those who 
had made it the business of their lives; and he has 
the undisputed merit of having retrieved these 
manufactures from a condition in which they were 
thought desperate. 


measure which, if it be followed by moderate 
and healing counsels, promises permanent 
quiet and prosperity. Under his adminis¬ 
tration Ireland was united to Great Britain. 
A period was at length put to the long mis- 
government and misfortunes of that noble 
island, and a new era of justice, happiness, 
and security opened for both the great mem¬ 
bers of the British Empire. 

The times were too full of difficulty to 
suffer him long to enjoy the retirement 
which followed his Irish administration. A 
war, fortunate and brilliant in many of its 
separate operations, but unsuccessful in its 
grand objects, was closed by a treaty of 
peace, which atjfirst was joyfully hailed by 
the feelings of the public, but which has 
since given rise to great diversity of judg¬ 
ment. It may be observed, without descend¬ 
ing into political contests, that if the terms 
of the treaty * were necessarily not flattering 
to national pride, it was the more important 
to choose a negociator who should inspire 
public confidence, and whose character might 
shield necessary concessions from unpopu¬ 
larity. Such was unquestionably the prin¬ 
ciple on which Lord Cornwallis was selected; 
and such (whatever judgment may be formed 
of the treaty) is the honourable testimony 
which it bears to his character. 

The offices bestowed on him were not 
matters of grace : every preferment was a 
homage to his virtue. He was never invited 
to the luxuries of high station: he was always 
summoned to its most arduous and perilous 
duties. India once more needed, or was 
thought to need, the guardian care of him 
who had healed the wounds of conquest, and 
bestowed on her the blessings of equitable 
and paternal legislation. Whether the opi¬ 
nion held in England of the perils of our 
Eastern territories was correct or exag¬ 
gerated, it is not for us in this place to in¬ 
quire. It is enough to know that the alarm 
was great and extensive, and that the eyes 
of the nation were once more turned to¬ 
wards Lord Cornwallis. Whether the appre¬ 
hensions were just or groundless, the tribute 


* Of Amiens. 








CHARACTER OF CHARLES, FIRST MARQUIS CORNWALLIS. 489 


to his character was equal. He once more 
accepted the government of these extensive 
dominions, with a full knowledge of his 
danger, and with no obscure anticipation of 
the probability of his fate. He obeyed his 
sovereign, nobly declaring, “ that if he could 
render service to his country, it was of small 
moment to him whether he died in India or 
in Europe ; ” and no doubt thoroughly con¬ 
vinced that it was far better to die in the 
discharge of great duties than to add a few 
feeble inactive years to life. Great Britain, 
divided on most public questions, was un¬ 
animous in her admiration of this signal 
sacrifice; and British India, however various 
might be the political opinions of her in¬ 
habitants, welcomed the Governor-General 
with only one sentiment of personal grati¬ 
tude and reverence. 

Scarcely had he arrived when he felt the 
fatal influence of the climate which, with a 
clear view of its terrors, he had resolved to 
brave. But he neither yielded to the lan¬ 
guor of disease, nor to the infirmity of age. 
With all the ardour of youth, he flew to the 
post where he was either to conclude an 
equitable peace, or, if that were refused, to 
prosecute necessary hostilities with rigour. 
His malady became more grievous, and for 
some time stopped his progress. On the 
slightest alleviation of his symptoms, he re¬ 
sumed his journey, though little hope of 
recovery remained, with an inflexible reso¬ 
lution to employ what was left of life in the 
performance of his duty to his country. He 
declared to his surrounding friends, “that 
he knew no reason to fear death; and that 
if he could remain in the world but a short 
time longer, to complete the plans of public 
service in which he was engaged, he should 
then cheerfully resign his life to the Al¬ 
mighty Giver,” — a noble and memorable 
declaration, expressive of the union of every 
private, and civil, and religious excellence, 
in which the consciousness of a blameless 
and meritorious life is combined with the 
affectionate zeal of a dying patriot, and the 
meek submission of a pious Christian. But 
it pleased God, “ whose ways are not as our 
ways,” to withdraw him from this region of 


the universe before his honest wishes of use¬ 
fulness could be accomplished, though doubt¬ 
less not before the purposes of Providence 
were fulfilled. He expired at Gazeepore, in 
the province of Benares, on the 5th of 
October, 1805, supported by the remem¬ 
brance of his virtue, and by the sentiments 
of piety which had actuated his whole life. 

His remains are interred on the spot where 
he died, on the banks of that famous river, 
which washes no country not either blessed 
by his government, or visited by his renown; 
and in the heart of that province so long the 
chosen seat of religion and learning in India, 
which, under the influence of his beneficent 
system, and under the administration of good 
men whom he had chosen, had risen from 
a state of decline and confusion to one of 
prosperity, probably unrivalled in the hap¬ 
piest times of its ancient princes. “ His 
body is buried in peace, and his name liveth 
for evermore.” 

The Christian religion is no vain super¬ 
stition, which divides the worship of God 
from the service of man. Every social duty 
is a Christian grace. Public and private 
virtue is considered by Christianity as the 
purest and most acceptable incense which 
can ascend before the Divine Throne. Po¬ 
litical duties are a most momentous part of 
morality, and morality is the most momentous 
part of religion. When the political life of 
a great man has been guided by the rules of 
morality, and consecrated by the principles 
of religion, it may, and it ought to be com¬ 
memorated, that the survivors may admire 
and attempt to copy, not only as men and 
citizens, but as Christians. It is due to the 
honour of Religion and Virtue,— it is fit for 
the confusion of the impious and the de¬ 
praved, to show that these sacred principles 
are not to be hid in the darkness of humble 
life to lead the prejudiced and amuse the 
superstitious, but that they appear with their 
proper lustre at the head of councils, of 
armies, and of empires — the supports of 
valour — the sources of active and enlight¬ 
ened beneficence — the companions of all 
real policy, and the guides to solid and 
durable glory. 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


490 


A distinction has been made in our times 
among statesmen, between Public and Private 
Virtue: they have been supposed to be 
separable. The neglect of every private 
obligation has been supposed to be com¬ 
patible with public virtue, and the violation 
of the most sacred public trust has been 
thought not inconsistent with private worth 
— a deplorable distinction, the creature of 
corrupt sophistry, disavowed by Reason and 
Morals, and condemned by all the authority 
of Religion. No such disgraceful incon¬ 
sistency, or flagrant hypocrisy, disgraced the 
character of the venerable person of whom 
I speak—of whom we may, without suspicion 
of exaggeration, say, that he performed with 
equal strictness every office of public or 
private life; that his public virtue was not 
put on for parade, like a gaudy theatrical 
dress, but that it was the same integrity and 
benevolence which attended his most retired 
moments; that with a simple and modest 
character, alien to ostentation, and abhorrent 
from artifice,—with no pursuit of popularity, 
and no sacrifice to court favour,—by no other 
means than an universal reputation for good 


sense, humanity, and honesty, he gained uni¬ 
versal confidence, and was summoned to the 
highest offices at every call of danger. 

He has left us an useful example of the 
true dignity of these invaluable qualities, 
and has given us new reason to thank God 
that we are the natives of a country yet so 
uncorrupted as to prize them thus highly. 
He has left us an example of the pure states¬ 
man,—of a paternal governor—of a warrior 
who loved peace — of a hero without ambi¬ 
tion—of a conqueror who showed unfeigned 
moderation in the moment of victory — and 
of a patriot who devoted himself to death 
for his country. May this example be as 
fruitful, as his -memory will be immortal! 
May the last generations of Britain aspire to 
copy and rival so pure a model! And when 
the nations of India turn their eyes to his 
monument, rising amidst fields which his 
paternal care has restored to their ancient 
fertility, may they who have long suffered 
from the violence of those who are unjustly 
called “ Great,” at length learn to love and 
reverence the Good. 


CHARACTER 

OF TIIE 

RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE CANNING.* 


Without invidious comparison, it may be 
safely said that, from the circumstances in 
which he died, his death was more generally 
interesting among civilised nations than that 
of any other English statesman had ever 
been. It was an event in the internal 
history of every country. From Lima to 


* Contributed to the “ Keepsake” of 1828, under 
the title of “ Sketch of a Fragment of the History 
of the Nineteenth Century,” in which, as the 


Athens, every nation struggling for inde¬ 
pendence or existence, was filled by it with 
sorrow and dismay. The Miguelites of Por¬ 
tugal, the Apostolicals of Spain, the Jesuit 
faction in France, and the Divan of Con¬ 
stantinople, raised a shout of joy at the fall 
of their dreaded enemy. He was regretted 


Author announces in a notice prefixed to it, the 
temper of the future historian of the present times 
is affected. — Ed. 










CHARACTER OF MR. CANNING. 491 


by all who, heated by no personal or party 
resentment, felt for genius struck down in 
the act of attempting to heal the revolu¬ 
tionary distemper, and to render future im¬ 
provements pacific, on the principle since 
successfully adopted by more fortunate, 
though not more deserving, ministers, — 
that of an honest compromise between the 
interests and the opinions, — the prejudices 
and the demands, — of the supporters of 
establishments, and the followers of reform¬ 
ation. 

* * * * * 

The family of Mr. Canning, which for 
more than a century had filled honourable 
stations in Ireland, was a younger branch 
of an ancient one among the English gentry. 
His father, a man of letters, had been disin¬ 
herited for an imprudent marriage ; and the 
inheritance went to a younger brother, 
whose son was afterwards created Lord 
Garvagh. Mr. Canning was educated at 
Eton and Oxford, according to that exclu¬ 
sively classical system, which, whatever may 
be its defects, must be owned, when taken 
with its constant appendages, to be emi¬ 
nently favourable to the cultivation of sense 
and taste, as well as to the development of 
wit and spirit. From his boyhood he was 
the foremost among very distinguished con¬ 
temporaries, and continued to be regarded 
as the best specimen, and the most brilliant 
representative, of that eminently national 
education. His youthful eye sparkled with 
quickness and arch pleasantry; and his 
countenance early betrayed that jealousy 
of his own dignity, and sensibility to sus¬ 
pected disregard, which were afterwards 
softened, but never quite subdued. Neither 
the habits of a great school, nor those of a 
popular assembly, were calculated to weaken 
his love of praise and passion for distinction : 
but, as he advanced in years, his fine coun¬ 
tenance was ennobled by the expression of 
thought and feeling; he more pursued that 
lasting praise, which is not to be earned 
without praiseworthiness; and, if he con¬ 
tinued to be a lover of fame, he also passion¬ 
ately loved the glory of his country. Even 
he who almost alone was entitled to look 


down on fame as “that last infirmity of 
noble minds,” had not forgotten that it 
was — 

“The spur that the clear spirit doth raise, 
To scorn delights, and live laborious days.”* 

The natural bent of character is, perhaps, 
better ascertained from the undisturbed and 
unconscious play of the mind in the com¬ 
mon intercourse of society, than from its 
movements under the power of strong in¬ 
terest or warm passions in public life. In 
social intercourse Mr. Canning was de¬ 
lightful. Happily for the true charm of his 
conversation he was too busy not to treat 
society as more fitted for relaxation than for 
display. It is but little to say, that he was 
neither disputatious, declamatory, nor sen¬ 
tentious,— neither a dictator nor a jester. 
His manner was simple and unobtrusive; — 
his language always quite familiar. If a 
higher thought stole from his mind, it came 
in its conversational undress. From this 
plain ground his pleasantry sprang with the 
happiest effect; and it was nearly exempt 
from that alloy of taunt and banter, which 
he sometimes mixed with more precious 
materials in public contest. He may be 
added to the list of those eminent persons 
who pleased most in their friendly circle. 
He had the agreeable quality of being more 
easily pleased in society tb?,n might have 
been expected from the keenness of his dis¬ 
cernment, and the sensibility of his temper : 
still he was liable to be discomposed, or 
even silenced, by the presence of any one 
whom he did not like. His manner in com¬ 
pany betrayed the political vexations or 
anxieties which preyed on his mind: nor 
could he conceal that sensitiveness to public 
attacks which their frequent recurrence 
wears out in most English politicians. These 
last foibles may be thought interesting as 
the remains of natural character, not de¬ 
stroyed by refined society and political 
affairs. He was assailed by some adver¬ 
saries so ignoble as to wound him through 
his filial affection, which preserved its re- 


* Lycidas. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


492 


spectful character through the whole course 
of his advancement. 

The ardent zeal for his memory, which 
appeared immediately after his death, attests 
the warmth of those domestic affections 
which seldom prevail where they are not 
mutual. To his touching epitaph on his 
son, parental love has given a charm which 
is wanting in his other verses. It was said 
of him, at one time, that no man had so 
little popularity and such affectionate friends; 
and the truth was certainly more sacrificed to 
point in the former than in the latter mem¬ 
ber of the contrast. Some of his friendships 
continued in spite of political differences 
(which, by rendering intercourse less un¬ 
constrained, often undermine friendship) ; 
and others were remarkable for a warmth, 
constancy, and disinterestedness, which, 
though chiefly honourable to those who 
were capable of so pure a kindness, yet re¬ 
dound to the credit of him who was the 
object of it. No man is thus beloved who 
is not himself formed for friendship. 

Notwithstanding his disregard for money, 
he was not tempted in youth by the ex¬ 
ample or the kindness of affluent friends 
much to overstep his little patrimony. He 
never afterwards sacrificed to parade or 
personal indulgence; though his occupa¬ 
tions scarcely allowed him to think enough 
of his private affairs. Even from his mo¬ 
derate fortune, his bounty was often liberal 
to suitors to whom official relief could not 
be granted. By a sort of generosity still 
harder for him to practise, he endeavoured, 
in cases where the suffering was great, 
though the suit could not be granted, to 
satisfy the feelings of the suitor by a full 
explanation in writing of the causes which 
rendered compliance impracticable. Where- 
ever he took an interest, he showed it as 
much by delicacy to the feelings of those 
whom he served or relieved, as by sub¬ 
stantial consideration for their claims ; — a 
rare and most praiseworthy merit among 
men in power. 

In proportion as the opinion of a people 
acquires influence over public affairs, the 
faculty of persuading men to support or op¬ 


pose political measures acquires importance. 
The peculiar nature of Parliamentary de¬ 
bate contributes to render eminence in that 
province not so imperfect a test of political 
ability as it might appear to be. Recited 
speeches can seldom show more than powers 
of reasoning and imagination; which have 
little connection with a capacity for affairs. 
But the unforeseen events of debate, and 
the necessity of immediate answer in un¬ 
premeditated language, afford scope for the 
quickness, firmness, boldness, wariness, pre¬ 
sence of mind, and address in the manage¬ 
ment of men, which are among the qualities 
most essential to a statesman. The most 
flourishing period, of our Parliamentary elo¬ 
quence extends for about half a century, — 
from the maturity of Lord Chatham’s genius 
to the death of Mr. Fox. During the 
twenty years which succeeded, Mr. Canning 
was sometimes the leader, and always the 
greatest orator, of the party who supported 
the administration ; in which there were able 
men who supported, without rivalling him, 
against opponents also not thought by him 
inconsiderable. Of these last, one, at least, 
was felt by every hearer, and acknowledged 
in private by himself, to have always forced 
his faculties to their very uttermost stretch.* 
Had he been a dry and meagre speaker, 
he would have been universally allowed to 
have been one of the greatest masters of 
argument; but his hearers were so dazzled 
by the splendour of his diction, that they 
did not perceive the acuteness and the oc¬ 
casionally excessive refinement of his reason¬ 
ing ; — a consequence which, as it shows the 
injurious influence of a seductive fault, can 
with the less justice be overlooked in the 
estimate of his understanding. Ornament, 
it must be owned, when it only pleases or 
amuses, without disposing the audience to 
adopt the sentiments of the speaker, is an 
offence against the first law of public speak¬ 
ing; it obstructs instead of promoting its 
only reasonable purpose. But eloquence is 
a widely extended art, comprehending many 


* Mr. (now Lord) Brougham is the person al¬ 
luded to. — Ed. 






CHARACTER OF 

sorts of excellence ; in some of which orna¬ 
mented diction is more liberally employed 
than in others; and in none of which the 
highest rank can be attained, without an 
extraordinary combination of mental powers. 
Among our own orators, Mr. Canning seems 
to have been the best model of the adorned 
style. The splendid and sublime descrip¬ 
tions of Mr. Burke, — his comprehensive 
and profound views of general principle, — 
though they must ever delight and instruct 
the reader, must be owned to have been 
digressions which diverted the mind of the 
hearer from the object on which the speaker 
ought to have kept it steadily fixed. She¬ 
ridan, a man of admirable sense, and match¬ 
less wit, laboured to follow Burke into the 
foreign regions of feeling and grandeur. 
The specimens preserved of his most cele¬ 
brated speeches show too much of the ex¬ 
aggeration and excess to which those are 
peculiarly liable who seek by art and effort 
what nature has denied. By the constant 
part which Mr. Canning took in debate, he 
was called upon to show a knowledge which 
Sheridan did not possess, and a readiness 
which that accomplished man had no such 
means of strengthening and displaying. In 
some qualities of style, Mr. Canning sur¬ 
passed Mr. Pitt. His diction was more 
various, — sometimes more simple, — more 
idiomatical, even in its more elevated parts. 
It sparkled with imagery, and was bright¬ 
ened by illustration; in both of which Mr. 
Pitt, for so great an orator, was defective. 

No English speaker used the keen and 
brilliant weapon of wit so long, so often, 
or so effectively, as Mr. Canning. He gained 
more triumphs, and incurred more enmity, 
by it than by any other. Those whose im¬ 
portance depends much on birth and fortune 
are impatient of seeing their own artificial 
dignity, or that of their order, broken down 
by derision; and perhaps few men heartily 
forgive a successful jest against themselves, 
but those who are conscious of being unhurt 
by it. Mr. Canning often used this talent 
imprudently. In sudden flashes of wit, and 
in the playful description of men or things, 
he was often distinguished by that natural 


MR. CANNING. 493 

felicity which is the charm of pleasantry; 
to which the air of art and labour is more 
fatal than to any other talent. Sheridan 
was sometimes betrayed by an imitation of 
the dialogue of his master, Congreve, into a 
sort of laboured and finished jesting, so 
balanced and expanded, as sometimes to vie 
in tautology and monotony with the once 
applauded triads of Johnson; and which, 
even in its most happy passages, is more 
sure of commanding serious admiration than 
hearty laughter. It cannot be denied that 
Mr. Canning’s taste was, in this respect, 
somewhat influenced by the example of his 
early friend. The exuberance of fancy and 
wit lessened the gravity of his general 
manner, and perhaps also indisposed the 
audience to feel his earnestness where it 
clearly showed itself. In that important 
quality he was inferior to Mr. Pitt, — 

“ Deep on whose front engraven, 
Deliberation sat, and public care; ” * 

and no less inferior to Mr. Fox, whose fervid 
eloquence flowed from the love of his coun¬ 
try, the scorn of baseness, and the hatred of 
cruelty, which were the ruling passions of 
his nature. 

On the whole, it may be observed, that 
the range of Mr. Canning’s powers as an 
orator was. wider than that in which he 
usually exerted them. When mere state¬ 
ment only was allowable, no man of his age 
was more simple. When infirm health com¬ 
pelled him to be brief, no speaker could 
compress his matter with so little sacrifice of 
clearness, ease, and elegance. In his speech 
on Colonial Reformation, in 1823, he seemed 
to have brought down the philosophical 
principles and the moral sentiments of Mr. 
Burke to that precise level where they 
could be happily blended with a grave and 
dignified speech, intended as an introduction 
to a new system of legislation. As his ora¬ 
torical faults were those of youthful genius 
the progress of age seemed to purify his 
eloquence, and every year appeared to re¬ 
move some speck which hid, or, at least, 

* Paradise Lost, Book II. — Ed. 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


494 

dimmed, a beauty. He daily rose to larger 
views, and made, perhaps, as near approaches 
to philosophical principles as the great dif¬ 
ference between the objects of the philoso¬ 
pher and those of the orator will commonly 
allow. 

Mr. Canning possessed, in a high degree, 
the outward advantages of an orator. His 
expressive countenance varied with the 
changes of his eloquence: his voice, flexible 
and articulate, had as much compass as his 
mode of speaking required. In the calm 
part of his speeches, his attitude and gesture 
might have been selected by a painter to 
represent grace rising towards dignity. 

When the memorials of his own time, — 
the composition of which he is said never to 
have interrupted in his busiest moments, — 
are made known to the public, his abilities 
as a writer may be better estimated. His 
only known writings in prose are State 
Papers, which, when considered as the com¬ 
position of a Minister for Foreign Affairs, in 
one of the most extraordinary periods of 
European history, are undoubtedly of no 
small importance. Such of these papers as 
were intended to be a direct appeal to the 
judgment of mankind combine so much pre¬ 
cision, with such uniform circumspection 
and dignity, that they must ever be studied 
as models of that very difficult species of 
composition. His instructions to ministers 
abroad, on occasions both perplexing and 
momentous, will be found to exhibit a rare 
union of comprehensive and elevated views, 
with singular ingenuity in devising means of 
execution; on which last faculty he some¬ 
times relied perhaps more confidently than 
the short and dim foresight of man will 
warrant. “ Great affairs,” says Lord Bacon, 
“ are commonly too coarse and stubborn to 
be worked upon by the fine edges and points 
of wit.” * His papers in negotiation were 
occasionally somewhat too controversial in 
their tone: they were not near enough to 
the manner of an amicable conversation 
about a disputed point of business, in which 


* It may be proper to remind the reader, that 
here the word “ wit ” is used in its ancient sense. 


a negotiator does not so much draw out his 
argument, as hint his own object, and sound 
the intention of his opponent. He some¬ 
times seems to have pursued triumph more 
than advantage, and not to have remem¬ 
bered that to leave the opposite party satis¬ 
fied with what he has got, and in good 
humour with himself, is not one of the least 
proofs of a negotiator’s skill. Where the 
papers were intended ultimately to reach 
the public through Parliament, it might 
have been prudent to regard chiefly the 
final object; and when this excuse was 
wanting, much must be pardoned to the 
controversial habits of a parliamentary life. 
It is hard for a‘debater to be a negotiator : 
the faculty of guiding public assemblies is 
very remote from the art of dealing with 
individuals. 

Mr. Canning’s power of writing verse may 
rather be classed with his accomplishments, 
than numbered among his high and noble 
faculties. It would have been a distinction 
for an inferior man. His verses were far 
above those of Cicero, of Burke, and of 
Bacon. The taste prevalent in his youth 
led him to feel more relish for sententious 
declaimers than is shared by lovers of the 
true poetry of imagination and sensibility. 
In some respects his poetical compositions 
were also influenced by his early intercourse 
with Mr. Sheridan, though he was restrained 
by his more familiar contemplation of classi¬ 
cal models from the glittering conceits of 
that extraordinary man. Something of an 
artificial and composite diction is discernible 
in the English poems of those who have 
acquired reputation by Latin verse, — more 
especially since the pursuit of rigid purity 
has required so timid an imitation as not 
only to confine itself to the words, but to 
adopt none but the phrases of ancient poets. 
Of this effect Gray must be allowed to fur¬ 
nish an example. 

Absolute silence about Mr. Canning’s 
writings as a political satirist, — which were 
for their hour so popular, — might be im¬ 
puted to undue timidity. In that character 
he yielded to General Fitzpatrick in arch 
stateliness and poignant raillery; to Mr. 







PREFACE TO A REPRINT OF THE EDINBURGH REVIEW OF 1755. 495 

Moore in the gay prodigality with which he 
squanders his countless stores of wit; and to 
his own friend Mr. Frere in the richness of 
a native vein of original and fantastic drol¬ 
lery. In that ungenial province, where the 
brightest of laurels are apt very soon to 
fade, and where Dryden only boasts immor¬ 
tal lays, it is perhaps his best praise to re¬ 
cord that there is no writing of his, which a 
man of honour might not have avowed as 
soon as the first heat of contest was past. 

In some of the amusements or tasks of his 
boyhood there are passages which, without 
much help from fancy, might appear to con¬ 
tain allusions to his greatest measures of 
policy, as well as to the tenor of his life, and 
to the melancholy splendour which sur¬ 
rounded his death. In the concluding line 
of the first English verses written by him at 
Eton, he expressed a wish, which has been 
singularly realised, that he might 

" Live in a blaze, and in a blaze expire.” 

It is a striking coincidence, that the states¬ 
man, whose dying measure was to mature 
an alliance for the deliverance of Greece, 

should, when a boy, have written English 
verses on the slavery of that country; and 
that in his prize poem at Oxford, on the 
Pilgrimage to Mecca, — a composition as 
much applauded as a modern Latin poem 
can aspire to be,—he should have as bitterly 
deplored the lot of other renowned countries 
now groaning under the same barbarous 
yoke,— 

“ Nunc Satrap® imperio et saevo subdita Turcae.” * 

To conclude: — he was a man of fine and 
brilliant genius, of warm affections, of a 
high and generous spirit, — a statesman, 
who, at home, converted most of his oppo¬ 
nents into warm supporters; who, abroad, 
was the sole hope and trust of all who 
sought an orderly and legal liberty; and 
who was cut off in the midst of vigorous 
and splendid measures, which, if executed 
by himself, or with his own spirit, promised 
to place his name in the first class of rulers, 
among the founders of lasting peace, and 
the guardians of human improvement. 

* Iter ad Meccam, Oxford, 1789. 

PREFACE 

TO A 

REPRINT OF THE EDINBURGH REVIEW 

or 1755* 

It is generally known that two numbers of 
a Critical Journal were published at Edin¬ 
burgh in the year 1755, under the title of 
the “ Edinburgh Review.” The following 
volume contains an exact reprint of that 

Review, now become so rare that it is not to 
be found in the libraries of some of the most 
curious collectors. To this reprint are added 
the names of the writers of the most im¬ 
portant articles. Care has been taken to 
authenticate the list of names by reference 
to well-informed persons, and by comparison 

* Published in 1816. — Ed. 












496 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


with copies in the possession of those who 
have derived their information from distinct 
and independent sources. If no part of it 
should be now corrected by those Scotch¬ 
men of letters still living who may have 
known the fact from the writers themselves, 
we may regard this literary secret as finally 
discovered, with some gratification to the 
curious reader, and without either pain to 
the feelings, or wrong to the character of 
any one. There are few anonymous writers 
the discovery of whose names would be an 
object of curiosity after the lapse of sixty 
years: there are perhaps still fewer whose 
secret might be exposed to the public after 
that long period with perfect security to 
their reputation for equity and forbearance. 

The mere circumstance that this volume 
contains the first printed writings of Adam 
Smith and Robertson, and the only known 
publication of Lord Chancellor Rosslyn, 
will probably be thought a sufficient reason 
for its present appearance. 

Of the eight articles which appear to have 
been furnished by Dr. Robertson, six are 
on historical subjects. Written during the 
composition of the History of Scotland, they 
show evident marks of the wary under¬ 
standing, the insight into character, the 
right judgment in affairs, and the union of 
the sober speculation of a philosopher with 
the practical prudence of a statesman, as 
well as the studied elegance and somewhat 
ceremonious stateliness of style which dis¬ 
tinguish his more elaborate writings. He 
had already succeeded in guarding his dic¬ 
tion against the words and phrases of the 
dialect which he habitually spoke; — an 
enterprise in which he had no forerunner, 
and of which the difficulty even now can 
only be estimated by a native of Scotland. 
The dread of inelegance in a language almost 
foreign kept him, as it has kept succeeding 
Scotch writers, at a distance from the fami¬ 
liar English, the perfect use of which can 
be acquired only by conversation from the 
earliest years. Two inaccurate expres¬ 
sions only are to be found in these early 
and hasty productions of this elegant writer. 
Instead of “ individuals ” he uses the Galli¬ 


cism “ particulars and for “ enumeration” 
he employs “ induction,” — a term properly 
applicable only with a view to the general 
inference which enumeration affords. In 
the review of the History of Peter the Great 
it is not uninteresting to find it remarked, 
that the violence and ferocity of that re¬ 
nowned barbarian perhaps partly fitted him 
to be the reformer of a barbarous people; as 
it was afterwards observed in the Histories 
of Scotland and of Charles V., that a milder 
and more refined character might have 
somewhat disqualified Luther and Knox for 
their great work. Two articles being on 
Scottish affairs were natural relaxations for 
the historian* of Scotland. In that which 
relates to the Catalogue of Scottish Bishops 
we observe a subdued smile at the eager¬ 
ness of the antiquary and the ecclesiastical 
partisan, qualified indeed by a just sense of 
the value of the collateral information which 
their toil may chance to throw up, but which 
he was too cautious and decorous to have 
hazarded in his avowed writings. That 
he reviewed Douglas’s Account of North 
America was a fortunate circumstance, if 
we may suppose that the recollection 
might at a distant period have contributed 
to suggest the composition of the History of 
America. None of these writings could 
have justified any expectation of his histo¬ 
rical fame; because they furnished no occa¬ 
sion for exerting the talent for narration, — 
the most difficult but the most necessary 
attainment of an historian, and one in which 
he has often equalled the greatest masters 
of his art. In perusing the two essays of a 
literary sort which are ascribed to him, it 
may seem that he has carried lenient and 
liberal criticism to an excess. His mercy to 
the vicious style of Hervey may have been 
in some measure the result of professional 
prudence: but it must be owned that he 
does not seem enough aware of the interval 
between Gray and Shenstone, and that he 
names versifiers now wholly forgotten. Had 
he and his associates, however, erred on the 
opposite extreme, — had they underrated 
and vilified works of genius, their fault 
would now appear much more offensive. 






PREFACE TO A REPRINT OF THE 

To overrate somewhat the inferior degrees 
of real merit which are reached by con¬ 
temporaries is indeed the natural disposition 
of superior minds, when they are neither 
degraded by jealousy nor inflamed by hos¬ 
tile prejudice. The faint and secondary 
beauties of contemporaries are aided by 
novelty; they are brought near enough to 
the attention by curiosity; and they are 
compared with their competitors of the same 
time instead of being tried by the test of 
likeness to the produce of all ages and 
nations. This goodnatured exaggeration 
encourages talent, and gives pleasure to 
readers as well as writers, without any per¬ 
manent injury to the public taste. The 
light which seems brilliant only because it 
is near the eye, cannot reach the distant 
observer. Books which please for a year, 
which please for ten years, and which please 
for ever, gradually take their destined sta¬ 
tions. There is little need of harsh criticism 
to forward this final justice. The very critic 
who has bestowed too prodigal praise, if he 
long survives his criticism, will survive also 
his harmless error. Robertson never ceased 
to admire Gray: but he lived long enough 
probably to forget the name of Jago. 

In the contributions of Dr. Adam Smith 
it is easy to trace his general habits both of 
thinking and writing. Among the inferior 
excellencies of this great philosopher, it is 
not to be forgotten that in his full and flow¬ 
ing composition he manages the English 
language with a freer hand and with more 
native ease than any other Scottish writer. 
Robertson avoids Scotticisms: but Smith 
might be taken for an English writer not 
peculiarly idiomatical. It is not improbable 
that the early lectures of Hutcheson, an 
eloquent native of Ireland, and a residence 
at Oxford from the age of seventeen to that 
of twenty-four, may have aided Smith in the 
attainment of this more free and native 
style. It must however be owned that his 
works, confined to subjects of science or 
speculation, do not afford the severest test 
of a writer’s familiarity with a language. 
On such subjects it is comparatively easy, 
without any appearance of constraint or 


EDINBURGH REVIEW OF 1755. 497 

parade, to avoid the difficulties of idiomati¬ 
cal expression by the employment of general 
and technical terms. His review of John¬ 
son’s Dictionary is chiefly valuable as a proof 
that neither of these eminent persons was 
well qualified to write an English diction¬ 
ary. The plan of Johnson and the speci¬ 
mens of Smith are alike faulty. At that 
period, indeed, neither the cultivation of our 
old literature, nor the study of the languages 
from which the English springs or to which 
it is related, nor the habit of observing the 
general structure of language, was so far 
advanced as to render it possible for this 
great work to approach perfection. His 
parallel between French and English writers * 
is equally just and ingenious, and betrays 
very little of that French taste in polite 
letters, especially in dramatic poetry, to 
which Dr. Smith and his friend Mr. Hume 
were prone. The observations on the life 
of a savage, which when seen from a distance 
appears to be divided between Arcadian re¬ 
pose and chivalrous adventure, and by this 
union is the most alluring object of general 
curiosity, and the natural scene of the golden 
age both of the legendary and of the para¬ 
doxical sophist, are an example of those 
original speculations on the reciprocal influ¬ 
ence of society and opinions which charac¬ 
terise the genius of Smith. The commend¬ 
ation of Rousseau’s eloquent Dedication to 
the Republic of Geneva, for expressing 
“ that ardent and passionate esteem which it 
becomes a good citizen to entertain for the 
government of his country and the character 
of his countrymen,” is an instance of the 
seeming exaggeration of just principles, 
arising from the employment of the lan¬ 
guage of moral feeling, as that of ethical 
philosophy, which is very observable in the 
Theory of Moral Sentiments. 

Though the contributions of Alexander 
Wedderburn, afterwards Earl of Rosslyn, 
afforded little scope for the display of mental 
superiority, it is not uninteresting to examine 
the first essays in composition of a man 
whose powers of reason and eloquence 


* Lettor to the Editor, at the end of the volume. 


K K 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


498 


raised him to the highest dignity of the 
State. A Greek grammar and two law 
books were allotted to him as subjects of 
criticism. Humble as these subjects are, 
an attentive perusal will discover in his re¬ 
marks on them a distinctness of concep¬ 
tion and a terseness as well as precision of 
language which are by no means common 
qualities of writing. One error in the use 
of the future tense deserves notice only as 
it shows the difficulties which he had to sur¬ 
mount in acquiring what costs an English¬ 
man no study. The praise bestowed in his 
Preface on Buchanan for an “undaunted 
spirit of liberty,” is an instance of the 
change which sixty years have produced in 
political sentiment. Though that great 
writer was ranked among the enemies of 
monarchy*, the praise of him, especially 
in Scotland, was a mark of fidelity to a 
government which, though monarchical, was 
founded on the principles of the Revolution, 
and feared no danger but from the partisans 
of hereditary right. Both the criticisms 
and the ingenious and judicious Preface 
show the early taste of a man who at the 
age of twenty-two withstands every tempt¬ 
ation to unseasonable display. The love of 
letters, together with talents already con¬ 
spicuous, had in the preceding year (1754) 
placed him in the chair at the first meeting 
of a literary society of which Hume and 
Smith were members. The same dignified 
sentiment attended him through a long life 
of activity and ambition, and shed a lustre 
over his declining years. It was respectably 
manifested by fidelity to the literary friends 
of his youth, and it gave him a disposition, 
perhaps somewhat excessive, to applaud 
every shadow of the like merit in others. 

The other writers are only to be regarded 
as respectable auxiliaries in such an under¬ 
taking. Dr. Blair is an useful example, 
that a station among good writers may be 
attained by assiduity and good sense, with 
the help of an uncorrupted taste; while for 
the want of these qualities, it is often not 


* He is usually placed with Languet and Altliu- 
sen among the Monarchomists. 


reached by others whose powers of mind 
may be allied to genius. 

The delicate task of reviewing the theo¬ 
logical publications of Scotland was allotted 
to Mr. Jardine, one of the ministers of 
Edinburgh, whose performance of that duty 
would have required no particular notice, 
had it not contributed with other circum¬ 
stances to bring the work to its sudden and 
unexpected close. At the very moment 
when Mr. Wedderburn (in his note at the 
end of the second number) had announced 
an intention to enlarge the plan, he and his 
colleagues were obliged to relinquish the 
work. 

The temper of the people of Scotland was 
at that moment peculiarly jealous on every 
question that approached the boundaries of 
theology. A popular election of the paro¬ 
chial clergy had been restored with Pres¬ 
bytery by the Revolution. The rights of 
Patrons had been reimposed on the Scottish 
Church in the last years of Queen Anne, 
by Ministers who desired, if they did not 
meditate, the re-establishment of Episcopacy. 
But for thirty years afterwards this unpopu¬ 
lar right was either disused by the Patrons 
or successfully resisted by the people. The 
zealous Presbyterians still retained the doc¬ 
trine and spirit of the Covenanters; and 
their favourite preachers, bred up amidst 
the furious persecutions of Charles the 
Second, had rather learnt piety and forti¬ 
tude than acquired that useful and orna¬ 
mental learning which becomes their order 
in times of quiet. Some of them had sepa¬ 
rated from the Church on account of lay 
Patronage, among other marks of degeneracy. 
But besides these Seceders, the majority of 
the Established clergy were adverse to the 
law of Patronage, and disposed to connive 
at resistance to its execution. On the other 
hand, the more lettered and refined ministers 
of the Church, who had secretly relinquished 
many parts of the Calvinistic system,— from 
the unpopularity of their own opinions and 
modes of preaching, from their connexion 
with the gentry who held the rights of Pa¬ 
tronage, and from repugnance to the vulgar 
and illiterate ministers whom turbulent 






PREFACE TO A REPRINT OF THE EDINBURGH REVIEW OF 1755. 499 


elections had brought into the Church,— 
became hostile to the interference of the 
people, and zealously laboured to enforce 
the execution of a law which had hitherto 
remained almost dormant. The Orthodox 
party maintained the rights of the people 
against a regulation imposed on them by 
their enemies; and the party which in mat¬ 
ters of religion claimed the distinction of 
liberality and toleration, contended for the 
absolute authority of the civil magistrate to 
the destruction of a right which more than 
any other interested the conscience of the 
people of Scotland. At the head of this 
last party was Dr. Robertson, one of the 
contributors to the present volume, who 
about the time of its appearance was on the 
eve of effecting a revolution in the practice 
of the Church, by at length compelling the 
stubborn Presbyterians to submit to the 
authority of a law which they abhorred. 

Another circumstance rendered the time 
very perilous for Scotch reviewers of eccle¬ 
siastical publications. The writings of Mr. 
Hume, the intimate friend of the leader of 
the tolerant clergy, very naturally excited 
the alarm of the Orthodox party, who, like 
their predecessors of the preceding age, 
were zealous for the rights of the people, 
but confined their charity within the pale of 
their own communion, and were much dis¬ 
posed to regard the impunity of heretics 
and infidels as a reproach to a Christian 
magistrate. In the year 1754 a complaint 
to the General Assembly against the philo¬ 
sophical writings of Mr. Hume and Lord 
Karnes was with difficulty eluded by the 
friends of free discussion. The writers of 
the Review were aware of the danger to 
which they were exposed by these circum¬ 
stances. They kept the secret of their 
Review from Mr. Hume, the most intimate 
friend of some of them. They forbore to 
notice in it his History of the Stuarts, of 
which the first volume appeared at Edin¬ 
burgh two months before the publication of 
the Review ; though it is little to say that it 
was the most remarkable work which ever 
issued from the Scottish press. 

They trusted that the moderation and 


well-known piety of Mr. Jardine would 
conduct them safely through the suspicion 
and jealousy of jarring parties. Nor does 
it in fact appear that any part of his criti¬ 
cisms is at variance with that enlightened 
reverence for religion which he was known 
to feel; but he was somewhat influenced by 
the ecclesiastical party to which he adhered. 
He seems to have thought that he might 
securely assail the opponents of Patronage 
through the sides of Erskine, Boston, and 
other popular preachers, who were either 
Seceders, or divines of the same school. He 
even ventured to use the weapon of ridicule 
against their extravagant metaphors, their 
wire-drawn allegories, their mean allusions, 
and to laugh at those who complained of 
“ the connivance at Popery, the toleration 
of Prelacy, the pretended rights of Lay 
Patrons, — of heretical professors in the 
universities, and a lax clergy in possession 
of the churches,” as the crying evils of the 
time. 

This species of attack, at a moment when 
the religious feelings of the public were thus 
susceptible, appears to have excited general 
alarm. The Orthodox might blame the 
writings criticised without approving the 
tone assumed by the critic: the multitude 
were exasperated by the scorn with which 
their favourite writers were treated: and 
many who altogether disapproved these 
writings might consider ridicule as a wea¬ 
pon of doubtful propriety against language 
habitually employed to convey the religious 
and moral feelings of a nation. In these 
circumstances the authors of the Review 
did not think themselves bound to hazard 
their quiet, reputation, and interest, by per¬ 
severance in their attempt to improve the 
taste of their countrymen. 

It will not be supposed that the remarks 
made above on the ecclesiastical parties in 
Scotland sixty years ago can have any 
reference to their political character at the 
present day. The principles of toleration 
now seem to prevail among the Scottish 
clergy more than among any other estab¬ 
lished church in Europe. A public act of 
the General Assembly may be considered as 


KK 2 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


500 

a renunciation of that hostility to the full 
toleration of Catholics which was for a long 
time the disgrace of the most liberal Pro¬ 
testants. The party called “Orthodox” 
are purified from the intolerance which un¬ 
happily reigned among their predecessors, 
and have in general adopted those principles 
of religious liberty which the sincerely pious, 
when consistent with themselves, must be 
the foremost to maintain. Some of them 
also, even in these times, espouse those 
generous and sacred principles of civil 
liberty which distinguished the old Puri¬ 
tans, and which in spite of their faults 


entitled them to be ranked among the first 
benefactors of their country.* 

* “ The precious spark of liberty had been 
kindled and was preserved by the Puritans alone: 
and it was to this sect, whose principles appear so 
frivolous and habits so ridiculous, that the English 
owe the whole freedom of their constitution.” 
Hume, History of England, chap. xl. This testi¬ 
mony to the merits of the Puritans, from the mouth 
of their enemy, must be owned to be founded in 
exaggeration. But if we allow them to have ma¬ 
terially contributed to the preservation of English 
liberty, we must acknowledge that the world owes 
more to the ancient Puritans than to any other 
sect or party among men. 


ON THE 

WRITINGS OF MACHIAVEL.* 


Literature, which lies much nearer to the 
feelings of mankind than science, has the 
most, important effect on the sentiments with 
which the sciences are regarded, the activity 
with which they are pursued, and the mode 
in which they are cultivated. It is the in¬ 
strument, in particular, by which ethical 
science is generally diffused. As the useful 
arts maintain the general honour of physical 
knowledge, so polite letters allure the world 
into the neighbourhood of the sciences of 
morals and of mind. Wherever the agree¬ 
able vehicle of literature does not convey 
their doctrines to the public, they remain as 
the occupation of a few recluses in the schools, 
with no root in the general feelings, and 
liable to be destroyed by the dispersion of a 
handful of doctors, and the destruction of 
their unlamented seminaries. Nor is this 
all: polite literature is not only the true 
guardian of the moral sciences, and the sole 


* From the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvii. 
p. 207 .—Ed. 


instrument of spreading their benefits among 
men, but it becomes, from these very cir¬ 
cumstances, the regulator of their cultivation 
and their progress. As long as they are con¬ 
fined to a small number of men in scholastic 
retirement, there is no restraint upon their 
natural proneness to degenerate either into 
verbal subtleties or shadowy dreams. As 
long as speculation remained in the schools, 
all its followers were divided into mere dia¬ 
lecticians, or mystical visionaries, both alike 
unmindful of the real world, and disregarded 
by its inhabitants. The revival of literature 
produced a revolution at once in the state 
of society, and in the mode of philosophising. 
It attracted readers from the common ranks 
of society, who were gradually led on from 
eloquence and poetry, to morals and philo¬ 
sophy. Philosophers and moralists, after an 
interval of almost a thousand years, during 
which they had spoken only to each other, 
once more discovered that they might ad¬ 
dress the great body of mankind, with the 
hope of fame and of usefulness. Intercourse 










ON THE WRITINGS OF MACHIAVEL. 501 


with this great public supplied new ma¬ 
terials, and imposed new restraints : the feel¬ 
ings, the common sense, the ordinary affairs 
of men, presented themselves again to the 
moralist; and philosophers were compelled 
to speak in terms intelligible and agreeable 
to their new hearers. Before this period, 
little prose had been written in any modern 
language, except chronicles or romances. 
Boccaccio had indeed acquired a classical 
rank, by compositions of the latter kind; 
and historical genius had risen in Froissart 
and Comines to a height which has not been 
equalled among the same nation in times of 
greater refinement. But Latin was still the 
language in which all subjects then deemed 
of higher dignity, and which occupied the 
life of the learned by profession, were treated. 
This system continued till the Reformation, 
which, by the employment of the living lan¬ 
guages in public worship, gave them a dignity 
unknown before, and, by the versions of the 
Bible, and the practice of preaching and 
writing on theology and morals in the com¬ 
mon tongues, did more for polishing modern 
literature, for diffusing knowledge, and for 
improving morality, than all the other events 
and discoveries of that active age. 

Machiavel is the first still celebrated writer 
who discussed grave questions in a modern 
language. This peculiarity is the more worthy 
of notice, because he was not excited by the 
powerful stimulant of the Reformation. That 
event was probably regarded by him as a 
disturbance in a barbarous country, produced 
by the novelties of a vulgar monk, unworthy 
of the notice of a man wholly occupied with 
the affairs of Florence, and the hope of ex¬ 
pelling strangers from Italy; and having 
reached, at the appearance of Luther, the 
last unhappy period of his agitated life. 

The Prince is an account of the means by 
which tyrannical power is to be acquired 
and preserved: it is a theory of that class of 
phenomena in the history of mankind. It is 
essential to its purpose, therefore, that it 
should contain an enumeration and exposi¬ 
tion of tyrannical arts; and, on that account, 
it may be viewed and used as a manual of 
such arts. A philosophical treatise on poi¬ 


sons would in like manner determine the 
quantity of each poisonous substance capable 
of producing death, the circumstances favour¬ 
able or adverse to its operation, and every 
other information essential to the purpose of 
the poisoner, though not intended for his use, 
But it is also plain, that the calm statement 
of tyrannical arts is the bitterest of all satires 
against them. The Prince must therefore 
have had this double aspect, though neither 
of the objects which they seem to indicate 
had been actually in the contemplation of 
the author. It may not be the object of the 
chemist to teach the means of exhibiting an¬ 
tidotes, any more than those of administering 
poisons; but his readers may employ his 
discoveries for both objects. Aristotle * had 
long before given a similar theory of tyranny, 
without the suspicion of an immoral inten¬ 
tion. Nor was it any novelty in more recent 
times, among those who must have been the 
first teachers of Machiavel. The Schoolmen 
followed the footsteps of Aristotle too closely, 
to omit so striking a passage ; and Aquinas 
explains it, in his commentary, like the rest, 
in the unsuspecting simplicity of his heart. 
To us accordingly, we confess, the plan of 
Machiavel seems, like those of former writers, 
to have been purely scientific; and so Lord 
Bacon seems to have understood him, where 
he thanks him for an exposition of immoral 
policy. In that singular passage, where the 
latter lays down the theory of the advance¬ 
ment of fortune (which, when compared with 
his life, so well illustrates the fitness of his 
understanding, and the unfitness of his cha¬ 
racter for the affairs of the world), he justi¬ 
fies his application of learning to sucn a 
subject, on a principle which extends to The 
Prince :—“ That there be not any thing in 
being or action which should not be drawn 
and collected into contemplation and doc¬ 
trine.” 

Great defects of character, we readily 
admit, are manifested by the writings of 
Machiavel; but if a man of so powerful a 
genius had shown a nature utterly depraved, 
it would have been a painful, and perhaps 


* Politics, lib. v. c. iii. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


502 


single, exception to the laws of human nature. 
And no depravity can be conceived greater 
than a deliberate intention to teach perfidy 
and cruelty. That a man who was a warm 
lover of his country, who bore cruel suffer¬ 
ings for her liberty, and who was beloved by 
the best of his countrymen*, should fall 
into such unparalleled wickedness, may be 
considered as wholly incredible. No such 
depravity is consistent with the composition 
of the History of Florence. It is only by 
exciting moral sentiment, that the narrative 
of human actions can be rendered interesting. 
Divested of morality, they lose their whole 
dignity, and all their power over feeling. 
History would be thrown aside as disgusting, 
if it did not inspire the reader with pity for 
the sufferer — with anger against the op¬ 
pressor — with anxiety for the triumph of 
right; —• to say nothing of the admiration 
for genius, and valour, and energy, which, 
though it disturbs the justice of our his¬ 
torical judgments, partakes also of a moral 
nature. The author of The Prince, accord¬ 
ing to the common notion of its intention, 
could never have inspired these sentiments, 
of which he must have utterly emptied his 
own heart. To possess the power, however, 
of contemplating tyranny with scientific 
coldness, and of rendering it the mere sub¬ 
ject of theory, must be owned to indicate a 
defect of moral sensibility. The happier 
nature, or fortune, of Aristotle, prompted 
him to manifest distinctly his detestation of 
the flagitious policy which he reduced to its 
principles. 

As another subject of regret, not as an 
excuse for Machiavel, a distant approach to 
the same defect may be observed in Lord 
Bacon’s History of Henry the Seventh, 
where we certainly find too little reprehen - 
tion of falsehood and extortion, too cool a 


* Among other proofs of the esteem in which he 
was held by those who knew his character, we may 
refer to the affectionate letters of Guicciardini, 
who, however independent his own opinions were, 
became, by his employment under the Popes of the 
House of Medici, the supporter of their authority, 
and consequently a political opponent of Machia¬ 
vel, the most zealous of the Republicans. 


display of the expedients of cunning, some¬ 
times dignified by the name of wisdom, and 
throughout, perhaps, too systematic a cha¬ 
racter given to the measures of that monarch, 
in order to exemplify in him a perfect model 
of king-craft; pursuing safety and power by 
any means — acting well in quiet times, be¬ 
cause it was most expedient, but never 
restrained from convenient crimes. This 
History would have been as delightful as it 
is admirable, if he had felt the difference 
between wisdom and cunning as warmly in 
that work, as he has discerned it clearly in 
his philosophy. 

Ma»y historical speculators have indeed 
incurred some part of this fault. Enamoured 
of their own solution of the seeming contra¬ 
dictions of a character, they become indul¬ 
gent to the character itself; and, when they 
have explained its vices, are disposed, un¬ 
consciously, to write as if they had excused 
them. A writer who has made a successful 
exertion to render an intricate character 
intelligible, who has brought his mind to so 
singular an attempt as a theory of villany, 
and has silenced his repugnance and indig¬ 
nation sufficiently for the purposes of rational 
examination, naturally exults in his victory 
over so many difficulties, delights in contem¬ 
plating the creations of his own ingenuity, 
and the order which he seems to have intro¬ 
duced into the chaos of malignant passions, 
and may at length view his work with that 
complacency which diffuses clearness and 
calmness over the language in which he 
communicates his imagined discoveries. 

It should also be remembered, that Ma¬ 
chiavel lived in an age when the events of 
every day must have blunted his moral feel¬ 
ings, and wearied out his indignation. In 
so far as we acquit the intention of the 
writer, his work becomes a weightier evi¬ 
dence of the depravity which surrounded 
him. In this state of things, after the final 
disappointment of all his hopes, when Flo¬ 
rence was subjected to tyrants, and Italy 
lay under the yoke of foreigners, having 
undergone torture for the freedom of his 
country, and doomed to beggary in his old 
age, after a life of public service, it is not 







ON THE WRITINGS OF MACIIIAVEL. 503 


absolutely unnatural that he should have 
resolved to compose a theory of the tyranny 
under which he had fallen, and that he should 
have manifested his indignation against the 
cowardly slaves who had yielded to it, by a 
stern and cold description of its maxims. 

His last chapter, in which he seems once 
more to breathe a free air, has a character 
totally different from all the preceding ones. 
His exhortation to the Medici to deliver 
Italy from foreigners, again speaks out his 
ancient feelings. Perhaps he might have 
thought it possible to pardon any means 
employed by an Italian usurper to expel the 
foreign masters of his country. This ray of 
hope might have supported him in delineat¬ 
ing the means of usurpation; by doing which 
he might have had some faint expectation 
that he could entice the usurper to become 
a deliverer. Knowing that the native go¬ 
vernments were too base to defend Italy, 
and that all others were leagued to enslave 
her, he might, in his despair of all legitimate 
rulers, have hoped something for independ¬ 
ence, and perhaps at last even for liberty, from 
the energy and genius of an illustrious tyrant. 

From Petrarch, with some of whose pa¬ 
thetic verses Machiavel concludes, to Alfieri, 
the national feeling of Italy seems to have 
taken refuge in the minds of her writers. 
They write more tenderly of their country, 
as it is more basely abandoned by their 
countrymen. Nowhere has so much been 
well said, or so little nobly done. While we 
blame the character of the nation, or lament 
the fortune which in some measure produced 
it, we must, in equity, excuse some irregu¬ 
larities in the indignation of men of genius, 
when they see the ingenious inhabitants of 
their beautiful and renowned country now 
apparently for ever robbed of that inde¬ 
pendence which is enjoyed by obscure and 
barbarous communities. 

The dispute about the intention of The 
Prince has thrown into the shade the merit 
of the Discourses on Livy. The praise be¬ 
stowed on them by Mr. Stewart * is scanty : 


* In the Dissertation prefixed to the Encyclo¬ 
paedia Britannica. — Ed. 


that “they furnish lights to the school of 
Montesquieu” is surely inadequate com¬ 
mendation. They are the first attempts in a 
new science—the philosophy of history; 
and, as such, they form a brilliant point in 
the progress of reason. For this Lord 
Bacon commends him : — “ The form of 
writing which is the fittest for this variable 
argument of negotiation, is that which Ma¬ 
chiavel chose wisely and aptly for govern¬ 
ment, namely, discourse upon histories or 
examples: for, knowledge drawn freshly, 
and in our view, out of particulars, findeth 
its way best to particulars again; and it 
hath much greater life on practice when the 
discourse attendeth upon the example, than 
when the example attendeth upon the dis¬ 
course.” It is observable, that the Floren¬ 
tine Secretary is the only modern writer 
who is named in that part of the Advance¬ 
ment of Learning which relates to civil 
knowledge. The apology of Albericus Gen- 
tilis for the morality of The Prince has 
been often quoted, and is certainly weighty 
as a testimony, when we consider that the 
writer was born within twenty years of the 
death of Machiavel, and educated at no 
great distance from Florence. It is some¬ 
what singular, that the context of this pas¬ 
sage should never have been quoted: — 
“To the knowledge of history must be 
added that part of philosophy which treats 
of morals and politics : for this is the soul of 
history, which explains the causes of the 
actions and sayings of men, and of the 
events which befall them : and on this sub¬ 
ject I am not afraid to name Nicholas 
Machiavel, as the most excellent of all 
writers, in his golden Observations on Livy. 
He is the writer whom I now seek, because 
he reads history not with the eyes of a 
grammarian, but with those of a philo¬ 
sopher.” * 

It is a just and refined observation of Mr. 
Hume, that the mere theory of Machiavel 
(to waive the more important consideration 
of morality) was perverted by the atrocities 
which, among the Italians, then passed under 


* De Legat. lib. iii. c. ix. 









504 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


the name of “ policy.” The number of men 
who took a part in political measures in the 
republican governments of Italy, spread the 
taint of this pretended policy farther, and 
made it a more national quality than in the 
Transalpine monarchies. But neither the 
civil wars of France and England, nor the 
administrations of Henry the Seventh, Fer¬ 
dinand, and Louis the Eleventh (to say 
nothing of the succeeding religious wars), 
will allow us to consider it as peculiarly 
Italian. It arose from the circumstances 
of Europe in those times. In every age 
in which contests are long maintained by 
chiefs too strong, or bodies of men too 
numerous for the ordinary control of law, 
for power, or privileges, or possessions, or 
opinions to which they are ardently attached, 
the passions excited by such interests, heated 
by sympathy, and inflamed to madness by 
resistance, soon throw off moral restraint in 
the treatment of enemies. Retaliation, 
which deters individuals, provokes multi¬ 
tudes to new cruelty; and the atrocities 
which originated in the rage of ambition 
and fanaticism, are at length thought neces¬ 
sary for safety. Each party adopts the 
cruelties of the enemy, as we now adopt a 
new discovery in the art of war. The craft 
and violence thought necessary for existence 
are admitted into the established policy of 
such deplorable times. 

But though this be the tendency of such 
circumstances in all times, it must be owned 
that these evils prevail among different na¬ 
tions, and in different ages, in a very un¬ 
equal degree. Some part of these differences 
may depend on national peculiarities, which 
cannot be satisfactorily explained: but, in 
the greater part of them, experience is 
striking and uniform. Civil wars are com¬ 
paratively regular and humane, under cir¬ 
cumstances that may be pretty exactly 
defined ; — among nations long accustomed 
to popular government, to free speakers and 
to free writers; familiar with all the boldness 
and turbulence of numerous assemblies; 
not afraid of examining any matter human 
or divine; where great numbers take an 
interest in the conduct of their superiors of 


every sort, watch it, and often censure it; 
where there is a public, and where that 
public boldly utters decisive opinions ; 
where no impassable lines of demarcation 
destine the lower classes to eternal servi¬ 
tude, and the higher to envy and hatred and 
deep curses from their inferiors ; where the 
administration of law is so purified by the 
participation and eye of the public, as to 
become a grand school of humanity and 
justice; and where, as the consequence of 
all, there is a general diffusion of the com¬ 
forts of life, a general cultivation of reason, 
and a widely diffused feeling of equality 
and mor^l pride. The species seems to be¬ 
come gentler as all galling curbs are gradu¬ 
ally disused. Quiet, or at least comparative 
order, is promoted by the absence of all the 
expedients once thought essential to pre¬ 
serve tranquillity. Compare Asia with 
Europe; — the extremes are there seen. 
But if all the intermediate degrees be ex¬ 
amined, it will be found that civil wars are 
milder, in proportion to the progress of the 
body of the people in importance and well¬ 
being. Compare the civil wars of the two 
Roses with those under Charles the First: 
compare these, again, with the humanity 
and wisdom of the Revolution of sixteen 
hundred and eighty-eight. Examine the 
civil war which led to the American Revo¬ 
lution : we there see anarchy without con¬ 
fusion, and governments abolished and 
established without spilling a drop of blood. 
Even the progress of civilisation, when un¬ 
attended by the blessings of civil liberty, 
produces many of the same effects. When 
Mr. Hume wrote the excellent observations 
quoted by Mr. Stewart, Europe had for 
more than a century been exempt from 
those general convulsions which try the 
moral character of nations, and ascertain 
their progress towards a more civilised state 
of mind. We have since been visited by 
one of the most tremendous of these tem¬ 
pests ; and our minds are yet filled with the 
dreadful calamities, and the ambiguous and 
precarious benefits, which have sprung from 
it. The contemporaries of such terrific 
scenes are seldom in a temper to contem- 







REVIEW OF THE LIVES OF MILTON’S NEPHEWS. 505 

plate them calmly: and yet, though the 
events of this age have disappointed the 
expectations of sanguine benevolence con¬ 
cerning the state of civilisation in Europe, 
a dispassionate posterity will probably de¬ 
cide that it has stood the test of general 
commotions, and proved its progress by their 
comparative mildness. One period of frenzy 
has been, indeed, horribly distinguished, 
perhaps beyond any equal time in history, 
by popular massacres and judicial murders, 
among a people peculiarly susceptible of a 
momentary fanaticism. This has been fol¬ 
lowed by a war in which one party con¬ 
tended for universal dominion, and all the 
rest of Europe struggled for existence. 
But how soon did the ancient laws of war 
between European adversaries resume the 
ascendant, which had indeed been suspended 

more in form than in fact! How slight are 
the traces which the atrocities of faction and 
the manners of twenty years’ invasion and 
conquest have left on the sentiments of 
Europe! On a review of the disturbed 
period of the French Revolution, the mind 
is struck by the disappearance of classes of 
crimes which have often attended such con¬ 
vulsions ;—no charge of poison; few asassin- 
ations, properly so called; no case hitherto 
authenticated of secret execution! If any 
crimes of this nature can be proved, the 
truth of history requires that the proof 
should be produced. But those who assert 
them without proof must be considered as 
calumniating their age, and bringing into 
question the humanising effects of order 
and good government. 

REVIEW 

OP 

MR. GODWIN’S LIVES OF EDWARD AND JOHN PHILIPS, 

ETC. ETC.* 

The public would have perhaps welcomed 
Mr. Godwin’s reappearance as an author, 
most heartily, if he had chosen the part of 
a novelist. In that character his name is 
high, and his eminence undisputed. The 
time is long past since this would have been 
thought a slight, or even secondary praise. 
No addition of more unquestionable value 
has been made by the moderns, to the trea¬ 
sures of literature inherited from antiquity, 
than those fictions which paint the manners 
and character of the body of mankind, and 

affect the reader by the relation of misfor¬ 
tunes which may befall himself. The Eng¬ 
lish nation would have more to lose than 
any other, by undervaluing this species of 
composition. Richardson has perhaps lost, 
though unjustly, a part of his popularity at 
home; but he still contributes to support the 
fame of his country abroad. The small 
blemishes of his diction are lost in trans¬ 
lation ; and the changes of English manners, 
and the occasional homeliness of some of his 
representations, are unfelt by foreigners. 
Fielding will for ever remain the delight of 
his country, and will always retain his place 
in the libraries of Europe, notwithstanding 

* From the Edinburgh Review, voL xxv. p. 485. 
— Ed. 














MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


506 


the unfortunate grossness,—the mark of an 
uncultivated taste,—which if not yet en¬ 
tirely excluded from conversation, has been 
for some time banished from our writings, 
where, during the best age of our national 
genius, it prevailed more than in those of 
any other polished nation. It is impossible, 
in a Scottish journal, to omit Smollett, 
even if there had not been much better 
reasons for the mention of his name, than 
for the sake of observing, that he and Ar- 
buthnot are sufficient to rescue Scotland 
from the imputation of wanting talent for 
pleasantry: though, it must be owned, we 
are a grave people, happily educated under 
an austere system of morals; possessing, 
perhaps, some humour in our peculiar dia¬ 
lect, but fearful of taking the liberty of 
jesting in a foreign language like the Eng¬ 
lish ; prone to abstruse speculation, to vehe¬ 
ment dispute, to eagerness in the pursuits of 
business and ambition, and to all those intent 
occupations of mind which rather indispose 
it to unbend in easy playfulness. 

Since the beautiful tales of Goldsmith and 
Mackenzie, the composition of novels has 
been almost left to women ; and, in the dis¬ 
tribution of literary labour, nothing seems 
more- natural, than that, as soon as the ta¬ 
lents of women are sufficiently cultivated, 
this task should be assigned to the sex which 
has most leisure for the delicate observation 
of manners, and whose importance depends 
on the sentiments which most usually checker 
common life with poetical incidents. They 
have performed their part with such signal 
success, that the literary works of women, 
instead of receiving the humiliating praise of 
being gazed at as wonders and prodigies, 
have, for the first time, composed a consider¬ 
able part of the reputation of an ingenious 
nation in a lettered age. It ought to be 
added, that their delicacy, co-operating with 
the progress of refinement, has contributed 
to efface from these important fictions the 
remains of barbarism which had disgraced 
the vigorous genius of our ancestors. 

Mr. Godwin has preserved the place of 
men in this branch of literature. Caleb 
Williams is probably the finest novel pro¬ 


duced by a man, — at least since the Vicar 
of Wakefield. The sentiments, if not the 
opinions, from which it arose, were transient. 
Local usages and institutions were the sub¬ 
jects of its satire, exaggerated beyond the 
usual privilege of that species of writing. 
Yet it has been translated into most lan¬ 
guages ; and it has appeared in various 
forms, on the theatres, not only of England, 
but of France and Germany. There is 
scarcely a Continental circulating library 
in which it is not one of the books which 
most quickly require to be replaced. Though 
written with a temporary purpose, it will be 
read wkh intense interest, and with a pain¬ 
ful impatience for the issue, long after the 
circumstances which produced its original 
composition shall cease to be known to all 
but to those who are well read in history. 
There is. scarcely a fiction in any language 
which it is so difficult to lay by. A young 
person of understanding and sensibility, not 
familiar with the history of its origin, nor 
forewarned of its connexion with peculiar 
opinions, in whose hands it is now put for 
the first time, will peruse it with perhaps 
more ardent sympathy and trembling cu¬ 
riosity, than those who read it when their 
attention was divided, and their feelings dis¬ 
turbed by controversy and speculation. A 
building thrown up for a season has become, 
by the skill of the builder, a durable edifice. 
It is a striking, but not a solitary example, 
of the purpose of the writer being swallowed 
up by the interest of the work,—of a man 
of ability intending to take part in the dis¬ 
putes of the moment, but led by the instinct 
of his talent to address himself to the per¬ 
manent feelings of human nature. It must 
not, however, be denied, that the marks of 
■temporary origin and peculiar opinion are 
still the vulnerable part of the book. A 
fiction contrived to support an opinion is a 
vicious composition. Even a fiction con¬ 
trived to enforce a maxim of conduct is not 
of the highest class. And though the vigor- 
ous powers of Mr. Godwin raised him above 
his own intention, still the marks of that 
intention ought to be effaced as marks of 
mortality; and nothing ought to remain in 














REVIEW OP THE LIVES OF MILTON’S NEPHEWS. 507 


the book which will not always interest the 
reader. The passages which betray the 
metaphysician, more than the novelist, ought 
to be weeded out with more than ordinary 
care. The character of Falkland is a beau¬ 
tiful invention. That such a man could 
have become an assassin, is perhaps an im¬ 
probability ; and if such a crime be possible 
for a soul so elevated, it may be due to the 
dignity of human nature to throw a veil 
over so humiliating a possibility, except 
when we are compelled to expose it by its 
real occurrence. In a merely literary view, 
however, the improbability of this leading 
incident is more than compensated, by all 
those agitating and terrible scenes of which 
it is the parent: and if the colours had been 
delicately shaded, if all the steps in the long 
progress from chivalrous sentiment to assas¬ 
sination had been more patiently traced, and 
more distinctly brought into view, more 
might have been lost by weakening the con¬ 
trast, than would have been gained by 
softening or removing the improbability. 
The character of Tyrrel is a grosser ex¬ 
aggeration : and his conduct is such as 
neither our manners would produce, nor 
our laws tolerate. One or two monstrous 
examples of tyranny, nursed and armed by 
immense wealth, are no authority for fiction, 
which is a picture of general nature. The 
descriptive power of several parts of this 
novel is of the highest order. The land¬ 
scape in the morning of Caleb’s escape from 
prison, and a similar escape from a Spanish 
prison in St. Leon, are among the scenes of 
fiction which must the most frequently and 
vividly reappear in the imagination of a 
reader of sensibility. His disguises and 
escapes in London, though detailed at too 
great length, have a frightful reality, perhaps 
nowhere paralleled in our language, unless 
it be in some paintings of Daniel De Foe *, 


* A great-grandson of Daniel De Foe, of the 
same name, is now a creditable tradesman in Hun- 
gerford Market in London. His manners give a 
favourable impression of his sense and morals. He 
is neither unconscious of his ancestor’s fame, nor 
ostentatious of it. 


with whom it is distinction enough to bear 
comparison. There are several somewhat 
similar scenes in the Colonel Jack of that 
admirable writer, which, among his novels* 
is indeed only the second; but which could 
be second to none but Robinson Crusoe, — 
one of those very few books which are 
equally popular in every country of Europe, 
and which delight every reader from the 
philosopher to the child. Caleb Williams 
resembles the novels of De Foe, in the 
austerity with which it rejects the agency of 
women and the power of love. 

It would be affectation to pass over in 
silence so remarkable a work as the Inquiry 
into Political Justice; but it is not the time 
to say much of it. The season of controversy 
is past, and the period of history is not yet 
arrived. Whatever may be its mistakes, 
which we shall be the last to underrate, it is 
certain that works in which errors equally 
dangerous are maintained with far less in¬ 
genuity, have obtained for their authors a 
conspicuous place in the philosophical history 
of the eighteenth century. But books, as 
well as men, are subject to what is called 
“ fortune.” The same circumstances which 
favoured its sudden popularity, have since 
unduly depressed its reputation. Had it 
appeared in a metaphysical age, and in a 
period of tranquillity, it would have been 
discussed by philosophers, and might have 
excited acrimonious disputes; but these 
would have ended, after the correction of 
erroneous speculations, in assigning to the 
author that station to which his eminent 
talents had entitled him. It would soon 
have been acknowledged, that the author of 
one of the most deeply interesting fictions 
of his age, and of a treatise on metaphysical 
morals which excited general alarm, what¬ 
ever else he might be, must be a person of 
vigorous and versatile powers. But the cir¬ 
cumstances of the times, in spite of the 
author’s intention, transmuted a philoso¬ 
phical treatise into a political pamphlet. It 
seemed to be thrown up by the vortex of 
the French Revolution, and it sunk ac¬ 
cordingly as that whirlpool subsided; while, 
by a perverse fortune, the honesty of the 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


508 


author’s intentions contributed to the pre¬ 
judice against his work. With the simplicity 
and good faith of a retired speculator, con¬ 
scious of no object but the pursuit of truth, 
he followed his reasonings wherever they 
seemed to him to lead, without looking up 
to examine the array of sentiment and in¬ 
stitution, as well as of interest and prejudice, 
which he was about to encounter. Intending 
no mischief, he considered no consequences ; 
and, in the eye of the multitude, was trans¬ 
formed into an incendiary, only because he 
was an undesigning speculator. The or¬ 
dinary clamour was excited against him: 
even the liberal sacrificed him to their cha¬ 
racter for liberality — a fate not very un¬ 
common for those who, in critical times, are 
supposed to go too far; and many of his own 
disciples, returning into the world, and, as 
usual, recoiling most violently from their 
visions, to the grossest worldly-mindedness, 
offered the fame of their master as an atone¬ 
ment for their own faults. For a time it 
required courage to brave the prejudice 
excited by his name. It may, even now, 
perhaps, need some fortitude of a different 
kind to write, though in the most impartial 
temper, the small fragment of literary history 
which relates to it. The moment for doing 
full and exact justice will come. 

All observation on the personal conduct 
of a writer, when that conduct is not of a 
public nature, is of dangerous example; and, 
when it leads to blame, is severely repre¬ 
hensible. But it is but common justice to 
say, that there are few instances of more 
respectable conduct among writers, than is 
apparent in the subsequent works of Mr. 
Godwin. He calmly corrected what ap¬ 
peared to him to be his own mistakes; and 
he proved the perfect disinterestedness of 
his corrections, by adhering to opinions as 
obnoxious to the powerful as those which he 
relinquished. Untempted by the success of 
his scholars in paying their court to the 
dispensers of favour, he adhered to the old 
and rational principles of liberty—violently 
shaken as these venerable principles had 
been, by the tempest which had beaten down 
the neighbouring erections of anarchy. He 


continued to seek independence and re¬ 
putation, with that various success to which 
the fashions of literature subject professed 
writers; and to struggle with the difficulties 
incident to other modes of industry, for 
which his previous habits had not prepared 
him. He has thus, in our humble opinion, 
deserved the respect of all those, whatever 
may be their opinions, who still wish that 
some men in England may think for them¬ 
selves, even at the risk of thinking wrong; 
but more especially of the friends of liberty, 
to whose cause he has courageously adhered. 

The work before us is a contribution to 
the literary history of the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury. It arose from that well-grounded 
reverence for the morality, as well as the 
genius, of Milton, which gives importance 
to every circumstance connected with him. 
After all that had been written about him, 
it appeared to Mr. Godwin, that there was 
still an unapproached point of view, from 
which Milton’s character might be surveyed 
— the history of those nephews to whom he 
had been a preceptor and a father. “ It was 
accident,” he tells us, “ that first threw in 
my way two or three productions of these 
writers, that my literary acquaintance*, 
whom I consulted, had never heard of. Dr. 
Johnson had told me, that the pupils of 
Milton had given to the world ‘only one 
genuine production.’ Persons better in¬ 
formed than Dr. Johnson could tell me, per¬ 
haps, of half a dozen. How great was my 
surprise, when I found my collection swell¬ 
ing to forty or fifty! ” Chiefly from these 
publications, but from a considerable variety 
of little-known sources, he has collected, 
with singular industry, all the notices, gene¬ 
rally incidental, concerning these two per¬ 
sons, which are scattered over the writings 
of their age. 

Their lives are not only interesting as a 


* This plural use of “ acquaintance ” is no doubt 
abundantly warranted by the example of Dryden, 
the highest authority in a case of diction, of any 
single English writer: but as the usage is divided, 
the convenience of distinguishing the plural from 
the singular at first sight seems to determine, that 
the preferable plural is “ acquaintances.” 






REVIEW OF THE LIVES 

fragment of the history of Milton, but 
curious as a specimen of the condition of 
professed authors in the seventeenth century. 
If they had been men of genius, or con¬ 
temptible scribblers, they would not in 
either case have been fair specimens of their 
class. Dryden and Flecknoe are equally 
exceptions. The nephews of Milton be¬ 
longed to that large body of literary men 
who are destined to minister to the general 
curiosity; to keep up the stock of public 
information; to compile, to abridge, to 
translate ; — a body of importance in a great 
country, being necessary to maintain, though 
they cannot advance, its literature. The 
degree of good sense, good taste, and sound 
opinions diffused among this class of writers, 
is of no small moment to the public reason 
and morals; and we know not where we 
should find so exact a representation of the 
literary life of two authors, of the period 
between the Restoration and the Revolution, 
as in this volume. The complaint, that the 
details are too multiplied and minute for the 
importance of the subject, will be ungracious 
in an age distinguished by a passion for 
bibliography, and a voracious appetite for 
anecdote. It cannot be denied, that great 
acuteness is shown in assembling and weigh- 
ing all the very minute circumstances, from 
which their history must often be rather 
conjectured than inferred. It may appear 
singular, that we, in this speculative part of 
the island, should consider the digressions 
from the biography, and the passages of 
general speculation, as the part of the work 
which might, with the greatest advantage, 
be retrenched; but they are certainly epi¬ 
sodes too large for the action, and have some¬ 
times the air of openings of chapters in an 
intended history of England. These two 
faults, of digressions too expanded, and de¬ 
tails too minute, are the principal defects of 
the volume; which, however, must be con¬ 
sidered hereafter as a necessary part of 
all collections respecting the biography of 
Milton. 

Edward and John Philips were the sons of 
Edward Philips of Shrewsbury, Secondary 
of the Crown Office in the Court of Chan- 


OF MILTON’S NEPHEWS. 509 

eery, by Anne, sister of John Milton. 
Edward was born in London in 1630, and 
John in 1631. To this sister the first ori¬ 
ginal English verses of Milton were ad¬ 
dressed,— which he composed before the 
age of seventeen, — to soothe her sorrow for 
the loss of an infant son. His first pub¬ 
lished verses were the Epitaph on Shak- 
speare. To perform the offices of domestic 
terderness, and to render due honour to 
kindred genius, were the noble purposes by 
which he consecrated his poetical power at 
the opening of a life, every moment of which 
corresponded to this early promise. On his 
return from his travels, he found his nephews, 
by the death of their father, become orphans. 
He took them into his house, supporting and 
educating them; which he was enabled to 
do by the recompense which he received for 
the instruction of other pupils. And for this 
act of respectable industry and generous 
affection, in thus remembering the humblest 
claims of prudence and kindness amidst the 
lofty ambition and sublime contemplations 
of his mature powers, he has been sneered 
at by a moralist, in a work which, being a 
system of our poetical biography, ought 
especially to have recommended this most 
moral example to the imitation of British 
youth. 

John published very early a vindication 
of his uncle’s Defence of the People of Eng¬ 
land. Both brothers, in a very few years, 
weary of the austere morals of the Repub¬ 
licans, quitted the party of Milton, and 
adopted the politics, with the wit and fes¬ 
tivity, of the young Cavaliers: but the elder, 
a person of gentle disposition and amiable 
manners, more a man of letters than a poli¬ 
tician, retained at least due reverence and 
gratitude for his benefactor, and is conjec¬ 
tured by Mr. Godwin, upon grounds that do 
not seem improbable, to have contributed to 
save his uncle at the Restoration. Twenty 
years after the death of Milton, the first 
Life of him was published by Edward 
Philips, upon which all succeeding narra¬ 
tives have been built. This Theatrum Poet- 
arum will be always read with interest, as 
containing the opinions concerning poetry 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


510 


and poets, which he probably imbibed from 
Milton. This amiable writer died between 
1694 and 1698. 

John Philips, a coarse buffoon and a vul¬ 
gar debauchee, was, throughout life, chiefly 
a political pamphleteer, who turned with 
every change of fortune and breath of popu¬ 
lar clamour, but on all sides preserved a 
consistency in violence, scurrility, and ser¬ 
vility to his masters, whether they were the 
favourites of the Court, or the leaders of the 
rabble. Having cried out for the blood of 
his former friends at the Restoration, he in¬ 
sulted the memory of Milton, within two 
years of his death. He adhered to the cause 
of Charles II. till it became unpopular; and 
disgraced the then new name of Whig by 
associating with the atrocious Titus Oates. 
In his vindication of that execrable wretch, 
he adopts the maxim, “ that the attestations 
of a hundred Catholics cannot be put in 
balance with the oath of one Protestant; ”— 
which, if “ our own party ” were substituted 
for “Protestant,” and “the opposite one” 
for “ Catholic,” may be regarded as the 
general principle of the jurisprudence of 
most triumphant factions. He was silenced, 
or driven to literary compilation, by those 
fatal events in 1683, which seemed to be 
the final triumph of the Court over public 
liberty. His servile voice, however, hailed 
the accession of James II. The Revolution 
produced a new turn of this weathercock; 
but, happily for the kingdom, no second 
Restoration gave occasion to another display 
of his inconstancy. In 1681 he had been 
the associate of Oates, and the tool of 
Shaftesbury: in 1685 he thus addresses 
James II. in doggrel scurrility: 

“ Must the Faith’s true Defender bleed to death, 

A sacrifice to Cooper’s wrath ? ” 

In 1695 he took a part in that vast mass of 
bad verse occasioned by the death of Queen 
Mary; and in 1697 he celebrated King 
William as Augustus Britannicus, in a poem 
on the Peace of Ryswick. From the Revo¬ 
lution to his death, about 1704, he was use¬ 
fully employed as editor of the Monthly 
Mercury, a journal which was wholly, or 


principally, a translation from Le Mercure 
Historique, published at the Hague, by some 
of those ingenious and excellent Protestant 
refugees, whose writings contributed to ex¬ 
cite all Europe against Louis XIY. Mr. 
Godwin at last, very naturally, relents a 
little towards him: he is unwilling to part 
on bad terms with one who has been so long 
a companion. All, however, that indulgent 
ingenuity can discover in his favour is, that 
he was an indefatigable writer; and that, 
during his last years, he rested, after so 
many vibrations, in the opinions of a consti¬ 
tutional Whig. But, in a man like John 
Philips, ihe latter circumstance is only one 
of the signs of the times, and proves no more 
than that the principles of English liberty 
were patronised by a government which owed 
to these principles its existence. 

The above is a very slight sketch of the 
lives of these two persons, which Mr. God¬ 
win, with equal patience and acuteness of 
research, has gleaned from publications, of 
which it required a much more than ordi¬ 
nary familiarity with the literature of the 
last century, even to know the existence. It 
is somewhat singular, that no inquiries seem 
to have been made respecting the history of 
the descendants of Milton’s brother, Sir 
Christopher; and that it has not been ascer¬ 
tained whether either of his nephews left 
children. Thomas Milton, the son of Sir 
Christopher, was, it seems, Secondary of the 
Crown Office in Chancery ; and it could not 
be very difficult for a resident in London to 
ascertain the period of his death, and per¬ 
haps to discover his residence and the state 
of his family. 

Milton’s direct descendants can only exist, 
if they exist at all, among the posterity of 
his youngest and favourite daughter De¬ 
borah, afterwards Mrs. Clarke, a woman of 
cultivated understanding and not unpleas¬ 
ing manners, who was known to Richardson 
and Professor Ward, and was patronised by 
Addison.* Her affecting exclamation is 


* Who intended to have procured a permanent 
provision for her. She was presented with fifty 
guineas by Queen Caroline. 






REVIEW OF THE LIVES OF MILTON’S NEPHEWS. 


well known, on seeing her father’s portrait 
for the first time more than thirty years 
after his death: — “ Oh my father, my dear 
father! ” “ She spoke of him,” says Richard¬ 
son, “with great tenderness; she said he 
was delightful company, the life of the con¬ 
versation, not only by a flow of subject, but 
by unaffected cheerfulness and civility.” 
This is the character of one whom Dr. John¬ 
son represents as a morose tyrant, drawn by 
a supposed victim of his domestic oppression. 
Her daughter, Mrs. Foster, for whose be¬ 
nefit Dr. Newton and Dr. Birch procured 
Comus to be acted, survived all her children. 
The only child of Deborah Milton, of whom 
we have any accounts besides Mrs. Foster, 
was Caleb Clarke who went to Madras in 
the first years of the eighteenth century, and 
who then vanishes from the view of the 
biographers of Milton. We have been 
enabled, by accident, to enlarge a very little 
this appendage to his history. It appears 
from an examination of the parish register 
of Fort St. George, that Caleb Clarke, who 
seems to have been parish-clerk of that 
place from 1717 to 1719, was buried there 
on the 26th of October of the latter year. 
By his wife Mary, whose original surname 
does not appear, he had three children born 
at Madras : — Abraham, baptized on the 
2nd of June, 1703; Mary, baptized on the 
17th of March, 1706, and buried on De¬ 
cember 15th of the same year; and Isaac, 
baptized 13th of February, 1711. Of Isaac 
no farther account appears. Abraham, 
the great-grandson of Milton, in September, 
1725, married Anna Clarke; and the bap¬ 
tism of their daughter Mary is registered 
on the 2nd of April, 1727. With this all 
notices of this family cease. But as neither 
Abraham, nor any of his family, nor his 
brother Isaac, died at Madras, and as he was 
only twenty-four years of age at the baptism 
of his daughter, it is probable that the 
family migrated to some other part of India, 
and that some trace of them might yet be 
discovered by examination of the parish 
registers of Calcutta and Bombay. If they 
had returned to England, they could not 
have escaped the curiosity of the admirers 


511 

and historians of Milton. We cannot apo¬ 
logise for the minuteness of this genealogy, 
or for the eagerness of our desire that it 
should be enlarged. We profess that super¬ 
stitious veneration for the memory of the 
greatest of poets, which would regard the 
slightest relic of him as sacred; and we can¬ 
not conceive either true poetical sensibility, 
or a just sense of the glory of England, to 
belong to that Englishman, who would not 
feel the strongest emotions at the sight of a 
descendant of Milton, discovered in the per¬ 
son even of the most humble and unlettered 
of human beings. 

While the grandson of Milton resided at 
Madras, in a condition so humble as to make 
the office of parish-clerk an object of am¬ 
bition, it is somewhat remarkable that the 
elder brother of Addison should have been 
the governor of that settlement. The 
honourable Galston Addison died there in 
the year 1709. Thomas Pitt, grandfather 
to Lord Chatham, had been his immediate 
predecessor in the government. 

It was in the same year that Mr. Addison 
began those contributions to periodical 
essays, which, as long as any sensibility to 
the beauties of English style remains, must 
be considered as its purest and most perfect 
models. But it was not until eighteen 
months afterwards, — when, influenced by 
fidelity to his friends, and attachment to 
the cause of liberty, he had retired from 
office, and when, with his usual judgment, 
he resolved to resume the more active culti¬ 
vation of literature, as the elegant employ¬ 
ment of his leisure, — that he undertook the 
series of essays on Paradise Lost; — not, as 
has been weakly supposed, with the pre¬ 
sumptuous hope of exalting Milton, but 
with the more reasonable intention of culti¬ 
vating the public taste, and instructing the 
nation in the principles of just criticism, by 
observations on a work already acknow¬ 
ledged to be the first of English poems. If 
any doubt could be entertained respecting 
the purpose of this excellent writer, it must 
be silenced by the language in which he 
announces his criticism : — “As the first 
place among our English poets is due to 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


512 


Milton,” says he, “I shall enter into a 
regular criticism upon his Paradise Lost,” 
&c. It is clear that he takes for granted 
the paramount greatness of Milton; and 
that his object was not to disinter a poet 
who had been buried in unjust oblivion, 
but to illustrate the rules of criticism by ob¬ 
servations on the writings of him whom all 
his readers revered as the greatest poet 
of their country. This passage might have 
been added by Mr. Godwin to the numerous 
proofs by which he has demonstrated the 
ignorance and negligence, if not the malice, 
of those who would persuade us that the 
English nation could have suspended their 
admiration of a poem, — the glory of their 
country, and the boast of human genius, — 
till they were taught its excellences by critics, 
and enabled by political revolutions to in¬ 
dulge their feelings with safety. It was in¬ 
deed worthy of Lord Somers to have been 
one of its earliest admirers; and to his in¬ 
fluence and conversation it is not impro¬ 
bable that we owe, though indirectly, the 
essays of Addison. The latter’s criticism 
manifests and inspires a more genuine sense 
of poetical beauty than others of more am¬ 
bitious pretensions, and now of greater 
name. But it must not be forgotten that 
Milton had subdued the adverse prejudices 
of Dryden and Atterbury, long before he 
had extorted from a more acrimonious hos¬ 
tility, that unwilling but noble tribute of 


justice to the poet, for which Dr. Johnson 
seems to have made satisfaction to his hatred 
by a virulent libel on the man.* 

It is an excellence of Mr. Godwin’s nar¬ 
rative, that he thinks and feels about the 
men and events of the age of Milton, in 
some measure as Milton himself felt and 
thought. Exact conformity of sentiment is 
neither possible nor desirable: but a Life of 
Milton, written by a zealous opponent of his 
principles, in the relation of events which so 
much exasperate the passions, almost inevi¬ 
tably degenerates into a libel. The constant 
hostility of a biographer to the subject of his 
narfative, whether it be just or not, is teazing 
and vexatious: the natural frailty of over¬ 
partiality is a thousand times more agreeable. 


* The strange misrepresentations, long preva¬ 
lent among ourselves, respecting the slow progress 
of Milton’s reputation, sanctioned as they were 
both by Johnson and by Thomas Warton, have 
produced ridiculous effects abroad. On the 16th 
of November, 1814, a Parisian poet named 
Campenon was, in the present unhappy state of 
French literature, received at the Academy as the 
successor of the Abbe Delille. In his Discours de 
Reception, he speaks of the Abbe’s translation “ de 
ce Paradis Perdu, dont l’Angl*eterre est si fi&re de- 
puis qu’elle a cesse d’en ignorer le merite.” The 
president M. Regnault de St. Jean d’Angely said 
that M. Delille repaid our hospitality by translating 
Milton, — “ en doublant ainsi la celebrite du Poete; 
dont le g£nie a inspire a l’Angleterre un si tardif 
mais si legitime orgueil.” 


' REVIEW OF ROGERS’ POEMS. 


It seems very doubtful, whether the pro¬ 
gress and the vicissitudes of the elegant arts 
can be referred to the operation of general 
laws, with the same plausibility as the exer¬ 
tions of the more robust faculties of the 
human mind, in the severer forms of science 
and of useful art. The action of fancy and 
of taste seems to be affected by causes too 
various and minute to be enumerated with 


sufficient completeness for the purposes of 
philosophical theory. To explain them, may 
appear to be as hopeless an attempt, as to 
account for one summer being more warm 
and genial than another. The difficulty 
would be insurmountable, even in framing 
the most general outline of a theory, if the 
various forms assumed by imagination, in 
the fine arts, did not depend on some of the 










REVIEW OF ROGERS’ POEMS. 513 


most conspicuous, as well as powerful agents 
in the moral world. But these arise from 
revolutions of popular sentiments, and are 
connected with the opinions of the age, and 
with the manners of the refined class, as 
certainly, though not in so great a degree, 
as with the passions of the multitude. The 
comedy of a polished monarchy never can 
be of the same character with that of a bold 
and tumultuous democracy. Changes of 
religion and of government, civil or foreign 
wars, conquests which derive splendour from 
distance, or extent, or difficulty, long tran¬ 
quillity, — all these, and indeed every con¬ 
ceivable modification of the state of a com¬ 
munity, show themselves in the tone of its 
poetry, and leave long and deep traces on 
every part of its literature. Geometry is 
the same, not only at London and Paris, but 
in the extremes of Athens and Samarcand: 
but the state of the general feeling in Eng¬ 
land, at this moment, requires a different 
poetry from that which delighted our ances¬ 
tors in the time of Luther or Alfred. 

During the greater part of the eighteenth 
century, the connexion of the character of 
English poetry with the state of the country 
was very easily traced. The period which 
extended from the English to the French 
Revolution was the golden age of authentic 
history. Governments were secure, nations 
tranquil, improvements rapid, manners mild 
beyond the example of any former age. 
The English nation which possessed the 
greatest of all human blessings — a wisely 
constructed popular government—necessa¬ 
rily enjoyed the largest share of every other 
benefit. The tranquillity of that fortunate 
period was not disturbed by any of those 
calamitous, or even extraordinary events, 
which excite the imagination and inflame 
the passions. No age was more exempt 
from the prevalence of any species of popu¬ 
lar enthusiasm. Poetry, in this state of 
things, partook of that calm, argumentative, 
moral, and directly useful character, into 
which it naturally subsides, when there are 
no events to call up the higher passions,— 
when every talent is allured into the imme¬ 
diate service of a prosperous and improving 


society, — and when wit, taste, diffused lite¬ 
rature, and fastidious criticism, combine to 
deter the young writer from the more ar¬ 
duous enterprises of poetical genius. In 
such an age, every art becomes rational. 
Reason is the power which presides in a calm. 
But reason guides, rather than impels; and, 
though it must regulate every exertion of 
genius, it never can rouse it to vigorous action. 

The school of Dryden and Pope, which 
prevailed till a very late period of the last 
century, is neither the most poetical nor the 
most national part of our literary annals. 
These great poets sometimes indeed ven¬ 
tured into the regions of pure poetry: but 
their general character is, that “ not in 
fancy’s maze they wandered long; ” and that 
they rather approached the elegant correct¬ 
ness of our continental neighbours, than 
supported the daring flight, which, in the 
former age, had borne English poetry to a 
sublimer elevation than that of any other 
modern people of the West. 

Towards the middle of the century, great 
though quiet changes began to manifest 
themselves in the republic of letters in every 
European nation which retained any portion 
of mental activity. About that time, the 
exclusive authority of our great rhyming 
poets began to be weakened; while new 
tastes and fashions began to show themselves 
in the political world. A school of poetry 
must have prevailed long enough, to be pro¬ 
bably on the verge of downfal, before its 
practice is embodied in a correspondent 
system of criticism. 

Johnson was the critic of our second 
poetical school. As far as his prejudices of a 
political or religious kind did not disqualify 
him for all criticism, he was admirably fitted 
by nature to be the critic of this species of 
poetry. Without more imagination, sensi¬ 
bility, or delicacy than it required, — not 
always with perhaps quite enough for its 
higher parts,—he possessed sagacity, shrewd¬ 
ness, experience, knowledge of mankind, a 
taste for rational and orderly compositions, 
and a disposition to accept, instead of poetry, 
that lofty and vigorous declamation in har¬ 
monious verse, of which he himself was 






514 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


capable, and to which his great master 
sometimes descended. His spontaneous 
admiration scarcely soared above Dryden. 
“ Merit of a loftier class he rather saw than 
felt.” Shakspeare has transcendent excel¬ 
lence of every sort, and for every critic 
except those who are repelled by the 
faults which usually attend sublime virtues, 
— character and manners, morality and 
prudence, as well as imagery and passion. 
Johnson did indeed perform a vigorous 
act of reluctant justice towards Milton; but 
it was a proof, to use his own words, that 

“ At length our mighty Bard’s victorious lays 
Fill the loud voice of universal praise; 

And baffled Spite, with hopeless anguish dumb, 
Yields to renown the centuries to come! ” * 

The deformities of the Life of Gray ought 
not to be ascribed to jealousy, — for John¬ 
son’s mind, though coarse, was not mean, — 
but to the prejudices of his university, his 
political faction, and his poetical sect: and 
this last bigotry is the more remarkable, 
because it is exerted against the most skilful 
and tasteful of innovators, who, in reviving 
more poetical subjects and a more splendid 
diction, has employed more care and finish 
than those who aimed only at correctness. 

The interval which elapsed between the 
death of Goldsmith and the rise of Cowper 
is, perhaps, more barren than any other 
twelve years in the history of our poetry 
since the accession of Elizabeth. It seemed 
as if the fertile soil was at length exhausted. 
But it had in fact only ceased to exhibit its 
accustomed produce. The established poetry 
had worn out either its own resources, or 
the constancy of its readers. Former at¬ 
tempts to introduce novelty had been either 
too weak or too early. Neither the beauti¬ 
ful fancy of Collins, nor the learned and in¬ 
genious industry of Warton, nor even the 
union of sublime genius with consummate 
art in Gray, had produced a general change 
in poetical composition. But the fulness of 
time was approaching; and a revolution has 
been accomplished, of which the commence¬ 


* Prologue to Comus. — Ed. 


ment nearly coincides —not, as we conceive, 
accidentally — with that of the political 
revolution which has changed the character 
as well as the condition of Europe. It has 
been a thousand times observed, that nations 
become weary even of excellence, and seek 
a new way of writing, though it should be a 
worse. But besides the operation of satiety 

— the general cause of literary revolutions 

— several particular circumstances seem to 
have affected the late changes of our poetical 
taste, of which two are more conspicuous 
than the rest. 

In the natural progress of society, the 
songs which are the effusion of the feelings 
of a rude tribe, are gradually polished into a 
form of poetry still retaining the marks of 
the national opinions, sentiments, and man¬ 
ners, from which it originally sprung. The 
plants are improved by cultivation; but they 
are still the native produce of the soil. The 
only perfect example which we know, of 
this sort, is Greece. Knowledge and useful 
art, and perhaps in a great measure religion, 
the Greeks received from the East: but as 
they studied no foreign language, it was 
impossible that any foreign literature should 
influence the progress of theirs. Not even 
the name of a Persian, Assyrian, Phoenician, 
or Egyptian poet is alluded to by any Greek 
writer: the Greek poetry was, therefore, 
wholly national. The Pelasgic ballads were 
insensibly formed into Epic, and Tragic, and 
Lyric poems; but the heroes, the opinions, 
and the customs, continued as exclusively 
Grecian, as they had been when the Hellenic 
minstrels knew little beyond the Adriatic 
and the iEgean. The literature of Rome 
was a copy from that of Greece. When the 
classical studies revived amid the chivalrous 
manners and feudal institutions of Gothic 
Europe, the imitation of ancient poets strug¬ 
gled against the power of modern senti¬ 
ments, with various event, in different tunes 
and countries, but every where in such a 
manner, as to give somewhat of an artificial 
and exotic character to poetry. Jupiter and 
the Muses appeared in the poems of Christian 
nations. The feelings and principles of de¬ 
mocracies were copied by the gentlemen of 







REVIEW OF ROGERS’ POEMS. 515 


Teutonic monarchies or aristocracies. The 
sentiments of the poet in his verse were not 
those which actuated him in his conduct. 
The forms and rules of composition were 
borrowed from antiquity, instead of spon¬ 
taneously arising from the manner of think¬ 
ing of modern communities. In Italy, when 
letters first revived, the chivalrous principle 
was too near the period of its full vigour, to 
be oppressed by this foreign learning. An¬ 
cient ornaments were borrowed; but the 
romantic form was prevalent: and where 
the forms were classical, the spirit continued 
to be romantic. The structure of Tasso’s 
poem was that of the Grecian epic; but his 
heroes were Christian knights. French 
poetry having been somewhat unaccountably 
late in its rise, and slow in its progress, 
reached its most brilliant period, when all 
Europe had considerably lost its ancient 
characteristic principles, and was fully im¬ 
bued with classical ideas. Hence it acquired 
faultless elegance: — hence also it became 
less natural, — more timid and more imita¬ 
tive, — more like a feeble translation of 
Roman poetry. The first age of English 
poetry, in the reign of Elizabeth, displayed 
a combination, —fantastic enough,— of chi¬ 
valrous fancy and feeling with classical ped¬ 
antry ; but, upon the whole, its native genius 
was unsubdued. The poems of that age, 
with all their faults, and partly perhaps 
from their faults, are the most national part 
of our poetry, as they undoubtedly contain 
its highest beauties. From the accession of 
James to the Civil War, the glory of Shak- 
speare turned the whole national genius to 
the drama; and, after the Restoration, a new 
and classical school arose, under whom our 
old and peculiar literature was abandoned, 
and almost forgotten. But all imported 
tastes in literature must be in some measure 
superficial. The poetry which once grew in 
the bosoms of a people, is always capable of 
being revived by a skilful hand. When the 
brilliant and poignant lines of Pope began 
to pall on the public ear, it was natural that 
we should revert to the cultivation of our 
indigenous poetry. 

Nor was this the sole, or perhaps the 


chief, agent which was working a poetical 
change. As the condition and character of 
the former age had produced an argument¬ 
ative, didactic, sententious, prudential, and 
satirical poetry; so the approaches to a new 
order (or rather at first disorder) in politi¬ 
cal society were attended by correspondent 
movements in the poetical world. Bolder 
speculations began to prevail. A combina¬ 
tion of the science and art of the tranquil 
period, with the hardy enterprizes of that 
which succeeded, gave rise to scientific 
poems, in which a bold attempt was made, 
by the mere force of diction, to give a poet¬ 
ical interest and elevation to the coldest 
parts of knowledge, and to those arts which 
have been hitherto considered as the meanest. 
Having been forced above their natural 
place by the wonder at first elicited, they 
have not yet recovered from the subsequent 
depression. Nor will a similar attempt be 
successful, without a more temperate use of 
power over style, till the diffusion of physi¬ 
cal knowledge renders it familiar to the 
popular imagination, and till the prodigies 
worked by the mechanical arts shall have 
bestowed on them a character of grandeur. 

As the agitation of men’s minds approached 
the period of an explosion, its effects on 
literature became more visible. The desire 
of strong emotion succeeded to the solici¬ 
tude to avoid disgust. Fictions, both dra¬ 
matic and narrative, were formed according 
to the school of Rousseau and Goethe. The 
mixture of comic and tragic pictures once 
more displayed itself, as in the ancient and 
national drama. The sublime and energetic 
feelings of devotion began to be more fre¬ 
quently associated with poetry. The ten¬ 
dency of political speculation concurred in 
directing the mind of the poet to the intense 
and undisguised passions of the uneducated, 
which fastidious politeness had excluded 
from the subjects of poetical imitation. The 
history of nations unlike ourselves, the fan¬ 
tastic mythology and ferocious superstition 
of distant times and countries, or the legends 
of our own antique faith, and the romances 
of our fabulous and heroic ages, became 
favourite themes of poetry. Traces of a 


L L 3 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


516 

higher order of feeling appeared in the con¬ 
templations in which the poet indulged, and 
in the events and scenes which he delighted 
to describe. The fire with which a chivalrous 
tale was told, made tho reader inattentive to 
negligences in the storj or the style. Poetry 
became more devout-, more contemplative, 
more mystical, more visionary, — more alien 
from the taste of those whose poetry is only 
a polished prosaic verse, — more full of an¬ 
tique superstition, and more prone to daring 
innovation, — painting both coarser realities 
and purer imaginations than she had before 
hazarded, — sometimes buried in the pro¬ 
found quiet required by the dreams of fancy, 
— sometimes turbulent and martial, — seek¬ 
ing “ fierce wars and faithful loves ” in those 
times long past, when the frequency of the 
most dreadful dangers produced heroic en¬ 
ergy and the ardour of faithful affection. 

Even the direction given to the traveller 
by the accidents of war has not been without 
its influence. Greece, the mother of freedom 
and of poetry in the West, which had long 
employed only the antiquary, the artist, and 
the philologist, was at length destined, after 
an interval of many silent and inglorious 
ages, to awaken the genius of a poet. Full 
of enthusiasm for those perfect forms of he¬ 
roism and liberty, which his imagination had 
placed in the recesses of antiquity, he gave 
vent to his impatience of the imperfections of 
living men and real institutions, in an ori¬ 
ginal strain of sublime satire, which clothes 
moral anger in imagery of an almost horrible 
grandeur; and which, though it cannot coin¬ 
cide with the estimate of reason, yet could 
only flow from that worship of perfection, 
which is the soul of all true poetry. 

The tendency of poetry to become na¬ 
tional was in more than one case remarkable. 
While the Scottish middle age inspired the 
most popular poet perhaps of the eighteenth 
century, the national genius of Ireland at 
length found a poetical representative, whose 
exquisite ear, and flexible fancy, wantoned 
in all the varieties of poetical luxury, from 
the levities to the fondness of love, from 
polished pleasantry to ardent passion, and 
from the social joys of private life to a ten¬ 


der and mournful patriotism, taught by the 
melancholy fortunes of an illustrious country, 

— with a range adapted to every nerve in 
the composition of a people susceptible of all 
feelings which have the colour of generosity, 
and more exempt probably than any other 
from degrading and unpoetical vices. 

The failure of innumerable adventurers is 
inevitable in literary, as well as in political, 
revolutions. The inventor seldom perfects 
his invention. The uncouthness of the no¬ 
velty, the clumsiness with which it is ma¬ 
naged by an unpractised hand, and the 
dogmatical contempt of criticism natural to 
the pride and enthusiasm of the innovator, 
combine to expose him to ridicule, and gene¬ 
rally terminate in his being admired (though 
warmly) by a few of his contemporaries, — 
remembered only occasionally in after times, 

— and supplanted in general estimation by 
more cautious and skilful imitators. With 
the very reverse of unfriendly feelings, we 
observe that erroneous theories respecting 
poetical diction, — exclusive and proscrip¬ 
tive notions in criticism, which in adding 
new provinces to poetry would deprive her 
of ancient dominions and lawful instruments 
of rule, — and a neglect of that extreme re¬ 
gard to general sympathy, and even acci¬ 
dental prejudice, which is necessary to guard 
poetical novelties against their natural enemy 
the satirist, — have powerfully counteracted 
an attempt, equally moral and philosophical, 
made by a writer of undisputed poetical 
genius, to enlarge the territories of art, by 
unfolding the poetical interest which lies 
latent in the common acts of the humblest 
men and in the most ordinary modes of 
feeling, as well as in the most familiar scenes 
of nature. 

The various opinions which may naturally 
be formed of the merit of individual writers, 
form no necessary part of our consideration. 
We consider the present as one of the most 
flourishing periods of English poetry: but 
those who condemn all contemporary poets 
need not on that account dissent from our 
speculations. It is sufficient to have proved 
the reality, and in part perhaps to have ex¬ 
plained the origin, of a literary revolution. 





REVIEW OF ROGERS’ POEMS. 517 


At no time does the success of writers bear 
so uncertain a proportion to their genius, as 
when the rules of judging and the habits of 
feeling are unsettled. 

It is not uninteresting, even as a matter 
of speculation, to observe tbe fortune of a 
poem which, like the Pleasures of Memory, 
appeared at the commencement of this lite¬ 
rary revolution, without paying court to the 
revolutionary tastes, or seeking distinction 
by resistance to them. It borrowed no aid 
either from prejudice or innovation. It nei¬ 
ther copied the fashion of the age which was 
passing away, nor offered any homage to the 
rising novelties. It resembles, only in mea¬ 
sure, the poems of the eighteenth century, 
which were written in heroic rhyme. Nei¬ 
ther the brilliant sententiousness of Pope, 
nor the frequent languor and negligence 
perhaps inseparable from the exquisite 
nature of Goldsmith, could be traced in a 
poem, from which taste and labour equally 
banished mannerism and inequality. It was 
patronised by 'no sect or faction. It was 
neither imposed on the public by any literary 
cabal, nor forced into notice by the noisy 
anger of conspicuous enemies. Yet, desti¬ 
tute as it was of every foreign help, it ac¬ 
quired a popularity originally very great; 
and which has not only continued amidst 
extraordinary fluctuation of general taste, 
but has increased amid a succession of formi¬ 
dable competitors. No production, so po¬ 
pular, was probably ever so little censured 
by criticism: and thus is combined the ap¬ 
plause of contemporaries with the suffrage of 
the representatives of posterity. 

It is needless to make extracts from a 
poem which is familiar to every reader. In 
selection, indeed, no two readers would 
probably agree: but the description of the 
Gipsies, — of the Boy quitting his Father’s 
house, — and of the Savoyard recalling the 
mountainous scenery of his country, — and 
the descriptive commencement of the tale 
in Cumberland, have remained most deeply 
impressed on our minds. We should be 
disposed to quote the following verses, as 
not surpassed, in pure and chaste elegance, 
by any English lines:— 


“ When Joy’s bright sun has shed his evening ray, 
And Hope’s delusive meteors cease to play; 
When clouds on clouds the smiling prospect close, 
Still through the gloom thy star serenely glows: 
Like yon fair orb she gilds the brow of Night 
With the mild magic of reflected light.” 

The conclusion of the fine passage on the 
Veterans at Greenwich and Chelsea, has a 
pensive dignity which beautifully corresponds 
with the scene: — 

“ Long have ye known Reflection’s genial ray 
Gild the calm close of Valour’s various day.” 

And we cannot resist the pleasure of 
quoting the moral, tender, and elegant lines 
which close the Poem: — 

“ Lighter than air, Hope’s summer-visions fly, 

If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky; 

If but a beam of sober Reason play, 

Lo, Fancy’s fairy frost-work melts away! 

But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power, 
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour ? 
These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight, 
Pour round her path a stream of living light; 
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, 
Where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest!” 

The descriptive passages require, indeed, 
a closer inspection, and a more exercised 
eye, than those of some celebrated contem¬ 
poraries who sacrifice elegance to effect, and 
whose figures stand out in bold relief, from 
the general roughness of their more un¬ 
finished compositions: and in the moral 
parts, there is often discoverable a Virgilian 
art, which suggests, rather than displays, the 
various and contrasted scenes of human life, 
and adds to the power of language by a cer¬ 
tain air of reflection and modesty, in the 
preference of measured terms to those of 
more apparent energy. 

In the View from the House*, the scene 
is neither delightful from very superior 
beauty, nor striking by singularity, nor 
powerful from reminding us of terrible pas¬ 
sions or memorable deeds. It consists of the 
more ordinary of the beautiful features of 
nature, neither exaggerated nor represented 
with curious minuteness, but exhibited with 
picturesque elegance, in connexion with 


* In the Epistle to a Friend. — Ed. 







MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


518 


those tranquil emotions which they call up 
in the calm order of a virtuous mind, in 
every condition of society and of life. The 
verses on the Torso are in a more severe 
style. The Fragment of a divine artist, 
which awakened the genius of Michael An¬ 
gelo, seems to disdain ornament. It would 
be difficult to name two small poems, by the 
same writer, in which he has attained such 
high degrees of kinds of excellence so dis¬ 
similar, as are seen in the Sick Chamber and 
the Butterfly. The first has a truth of de¬ 
tail, which, considered merely as painting, is 
admirable; but assumes a higher character, 
when it is felt to be that minute remem¬ 
brance, with which affection recollects every 
circumstance that could have affected a be¬ 
loved sufferer. Though the morality which 
concludes the second, be in itself very beau¬ 
tiful, it may be doubted whether the verses 
would not have left a more unmixed delight, 
if the address had remained as a mere sport 
of fancy, without the seriousness of an object, 
or an application. The verses written in 
Westminster Abbey are surrounded by dan¬ 
gerous recollections: they aspire to com¬ 
memorate Fox, and to copy some of the 
grandest thoughts in the most sublime work 
of Bossuet. Nothing can satisfy the ex¬ 
pectation awakened by such names : yet we 
are assured that there are some of them 
which would be envied by the best writers 
of this age. The scenery of Loch Long is 
among the grandest in Scotland; and the 
description of it shows the power of feeling 
and painting. In this island, the taste for 
nature has grown with the progress of re¬ 
finement. It is most alive in those who are 
most brilliantly distinguished in social and 
active life. It elevates the mind above the 
meanness which it might contract in the 
rivalship for praise; and preserves those 
habits of reflection and sensibility, which 
receive so many rude shocks in the coarse 
contests of the world. Not many summer 
hours can be passed in the most mountainous 
solitudes of Scotland, without meeting some 
who are worthy to be remembered with the 
sublime objects of nature, which they had 
travelled so far to admire. 


The most conspicuous of the novelties of 
this volume is the poem or poems, entitled 
“Fragments of the Voyage of Columbus.” 
The subject of this poem is, politically or 
philosophically considered, among the most 
important in the annals of mankind. The in¬ 
troduction of Christianity (humanly viewed), 
the irruption of the Northern barbarians, 
the contest between the Christian and Mus¬ 
sulman nations in Syria, the two inventions 
of gunpowder and printing, the emancipation 
of the human understanding by the Re¬ 
formation, the discovery of America, and of 
a maritime passage to Asia in the last ten 
years of the fifteenth century, are the events 
which have produced the greatest and most 
durable effects, since the establishment of 
civilisation, and the consequent commence¬ 
ment of authentic history. But the poetical 
capabilities of an event bear no proportion 
to historical importance. None of the con¬ 
sequences that do not strike the senses or the 
fancy can interest the poet. The greatest of 
the transactions above enumerated is ob¬ 
viously incapable of entering into poetry. 
The Crusades were not without permanent 
effects on the state of men: but their poetical 
interest does not arise from these effects; 
and it immeasurably surpasses them. 

Whether the voyage of Columbus be 
destined to be for ever incapable of becom¬ 
ing the subject of an epic poem, is a question 
which we have scarcely the means of answer¬ 
ing. The success of great writers has often 
so little corresponded with the promise of 
their subject, that we might be almost 
tempted to think the choice of a subject 
indifferent. The story of Hamlet, or of 
Paradise Lost, would beforehand have been 
pronounced to be unmanageable. Perhaps 
the genius of Shakspeare and of Milton has 
rather compensated for the incorrigible de¬ 
fects of ungrateful subjects, than conquered 
them. The course of ages may produce the 
poetical genius, the historical materials, and 
the national feelings, for an American epic 
poem. There is yet but one state in Ame¬ 
rica, and that state is hardly become a nation. 
At some future period, when every part of 
the continent has been the scene of memor- 













REVIEW OF ROGERS’ POEMS. 


able events, when the discovery and con¬ 
quest have receded into that legendary 
dimness which allows fancy to mould them 
at her pleasure, the early history of America 
may afford scope for the genius of a thousand 
national poets ; and while, some may soften 
the cruelty which darkens the daring energy 
of Cortez and Pizarro, — while others may, 
in perhaps new forms of poetry, ennoble the 
pacific conquests of Penn, — and while the 
genius, the exploits, and the fate of Raleigh 
may render his establishments probably the 
most alluring of American subjects, every 
inhabitant of the new world will turn his 
eyes with filial reverence towards Columbus, 
and regard, with equal enthusiasm, the 
voyage which laid the foundation of so many 
states, and peopled a continent with civilised 
men. Most epic subjects, but especially such 
a subject as Columbus, require either the fire 
of an actor in the scene, or the religious re¬ 
verence of a very distant posterity. Homer, 
as well _as Eryilla and Camoens, show what 
may be done by an epic poet who himself 
feels the passions of his heroes. It must not 
be denied that Virgil has borrowed a colour 
of refinement from the court of Augustus, 
in painting the age of Priam and of Dido. 
Evander is a solitary and exquisite model 
of primitive manners, divested of grossness, 
without losing their simplicity. But to an 
European poet, in this age of the world, the 
Voyage of Columbus is too naked and too 
exactly defined by history. It has no va¬ 
riety, — scarcely any succession of events. 
It consists of one scene, during which two or 
three simple passions continue in a state of 
the highest excitement. It is a voyage with 
intense anxiety in every bosom, controlled 
by magnanimous fortitude in the leader, and 
producing among his followers a fear,— 
sometimes submissive, sometimes mutinous, 
always ignoble. It admits no variety of 
character, no unexpected revolutions. And 
even the issue, though of unspeakable im¬ 
portance, and admirably adapted to some 
kinds of poetry, is not an event of such out¬ 
ward dignity and splendour as ought natu¬ 
rally to close the active and brilliant course i 
of an epic poem. 


519 

It is natural that the Fragments should 
give a specimen of the marvellous as well as 
of the other constituents of epic fiction. We 
may observe, that it is neither the intention 
nor the tendency of poetical machinery to 
supersede secondary causes, to fetter the 
will, and to make human creatures appear 
as the mere instruments of destiny. It is 
introduced to satisfy that insatiable demand 
for a nature more exalted than that which 
we know by experience, which creates all 
poetry, and which is most active in its high¬ 
est species, and in its most perfect produc¬ 
tions: It is not to account for thoughts and 
feelings, that superhuman agents are brought 
down upon earth: it is rather for the con¬ 
trary purpose, of lifting them into a mys¬ 
terious dignity beyond the cognisance of 
reason. There is a material difference be¬ 
tween the acts which superior beings perform, 
and the sentiments which they inspire. It 
is true, that when a god fights against men, 
there can be no uncertainty or anxiety, and 
consequently no interest about the event,— 
unless indeed in the rude theology of Homer, 
where Minerva may animate the Greeks, 
while Mars excites the Trojans : but it is 
quite otherwise with these divine persons 
inspiring passion, or represented as agents 
in the great phenomena of nature. Venus 
and Mars inspire love or valour: they give 
a noble origin and a dignified character to 
these sentiments; but the sentiments them¬ 
selves act according to the laws of our 
nature; and their celestial source has no 
tendency to impair their power over human 
sympathy. No event, which has not too 
much modern vulgarity to be susceptible of 
alliance with poetry, can be incapable of 
being ennobled by that eminently poetical 
art which ascribes it either to the Supreme 
Will, or to the agency of beings who are 
greater than human. The wisdom of Co¬ 
lumbus is neither less venerable, nor less his 
own, because it is supposed to flow more 
directly than that of other wise men, from 
the inspiration of heaven. The mutiny of 
his seamen is not less interesting or formid¬ 
able because the poet traces it to the sug¬ 
gestion of those malignant spirits, in whom 















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


520 


the imagination, independent of all theolo¬ 
gical doctrines, is naturally prone to per¬ 
sonify and embody the causes of evil. 

Unless, indeed, the marvellous be a part 
of the popular creed at the period of the 
action, the reader of a subsequent age will 
refuse to sympathise with it. His poetical 
faith is founded in sympathy with that of 
the poetical personages. Still more objec¬ 
tionable is a marvellous influence, neither 
believed in by the reader nor by the hero; — 
like a great part of the machinery of the 
Ilenriade and the Lusiad, which indeed is 
not only absolutely ineffective, but rather 
disennobles heroic fiction, by association with 
light and frivolous ideas. Allegorical per¬ 
sons (if the expression may be allowed) are 
only in the way to become agents. The 
abstraction has received a faint outline of 
form ; but it has not yet acquired those 
individual marks and characteristic pecu¬ 
liarities, which render it a really existing 
being. On the other hand, the more sublime 
parts of our own religion, and more especially 
those which are common to all religion, are 
too awful and too philosophical for poetical 
effect. If we except Paradise Lost, where 
all is supernatural, and where the ancestors 
of the human race are not strictly human 
beings, it must be owned that no successful 
attempt has been made to ally a human 
action with the sublimer principles of the 
Christian theology. Some opinions, which 
may perhaps, without irreverence, be said 
to be rather appendages to the Christian 
system, than essential parts of it, are in that 
sort of intermediate state which fits them 
for the purposes of poetry ; — sufficiently 
exalted to ennoble the human actions with 
which they are blended, but not so exactly 
defined, nor so deeply revered, as to be in¬ 
consistent with the liberty of imagination. 
The guardian angels, in the project of Dry- 
den, had the inconvenience of having never 
taken any deep root in popular belief: the 
agency of evil spirits was firmly believed in 
the age of Columbus. With the truth of 
facts, poetry can have no concern; but the 
truth of manners is necessary to its persons. 
If the minute investigations of the Notes to 


this poem had related to historical details, 
they would have been insignificant 5 but they 
are intended to justify the human and the 
supernatural parts of it, by an appeal to the 
manners and to the opinions of the age. 

Perhaps there is no volume in our lan¬ 
guage of which it can be so truly said, as of 
the present, that it is equally exempt from 
the frailties of negligence and the vices of 
affectation. Exquisite polish of style is in¬ 
deed more admired by the artist than by the 
people. The gentle and elegant pleasure 
which it imparts, can only be felt by a calm 
reason, an exercised taste, and a mind free 
from turbulent passions. But these beauties 
of execution can exist only in combination 
with much of the primary beauties of thought 
and feeling; and poets of the first rank de¬ 
pend on them for no small part of the perpe¬ 
tuity of their fame. In poetry, though not in 
eloquence, it is less to rouse the passions of a 
moment, than to satisfy the taste of all ages. 

In estimating the poetical rank of Mr. 
Rogers, it must not be forgotten that popu¬ 
larity never can arise from elegance alone. 
The vices of a poem may render it popular; 
and virtues of a faint character may be 
sufficient to preserve a languishing and cold 
reputation. But to be both popular poets 
and classical writers, is the rare lot of those 
few who are released from all solicitude 
about their literary fame. It often happens 
to successful writers, that the lustre of their 
first productions throws a temporary cloud 
over some of those which follow. Of all 
literary misfortunes, this is the most easily 
endured, and the most speedily repaired. It 
is generally no more than a momentary illu¬ 
sion produced by disappointed admiration, 
which expected more from the talents of the 
admired writer than any talents could per¬ 
form. Mr. Rogers has long passed that 
period of probation, during which it may 
be excusable to feel some painful solicitude 
about the reception of every new work. 
Whatever may be the rank assigned here¬ 
after to his writings, when compared with 
each other, the writer has most certainly 
taken his place among the classical poets of 
his country. 






REVIEW 

OF 

MADAME DE STAEL’S “ DE L’ALLEMAGNE.” * 


\ 


Till the middle of the eighteenth century, 
Germany was, in one important respect, sin¬ 
gular among the great nations of Christen¬ 
dom. She had attained a high rank in 
Europe by discoveries and inventions, by 
science, by abstract speculation as well as 
positive knowledge, by the genius and the 
art of war, and above all by the theological 
revolution, which unfettered the under¬ 
standing in one part of Europe, and loosened 
its chains in the other; but she was without 
a national literature. The country of Gut- 
tenberg, of Copernicus, of Luther, of Kepler, 
and of Leibnitz, had no writer in her own 
language, whose name was known to the 
neighbouring nations. German captains 
and statesmen, philosophers and scholars, 
were celebrated; but German writers were 
unknown. The nations of the Spanish pe¬ 
ninsula formed the exact contrast to Ger¬ 
many. She had every mark of mental 
cultivation but a vernacular literature: they, 
since the Reformation, had ceased to ex¬ 
ercise their reason; and they retained only 
their poets, whom they were content to ad¬ 
mire, without daring any longer to emu¬ 
late. In Italy, Metastasio was the only re¬ 
nowned poet; and sensibility to the arts of 
design had survived genius: but the monu¬ 
ments of ancient times still kept alive the 
pursuits of antiquities and philology; and 
the rivalship of small states, and the glory 
of former ages, preserved an interest in 
literary history. The national mind re¬ 
tained that tendency towards experimental 


* From the Edinburgh Keview, vol. xxii. p. 198. 
— Ed. 


science, which it perhaps principally owed to 
the fame of Galileo ; and began also to take 
some part in those attempts to discover the 
means of bettering the human condition, by 
inquiries into the principles of legislation 
and political economy, which form the most 
honourable distinction of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury. France and England abated nothing 
of their activity. Whatever may be thought 
of the purity of taste, or of the soundness of 
opinion of Montesquieu and Voltaire, Buf- 
fon and Rousseau, no man will dispute the 
vigour of their genius. The same period 
among us was not marked by the loss of any 
of our ancient titles to fame; and it was 
splendidly distinguished by the rise of the 
arts, of history, of oratory, and (shall we 
not add ?) of painting. But Germany re¬ 
mained a solitary example of a civilised, 
learned, and scientific nation, without a lite¬ 
rature. The chivalrous ballads of the middle 
age, and the efforts of the Silesian poets in 
the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
were just sufficient to render the general 
defect more striking. French was the lan¬ 
guage of every court; and the number of 
courts in Germany rendered this circum¬ 
stance almost equivalent to the exclusion 
of German from every society of rank. 
Philosophers employed a barbarous Latin, 
— as they had throughout all Europe, till 
the Reformation had given dignity to the 
vernacular tongues, by employing them in 
the service of Religion, and till Montaigne, 
Galileo, and Bacon broke down the barrier 
between the learned and the people, by 
philosophising in a popular language; and 
the German language continued to be the 







522 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

mere instrument of the most vulgar inter¬ 
course of life. Germany had, therefore, no 
exclusive mental possession : for poetry and 
eloquence may, and in some measure must, 
be national; but knowledge, which is the 
common patrimony of civilised men, can be 
appropriated by no people. 

A great revolution, however, at length 
began, which in the course of half a century 
terminated in bestowing on Germany a lite¬ 
rature, perhaps the most characteristic pos¬ 
sessed by any European nation. It had the 
important peculiarity of being the first 
which had its birth in an enlightened age. 
The imagination and sensibility of an infant 
poetry were in it singularly blended with 
the refinements of philosophy. A studious 
and learned people, familiar with the poets 
of other nations, with the first simplicity of 
nature and feeling, were too often tempted 
to pursue the singular, the excessive, and 
the monstrous. Their fancy was attracted 
towards the deformities and diseases of 
moral nature ; —the wildness of an infant 
literature, combined with the eccentric and 
fearless speculations of a philosophical age. 
Some of the qualities of the childhood of art 
were united to others which usually attend 
its decline. German literature, various, 
rich, bold, and at length, by an inversion of 
the usual progress, working itself into ori¬ 
ginality, was tainted with the exaggeration 
natural to the imitator, and to all those who 
know the passions rather by study than by 
feeling. 

Another cause concurred to widen the 
chasm which separated the German writers 
from the most polite nations of Europe. 
While England and France had almost re¬ 
linquished those more abstruse speculations 
which had employed them in the age of 
Gassendi and Hobbes, and, with a confused 
mixture of contempt and despair, had tacitly 
abandoned questions which seemed alike 
inscrutable and unprofitable, a metaphysical 
passion arose in Germany, stronger and 
more extensive than had been known in 
Europe since the downfall of the Scholastic 
philosophy. A system of metaphysics ap¬ 
peared, which*, with the ambition natural to 

that science, aspired to dictate principles to 
every part of human knowledge. It was 
for a long time universally adopted. Other 
systems, derived from it, succeeded each 
other with the rapidity of fashions in dress. 
Metaphysical publications were multiplied 
almost to the same degree, as political tracts 
in the most factious period of a popular go¬ 
vernment. The subject was soon exhausted, 
and the metaphysical passion seems to be 
nearly extinguished : for the small circle of 
dispute respecting first principles must be 
always rapidly described; and the specu¬ 
late, who thought his course infinite, finds 
himself almost instantaneously returned to 
the point from which he began. But the 
language of abstruse research spread over 
the whole German style. Allusions to the 
most subtle speculations were common in 
popular writings. Bold metaphors, derived 
from their peculiar philosophy, became fa¬ 
miliar in observations on literature and 
manners. The style of Germany at length 
differed from that of France, and even of 
England, more as the literature of the East 
differs from that of the West, than as that 
of one European people from that of their 
neighbours. 

Hence it partly arose, that while phy¬ 
sical and political Germany was so familiar 
to foreigners, intellectual and literary Ger¬ 
many continued almost unknown. Thirty 
years ago *, there were probably in London 
as many Persian as German scholars. 
Neither Goethe nor Schiller conquered the 
repugnance. Political confusions, a timid 
and exclusive taste, and the habitual neglect 
of foreign languages, excluded German lite¬ 
rature from France. Temporary and per¬ 
manent causes contributed to banish it, 
after a short period of success, from Eng¬ 
land. Dramas, more remarkable for thea¬ 
trical effect than for dramatic genius, exhi¬ 
bited scenes and characters of a paradoxical 
morality (on which no writer has animad¬ 
verted with more philosophical and moral 
eloquence than Mad. de Stael), — unsafe 
even in the quiet of the schools, but pecu- 

* Written in 1813. — Ed. 









REVIEW OF DE L’ALLEMAGNE. 523 

liarly dangerous in the theatre, where it 
comes into contact with the inflammable 
passions of ignorant multitudes,—and justly 
alarming to those who, with great reason, 
considered domestic virtue as one of the 
privileges and safeguards of the English 
nation. These moral paradoxes, which were 
chiefly found among the inferior poets of 
Germany, appeared at the same time with 
the political novelties of the French Re¬ 
volution, and underwent the same fate. 
German literature was branded as the ac¬ 
complice of freethinking philosophy and 
revolutionary politics. It happened rather 
whimsically, that we now began to throw 
out the same reproaches against other na¬ 
tions, which the French had directed against 
us in the beginning of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury. We were then charged by our polite 
neighbours with the vulgarity and turbu¬ 
lence of rebellious upstarts, who held nothing 
sacred in religion, or stable in government; 
whom 

“ No king could govern, and no God could please 

and whose coarse and barbarous literature 
could excite only the ridicule of cultivated 
nations. The political part of these charges 
we applied to America, which had retained 
as much as she could of our government 
and laws; and the literary part to Ger¬ 
many, where literature had either been 
formed on our models, or moved by a kin¬ 
dred impulse, even where it assumed some¬ 
what of a different form. The same persons 
who applauded the wit, and pardoned the 
shocking licentiousness of English comedy, 
were loudest in their clamours against the 
immorality of the German theatre. In our 
zeal against a few scenes, dangerous only by 
over-refinement, we seemed to have forgotten 
the vulgar grossness which tainted the whole 
brilliant period from Fletcher to Congreve. 
Nor did we sufficiently remember, that the 
most daring and fantastical combinations of 
the German stage did not approach to that 
union of taste and sense in the thought and 
expression, with wildness and extravagance 

in the invention of monstrous character and 
horrible incident, to be found in some of 
our earlier dramas, which, for their energy 
and beauty, the public taste has lately re¬ 
called from oblivion. 

The more permanent causes of the slow 
and small progress of German literature in 
France and England, are philosophically de¬ 
veloped in two beautiful chapters of the 
present work.* A translation from German 
into a language so different in its structure 
and origin as French, fails, as a piece of 
music composed for one sort of instrument 
when performed on another. In Germany, 
style, and even language, are not yet fixed. 
In France, rules are despotic : “ the reader 
will not be amused at the expense of his 
literary conscience; there alone he is scru¬ 
pulous.” A German writer is above his 
public, and forms it: a French writer dreads 
a public already enlightened and severe : he 
constantly thinks of immediate effect; he is 
in society, even while he is composing; and 
never loses sight of the effect of his writings 
on those whose opinions and pleasantries he 
is accustomed to fear. The German writers 
have, in a higher degree, the first requisite 
for writing — the power of feeling with vi¬ 
vacity and force. In France, a book is read 
to be spoken of, and must therefore catch 
the spirit of society : in Germany, it is read 
by solitary students, who seek instruction or 
emotion; and, “ in the silence of retirement, 
nothing seems more melancholy than the 
spirit of the world.” The French require a 
clearness which may sometimes render their 
writers superficial: and the Germans, in the 
pursuit of originality and depth, often con¬ 
vey obvious thoughts in an obscure style. 
In the dramatic art, the most national part 
of literature, the French are distinguished 
in whatever relates to the action, the in¬ 
trigue, and the interest of events : but the 
Germans surpass them in representing the 
impressions of the heart, and the secret 
storms of the strong passions. 

This work will make known to future 
ages the state of Germany in the highest 

* Absalom and Aehitophel. — Ed. 

* Partii. chap. 1 , 2. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


524 


degree of its philosophical and poetical ac¬ 
tivity, at the moment before the pride of 
genius was humbled by foreign conquest, or 
the national mind turned from literary en¬ 
thusiasm by struggles for the restoration of 
independence. The fleeting opportunity of 
observation at so extraordinary a moment, has 
happily been seized by one of those very few 
persons, who are capable at once of observ¬ 
ing and painting manners,—of estimating 
and expounding philosophical systems, — of 
feeling the beauties of the most dissimilar 
forms of literature, — of tracing the pecu¬ 
liarities of usages, arts, and even specula¬ 
tions, to their common principle in national 
character,—and of disposing them in their 
natural place as features in the great por¬ 
trait of a people. 

The attainments of a respectable traveller 
of the second class are, in the present age, 
not uncommon. Many persons are perfectly 
well qualified to convey exact information, 
wherever the subject can be exactly known. 
But the most important objects in a country 
can neither be numbered nor measured. 
The naturalist gives no picture of scenery 
by the most accurate catalogue of mineral 
and vegetable produce; and, after all that 
the political arithmetician can tell us of 
wealth and population, we continue ignorant 
of the spirit which actuates them, and of the 
character which modifies their application. 
The genius of the philosophical and poetical 
traveller is of a higher order. It is founded 
in the power of catching, by a rapid glance, 
the physiognomy of man and of nature. It 
is, in one of its parts, an expansion of that 
sagacity which seizes the character of an 
individual, in his features, in his expression, 
in his gestures, in his tones, — in every out¬ 
ward sign of his thoughts and feelings. The 
application of this intuitive power to the 
varied mass called a “ nation,” is one of the 
most rare efforts of the human intellect. 
The mind and the eye must co-operate, with 
electrical rapidity, to recall what a nation 
has been, to sympathise with their present 
sentiments and passions, and to trace the 
workings of national character in amuse¬ 
ments, in habits, in institutions, and opinions. 


There appears to be an extemporaneous 
facility of theorising, necessary to catch the 
first aspect of a new country,—the features 
of which would enter the mind in absolute 
confusion, if they were not immediately re¬ 
ferred to some principle, and reduced to 
some system. To embody this conception, 
there must exist the power of painting both 
scenery and character,—of combining the 
vivacity of first impression with the accuracy 
of minute examination,—of placing a na¬ 
tion, strongly individualised by every mark 
of its mind and disposition, in the midst of 
anient monuments, clothed in its own ap¬ 
parel, engaged in its ordinary occupations 
and pastimes amidst its native scenes, like a 
grand historical painting, with appropriate 
drapery, and with the accompaniments of 
architecture and landscape, which illustrate 
and characterise, as well as adorn. 

The voice of Europe has already applauded 
the genius of a national painter in the author 
of Corinne. But it was there aided by the 
power of a pathetic fiction, by the variety 
and opposition of national character, and by 
the charm of a country which unites beauty 
to renown. In the work before us, she has 
thrown off the aid of fiction; she delineates 
a less poetical character, and a country more 
interesting by expectation than by recollec¬ 
tion. But it is not the less certain that it is 
the most vigorous effort of her genius, and 
probably the most elaborate and masculine 
production of the faculties of woman. What 
other woman, indeed, (and we may add how 
many men,) could have preserved all the 
grace and brilliancy of Parisian society in 
analysing its nature,—explained the most 
abstruse metaphysical theories of Germany 
precisely, yet perspicuously and agreeably, 
— and combined the eloquence which in¬ 
spires exalted sentiments of virtue, with the 
enviable talent of gently indicating the de¬ 
fects of men or of nations, by the skilfully 
softened touches of a polite and merciful 
pleasantry ? 

In a short introduction, the principal na¬ 
tions of Europe are derived from three 
races, — the Sclavonic, the Latin, and the 
Teutonic. The imitative and feeble lite- 






REVIEW OF DE L’ALLEMAGNE. 525 


rature, — the recent precipitate and super¬ 
ficial civilisation of the Sclavonic nations, 
sufficiently distinguish them from the two 
great races. The Latin nations, who inhabit 
the south of Europe, are the most anciently 
civilised: social institutions, blended with 
Paganism, preceded their reception of Chris¬ 
tianity. They have less disposition than their 
northern neighbours to abstract reflection; 
they understand better the business and 
pleasures of the world; they inherit the 
sagacity of the Romans in civil affairs ; and 
“they alone, like those ancient masters, 
know how to practise the art of domination.” 
The Germanic nations, who inhabit the north 
of Europe and the British islands, received 
their civilisation with Christianity : chivalry 
and the middle ages are the subjects of their 
traditions and legends; their natural genius 
is more Gothic than classical; they are dis¬ 
tinguished by independence and good faith, 
—by seriousness both in their talents and 
character, rather than by address or vivacity. 
“ The social dignity which the English owe 
to their political constitution, places them at 
the head of Teutonic nations, but does not 
exempt them from the character of the 
race.” The literature of the Latin nations 
is copied from the ancients, and retains the 
original colour of their polytheism: that of 
the nations of Germanic origin has a chiv¬ 
alrous basis, and is modified by a spiritual 
religion. The French and Germans are at the 
two extremities of the chain;—the French 
considering outward objects, and the Ger¬ 
mans thought and feeling, as the prime 
movers of the moral world. “ The French, 
the most cultivated of Latin nations, inclines 
to a classical poetry : the English, the most 
illustrious of Germanic ones, delights in a 
poetry more romantic and chivalrous.” 

The theory which we have thus abridged 
is most ingenious, and exhibits in the liveliest 
form the distinction between different sys¬ 
tems of literature and manners. It is partly 
true; for the principle of race is doubtless 
one of the most important in the history of 
mankind; and the first impressions on the 
susceptible character of rude tribes may be 
traced in the qualities of their most civilised 


descendants. But, considered as an exclu¬ 
sive and universal theory, it is not secure 
against the attacks of sceptical ingenuity. 
The facts do not seem entirely to correspond 
with it. It was among the Latin nations of 
the South, that chivalry and romance first 
flourished. Provence was the earliest seat 
of romantic poetry. A chivalrous literature 
predominated in Italy during the most 
brilliant period of Italian genius. The 
poetry of the Spanish peninsula seems to 
have been more romantic and less subjected 
to classical bondage than that of any other 
part of Europe. On the contrary, chivalry, 
which was the refinement of the middle 
age, penetrated more slowly into the 
countries of the North. In general, the 
character of the literature of each Euro¬ 
pean nation seems extremely to depend 
upon the period at which it had reached 
its highest point of cultivation. Spanish 
and Italian poetry flourished while Europe 
was still chivalrous. French literature at¬ 
tained its highest splendour after the Grecian 
and Roman writers had become the object 
of universal reverence. The Germans cul¬ 
tivated their poetry a hundred years later, 
when the study of antiquity had revived the 
knowledge of the Gothic sentiments and 
principles. Nature produced a chivalrous 
poetry in the sixteenth century;—learning 
in the eighteenth. Perhaps the history of 
English poetry reflects the revolution of 
European taste more distinctly than that of 
any other nation. We have successively cul¬ 
tivated a Gothic poetry from nature, a classi¬ 
cal poetry from imitation, and a second Gothic 
from the study of our own ancient poets. 

To this consideration it must be added, 
that Catholic and Protestant nations must 
differ in their poetical system. The festal 
shows and legendary polytheism of the 
Catholics had the effect of a sort of Christian 
Paganism. The Protestant poetry was 
spiritualised by the genius of their worship, 
and was undoubtedly exalted by the daily 
perusal of translations of the sublime poems 
of the Hebrews, — a discipline, without 
which it is probable that the nations of the 
West never could have been prepared to 






526 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


endure Oriental poetry. In justice, however, 
to the ingenious theory of Mad. de Stael, it 
ought to be observed, that the original 
character ascribed by her to the Northern 
nations, must have disposed them to the 
adoption of a Protestant faith and worship; 
while the Popery of the South was naturally 
preserved by an early disposition to a splendid 
ceremonial, and a various and flexible my¬ 
thology. 

The work is divided into four parts:— on 
Germany and German Manners; on Li¬ 
terature and the Arts; on Philosophy and 
Morals; on Religion and Enthusiasm. 

The first is the most perfect in its kind, 
belongs the most entirely to the genius of the 
writer, and affords the best example of the 
talent for painting nations which we have 
attempted to describe. It seems also, as far 
as foreign critics can presume to decide, to 
be in the most finished style of any compo¬ 
sition of the author, and more securely to 
bid defiance to that minute criticism, which, 
in other works, her genius rather disdained 
than propitiated. The Germans are a just, 
constant, and sincere people; with great 
power of imagination and reflection; without 
brilliancy in society, or address in affairs; 
slow, and easily intimidated in action; ad¬ 
venturous and fearless in speculation; often 
uniting enthusiasm for the elegant arts 
with little progress in the manners and re¬ 
finements of life; more capable of being in¬ 
flamed by opinions than by interests ; obe¬ 
dient to authority, rather from an orderly 
and mechanical character than from servility; 
having learned to value liberty neither by 
the enjoyment of it, nor by severe oppres¬ 
sion ; divested by the nature of their govern¬ 
ments, and the division of their territories, 
of patriotic pride ; too prone in the relations 
of domestic life, to substitute fancy and 
feeling for positive duty; not unfrequently 
combining a natural character with artificial 
manners, and much real feeling with affected 
enthusiasm; divided by the sternness of 
feudal demarcation into an unlettered no¬ 
bility, unpolished scholars, and a depressed 
commonalty; and exposing themselves to 
derision, when, with their grave and clumsy 


honesty, they attempt to copy the lively 
and dexterous profligacy of their Southern 
neighbours. 

In the plentiful provinces of Southern 
Germany, where religion, as well as go¬ 
vernment, shackle the activity of specu¬ 
lation, the people have sunk into a sort 
of lethargic comfort and stupid enjoyment. 
It is a heavy and monotonous country, 
with no arts, except the national art of in¬ 
strumental music, — no literature,«— a rude 
utterance, — no society, or only crowded 
assemblies, which sgemed to be brought 
together for ceremonial, more than for plea¬ 
sure, — “ an obsequious politeness towards 
an aristocracy without elegance.” In Aus¬ 
tria, more especially, are seen a calm and 
languid mediocrity in sensations and de¬ 
sires, — a people mechanical in their very 
sports, “ whose existence is neither disturbed 
nor exalted by guilt or genius, by intole¬ 
rance or enthusiasm,” — a phlegmatic admi¬ 
nistration, inflexibly adhering to its ancient 
course, and repelling knowledge, on which 
the vigour of states must now depend,— 
great societies of amiable and respectable 
persons, — which suggest the reflection that 
“ in retirement monotony composes the soul, 
but in the world it wearies the mind.” 

In the rigorous climate and gloomy towns 
of Protestant Germany only, the national 
mind is displayed. There the whole litera¬ 
ture and philosophy are assembled. Berlin 
is slowly rising to be the capital of enlight¬ 
ened Germany. The Duchess of Weimar, 
who compelled Napoleon to respect her in 
the intoxication of victory, has changed her 
little capital into a seat of knowledge and 
elegance, under the auspices of Goethe, 
Wieland, and Schiller. No European palace 
has assembled so refined a society since 
some of the small Italian courts of the 
sixteenth century. It is only by the 
Protestant provinces of the North that 
Germany is known as a lettered and philo¬ 
sophical country. 

Moralists and philosophers have often re¬ 
marked, that licentious gallantry is fatal to 
love, and destructive of the importance of 
women. “I will venture to assert,” says 












REVIEW OF DE L’ALLEMAGNE. 527 


Mad. de Stael, “ against the received opi¬ 
nion, that France was perhaps, of all the 
countries of the world, that in which women 
had the least happiness in love. It was 
called the ‘paradise ’ of women, because they 
enjoyed the greatest liberty; but that liberty 
arose from the negligent profligacy of the 
other sex.” The observations * which follow 
this remarkable testimony are so beautiful 
and forcible, that they ought to be engraven 
on the mind of every woman disposed to 
murmur at those restraints which maintain 
the dignity of womanhood. 

Some enthusiasm, says Mad. de Stael, or, 
in other words, some high passion, capable 
of actuating multitudes, has been felt by 
every people, at those epochs of their na¬ 
tional existence which are distinguished by 
great acts. Four periods are very remark¬ 
able in the progress of the European world: 
the heroic ages which founded civilisation ; 
republican patriotism, which was the glory 
of antiquity; chivalry, the martial religion 
of Europe; and the love of liberty, of which 
the history began about the period of the 
Reformation. The chivalrous impression is 
worn out in Germany; and in future, says 
this generous and enlightened writer, “ no¬ 
thing great will be accomplished in that 
country, but by the liberal impulse which 
has in Europe succeeded to chivalry.” 

The society and manners of Germany are 
continually illustrated by comparison or con¬ 
trast with those of France. Some passages 
and chapters on this subject, together with 
the author’s brilliant preface to the thoughts 
of the Prince de Ligne, may be considered 
as the first contributions towards a theory of 
the talent — if we must not say of the art — 
of conversation, which affords so consider¬ 
able a part of the most liberal enjoyments 
of refined life. Those, indeed, who affect a 
Spartan or monastic severity in their esti¬ 
mate of the society of capitals, may almost 
condemn a talent, which in their opinion 
only adorns vice. But that must have a 
moral tendency which raises society from 
slander or intoxication, to any contest and 


* Part i. chap. 4. 


rivalship of mental power. Wit and grace 
are perhaps the only means which could 
allure the thoughtless into the neighbour- 
hood of reflection, and inspire them with 
some admiration for superiority of mind. 
Society is the only school in which the indo¬ 
lence of the great will submit to learn. Re¬ 
fined conversation is at least sprinkled with 
literature, and directed, more often than the 
talk of the vulgar, to objects of general in¬ 
terest. That talent cannot really be frivolous 
which affords the channel through which 
some knowledge, or even some respect 
for knowledge, may be insinuated into minds 
incapable of labour, and whose tastes so 
materially influence the community. Sati¬ 
rical pictures of the vices of a great society 
create a vulgar prejudice against their most 
blameless and virtuous pleasures. But what¬ 
ever may be the vice of London or Paris, it 
is lessened, not increased, by the cultivation 
of every liberal talent which innocently fills 
their time, and tends, in some measure, to 
raise them above malice and sensuality. And 
there is a considerable allusion in the pro¬ 
vincial estimate of the immoralities of the 
capital. These immoralities are public, from 
the rank of the parties; and they are ren¬ 
dered more conspicuous by the celebrity, or 
perhaps by the talents of some of them. 
Men of letters, and women of wit, describe 
their own sufferings with eloquence, — the 
faults of others, and sometimes their own, 
with energy: their descriptions interest every 
reader, and are circulated throughout Eu¬ 
rope. But it does not follow that the mise¬ 
ries or the faults are greater or more frequent 
than those of obscure and vulgar persons, 
whose sufferings and vices are known to no¬ 
body, and would be uninteresting if they 
were known. 

The second, and most generally amusing, 
as well as the largest part of this work, is 
an animated sketch of the literary history of 
Germany, with criticisms on the most cele¬ 
brated German poets and poems, inter¬ 
spersed with reflections equally original and 
beautiful, tending to cultivate a comprehen¬ 
sive taste in the fine arts, and to ingraft the 
love of virtue on the sense of beauty. Of 







528 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

the poems criticised, some are well known 
to most of our readers. The earlier pieces 
of Schiller are generally read in translations 
of various merit, though, except the Robbers, 
they are not by the present taste of Ger¬ 
many placed in the first class of his works. 
The versions of Leonora, of Oberon, of Wal¬ 
lenstein, of Nathan, and of Iphigenia in 
Tauris, are among those which do the most 
honour to English literature. Goetz of 
Berlichingen has been vigorously rendered 
by a writer, whose chivalrous genius, exerted 
upon somewhat similar scenes of British 
history, has since rendered him the most 
popular poet of his age. 

An epic poem, or a poetical romance, has 
lately been discovered in Germany, entitled 
“ Niebelungen,” on the Destruction of the 
Burgundians by Attila; and it is believed, 
that at least some parts of it were composed 
not long after the event, though the whole 
did not assume its present shape till the 
completion of the vernacular languages 
about the beginning of the thirteenth cen¬ 
tury. Luther’s version of the Scriptures 
was an epoch in German literature. One 
of the innumerable blessings of the Reforma¬ 
tion was to make reading popular by such 
translations, and to accustom the people to 
weekly attempts at some sort of argument 
or declamation in their native tongue. The 
vigorous mind of the great Reformer gave 
to his translation an energy and conciseness 
which made it a model in style, as well as 
an authority in language. Hagedorn, Weiss, 
and Gellert, copied the French without 
vivacity; and Bodmer imitated the English 
without genius. 

At length Klopstock, an imitator of Milton, 
formed a German poetry, and Wieland im¬ 
proved the language and versification; 
though this last accomplished writer has 
somewhat suffered in his reputation, by the 
recent zeal of the Germans against the imi¬ 
tation of any foreign, but especially of the 
French school. “ The genius of Klopstock 
was enflamed by the perusal of Milton and 
Young.” This combination of names is 
astonishing to an English ear. It creates a 
presumption against the poetical sensibility 

of Klopstock, to find that he combined two 
poets, placed at an immeasurable distance 
from each other; and whose whole super¬ 
ficial resemblance arises from some part of 
Milton’s subject, and from the doctrines of 
their theology, rather than the spirit of their 
religion. Through all the works of Young, 
written with such a variety of temper and 
manner, there predominates one talent, — 
inexhaustible wit, with little soundness of 
reason or depth of sensibility. His melan¬ 
choly is artificial, and his combinations are 
as grotesque and fantastic in his Night 
Thoughts as in his Satires. How exactly 
does a poet characterise his own talent, who 
opens a series of poetical meditations on 
death and immortality by a satirical epigram 
against the selfishness of the world ? Wit 
and ingenuity are the only talents which 
Milton disdained. He is simple in his con¬ 
ceptions, even when his diction is overloaded 
with gorgeous learning. He is never gloomy 
but when he is grand. He is the painter of 
love, as well as of terror. He did not aim 
at mirth; but he is cheerful whenever he 
descends from higher feelings : and nothing 
tends more to inspire a calm and constant 
delight, than the contemplation of that ideal 
purity and grandeur which he, above all 
poets, had the faculty of bestowing on every 
form of moral nature. Klopstock’s ode on 
the rivalship of the muse in Germany with 
the muse of Albion, is elegantly translated 
by Mad. de Stael; and we applaud her taste 
for preferring prose to verse in French 
translations of German poems. 

After having spoken of Winkelmann and 
Lessing, the most perspicuous, concise, and 
lively of German prose writers, she proceeds 
to Schiller and Goethe, the greatest of Ger¬ 
man poets. Schiller presents only the genius 
of a great poet, and the character of a vir¬ 
tuous man. The original, singular, and 
rather admirable than amiable mind of 
Goethe,—his dictatorial power over national 
literature, — his inequality, caprice, origin¬ 
ality, and fire in conversation, — his union 
of a youthful imagination with exhausted 
sensibility, and the impartiality of a stern 
sagacity, neither influenced by opinions nor 






REVIEW OF DE L’ALLEMAGNE. 529 


predilections, are painted with extraordinary 
skill. 

Among the tragedies of Schiller which 
have appeared since we have ceased to trans¬ 
late German dramas, the most celebrated 
are, Mary Stuart, Joan of Arc, and William 
Tell. Such subjects as Mary Stuart gene¬ 
rally excite an expectation which cannot be 
gratified. We agree with Madame de Stael 
in admiring many scenes of Schiller’s Mary, 
and especially her noble farewell to Leices¬ 
ter. But the tragedy would probably dis¬ 
please English readers, to say nothing of 
spectators. Our political disputes have 
given a more inflexible reality to the events 
of Elizabeth’s reign, than history would 
otherwise have bestowed on facts equally 
modern. Neither of our parties could en¬ 
dure a Mary who confesses the murder of 
her husband, or an Elizabeth who instigates 
the assassination of her prisoner. In William 
Tell, Schiller has avoided the common¬ 
places of a republian conspiracy, and faith¬ 
fully represented the indignation of an op¬ 
pressed Helvetian Highlander. 

Egmont is considered by Mad. de Stael 
as the finest of Goethe’s tragedies, written, 
like Werther, in the enthusiasm of his youth. 
It is rather singular that poets have availed 
themselves so little of the chivalrous charac¬ 
ter, the illustrious love, and the awful ma¬ 
lady of Tasso. The Torquato Tasso of 
Goethe is the only attempt to convert this 
subject to the purposes of the drama. Two 
men of genius, of very modern times, have 
suffered in a somewhat similar manner : but 
the habits of Rousseau’s life were vulgar, 
and the sufferings of Cowper are both recent 
and sacred. The scenes translated from 
Faust well represent the terrible energy 
of that most odious of the works of genius, 
in which the whole power of imagination is 
employed to dispel the charms which poetry 
bestows on human life, — where the punish¬ 
ment of vice proceeds from cruelty without 
justice, and “where the remorse seems as 
infernal as the guilt.” 

Since the death of Schiller, and the deser¬ 
tion of the drama by Goethe, several tragic 
writers have appeared, the most celebrated 


of whom are Werner, the author of Luther 
and of Attila, Gerstenberg, Klinger, Tieck, 
Collin, and Oehlenschlager, a Dane, who has 
introduced into his poetry the terrible my¬ 
thology of Scandinavia. 

The result of the chapter on Comedy 
seems to be, that the comic genius has not 
yet arisen in Germany. German novels 
have been more translated into English than 
other works of literature; and a novel by 
Tieck, entitled “ Sternbald,” seems to de¬ 
serve translation. Jean Paul Richter, a 
popular novelist, but too national to bear 
translation, said, “ that the French had the 
empire of the land, the English that of the 
sea, and the Germans that of the air.” 

Though Schiller wrote the History of the 
Belgic Revolt, and of the Thirty Years’ 
War, with eloquence and the spirit of liberty, 
the only classical writer in this department 
is J. de Muller, the historian of Switzer¬ 
land. Though born in a speculative age, he 
has chosen the picturesque and dramatic 
manner of ancient historians ; and his minute 
erudition in the annals of the Middle Ages 
supplies his imagination with the particulars 
which characterise persons and actions. He 
abuses his extent of knowledge and power 
of detail; he sometimes affects the senten¬ 
tiousness of Tacitus ; and his pursuit of an¬ 
tique phraseology occasionally degenerates 
into affectation. But his diction is in general 
grave and severe; and in his posthumous 
Abridgment of Universal History, he has 
shown great talents for that difficult sort of 
composition, — the power of comprehensive 
outline, of compression without obscurity, of 
painting characters by few and grand strokes, 
and of disposing events so skilfully, that 
their causes and effects are seen without 
being pointed out. Like Sallust, another 
affecter of archaism, and declaimer against 
his age, his private and political life is said 
to have been repugnant to his historical 
morality. “ The reader of Muller is desir¬ 
ous of believing that of all the virtues which 
he strongly felt in the composition of his 
works, there were at least some which he 
permanently possessed.” 

The estimate of literary Germany would 


M M 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


530 

not be complete, without the observation 
that it possesses a greater number of labo¬ 
rious scholars, and of useful books, than any 
other country. The possession of other lan¬ 
guages may open more literary enjoyment: 
the German is assuredly the key to most 
knowledge. The works of Fulleborn, Buhle, 
Tiedemann, and Tennemann are the first 
attempts to form a philosophical history of 
philosophy, of which the learned compiler 
Brucker had no more conception than a 
monkish annalist of rivalling Hume. The 
philosophy of literary history is one of the 
most recently opened fields of speculation. 
A few beautiful fragments of it are among 
the happiest parts of Hume’s Essays. The 
great work of Madame de Stael On Lite¬ 
rature was the first attempt on a bold and 
extensive scale. In the neighbourhood of 
her late residence*, and perhaps not unin¬ 
fluenced by her spirit, two writers of great 
merit, though of dissimilar character, have 
very recently treated various parts of this 
wide subject; M. de Sismondi, in his History 
of the Literature of the South, and M. de 
Barante, in his Picture of French Literature 
during the Eighteenth Century. Sismondi,. 
guided by Bouterweck and Schlegel, hazards 
larger views, indulges his talent for specu¬ 
lation, and seems with difficulty to suppress 
that bolder spirit, and those more liberal 
principles, which breathe in his History of 
the Italian Republics. Barante, more tho¬ 
roughly imbued with the elegancies and the 
prejudices of his national literature, feels 
more delicately the peculiarities of great 
writers, and traces with a more refined 
sagacity the immediate effects of their writ¬ 
ings. But his work, under a very ingenious 
disguise of literary criticism, is an attack on 
the opinions of the eighteenth century ; and 
it will assuredly never be honoured by the 
displeasure either of Napoleon, or of any of 
his successors in absolute power. 

One of our authoress’s chapters is chiefly 
employed on the works and system of William 
and Frederic Schlegel; — of whom William 
is celebrated for his Lectures on Dramatic 


* Coppet, near Geneva. 


Poetry, for his admirable translation of 
Shakspeare, and for versions, said to be of 
equal excellence, of the Spanish dramatic 
poets; and Frederic, besides his other merits, 
has the very singular distinction of having 
acquired the Sanscrit language, and studied 
the Indian learning and science in Europe, 
chiefly by the aid of a British Orientalist, 
long detained as a prisoner at Paris. The 
general tendency of the literary system of 
these critics is towards the manners, poetry, 
and religion of the Middle Ages. They have 
reached the extreme point towards which 
the^ general sentiment of Europe has been 
impelled by the calamities of a philosophical 
revolution, and the various fortunes of a 
twenty years’ universal war. They are pe¬ 
culiarly adverse to French literature, which, 
since the age of Louis XIV., has, in their 
opinion, weakened the primitive principles 
common to all Christendom, as well as di¬ 
vested the poetry of each people of its ori¬ 
ginality and character. Their system is 
exaggerated and exclusive: in pursuit of 
national originality, they lose sight of the 
primary and universal beauties of art. The 
imitation of our own antiquities may be as 
artificial as the copy of a foreign literature. 
Nothing is less natural than a modern an¬ 
tique. In a comprehensive system of lite¬ 
rature, there is sufficient place for the 
irregular works of sublime genius, and for 
the faultless models of classical taste. From 
age to age, the multitude fluctuates between 
various and sometimes opposite fashions of 
literary activity. These are not all of equal 
value; but the philosophical critic discovers 
and admires the common principles of beauty, 
from which they all derive their power over 
human nature. 

The Third Part of this work is the most 
singular. An account of metaphysical sys¬ 
tems by a woman, is a novelty in the history 
of the human mind; and whatever may be 
thought of its success in some of its parts, 
it must be regarded on the whole as the 
boldest effort of the female intellect. It 
must, however, not be forgotten, that it is 
a contribution rather to the history of human 
nature, than to that of speculation; and that 







REVIEW OF DE L’ALLEMAGNE. 


it considers the source, spirit, and moral in¬ 
fluence of metaphysical opinions, more than 
their truth or falsehood. “ Metaphysics are 
at least the gymnastics of the understand¬ 
ing.” The common-place clamour of medi¬ 
ocrity will naturally be excited by the sex, 
and even by the genius of the author. 
Every example of vivacity and grace, every 
exertion of fancy, every display of eloquence, 
every effusion of sensibility, will be cited as 
a presumption against the depth of her re¬ 
searches, and the accuracy of her statements. 
On such principles, the evidence against her 
would doubtless be conclusive. But dulness 
is not accuracy; nor are ingenious and ele¬ 
gant writers therefore superficial: and those 
who are best acquainted with the philoso¬ 
phical revolutions of Germany, will be most 
astonished at the general correctness of this 
short, clear, and agreeable exposition. 

The character of Lord Bacon is a just and 
noble tribute to his genius. Several eminent 
writers of the Continent have, however, lately 
fallen into the mistake of ascribing to him a 
system of opinions respecting the origin and 
first principles of human knowledge. What 
distinguishes him among great philosophers 
is, that he taught no peculiar opinions, but 
wholly devoted himself to the improvement 
of the method of philosophising. He belongs 
neither to the English nor any other school 
of metaphysics; for he was not a metaphy¬ 
sician. Mr. Locke was not a moralist; and 
his collateral discussions of ethical subjects 
are not among the valuable parts of his great 
work. “ The works of Dugald Stewart con¬ 
tain so perfect a theory of the intellectual 
faculties, that it may be considered as the 
natural history of a moral being.” The 
French metaphysicians of the 18th century, 
since Condillac, deserve the contempt ex¬ 
pressed for them, by their shallow, preci¬ 
pitate, and degrading misapplications of the 
Lockian philosophy. It is impossible to 
abridge the abridgment here given of the 
Kantian philosophy, or of those systems 
which have arisen from it, and which con¬ 
tinue to dispute the supremacy of the spe¬ 
culative world. The opinions of Kant are 
more fully stated, because he has changed 


531 

the general manner of thinking, and has 
given a new direction to the national mind. 
Those of Fichte, Schelling, and his other 
successors, it is of less importance to the 
proper purpose of this work to detail; be¬ 
cause, though their doctrines be new, they 
continue and produce the same effect on 
national character, and the same influence 
on sciences and arts. The manner of philo¬ 
sophising remains the same in the Idealism 
of Fichte, and in the Pantheism of Schelling. 
Under various names and forms, it is the 
general tendency of the German philosophy 
to consider thought not as the produce of 
objects, or as one of the classes of pheno¬ 
mena, but as the agent which exhibits the 
appearance of the outward world, and which 
regulates those operations which it seems 
only to represent. The philosophy of the 
human understanding is, in all countries, 
acknowledged to contain the principles of 
all sciences; but in Germany, metaphysical 
speculation pervades their application to 
particulars. 

The subject of the Fourth Part is the state 
of religion, and the nature of all those dis¬ 
interested and exalted sentiments which are 
here comprehended under the name of “ en¬ 
thusiasm.” A contemplative people like the 
Germans have in their character the prin¬ 
ciple which disposes men to religion. The 
Reformation, which was their Revolution, 
arose from ideas. “ Of all the great men 
whom Germany has produced, Luther has 
the most German character. His firmness 
had something rude; his conviction made 
him opinionated; intellectual boldness was 
the source of his courage; in action, the 
ardour of his passions did not divert him 
from abstract studies; and though he at¬ 
tacked certain dogmas and practices, he was 
not urged to the attack by incredulity, but 
by enthusiasm.” 

“ The right of examining what we ought 
to believe, is the foundation of Protest¬ 
antism.” Though each of the first Re¬ 
formers established a practical Popery in his 
own church, opinions were gradually libe¬ 
ralised, and the temper of sects was softened. 
Little open incredulity had appeared in Ger- 


M M 2 









532 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


many; and even Lessing speculated with far 
more circumspection than had been observed 
by a series of English writers from Hobbes 
to Bolingbroke. Secret unbelievers were 
friendly to Christianity and Protestantism, 
as institutions beneficial to mankind, and far 
removed from that anti-religious fanaticism 
which was more naturally provoked in 
France by the intolerant spirit and invidious 
splendour of a Catholic hierarchy. 

The reaction of the French Revolution 
has been felt throughout Europe, in religion 
as well as in politics. Many of the higher 
classes adopted some portion of those reli¬ 
gious sentiments of which they at first 
assumed the exterior, as a badge of their 
hostility to the fashions of France. The 
sensibility of the multitude, impatient of 
cold dogmatism and morality, eagerly sought 
to be once more roused by a religion which 
employed popular eloquence, and spoke to 
imagination and emotion. The gloom of 
general convulsions and calamities created a 
disposition to seriousness, and to the con¬ 
solations of piety; and the disasters of a 
revolution allied to incredulity threw a 
more than usual discredit and odium on 
irreligious opinions. In Great Britain, these 
causes have acted most conspicuously on the 
inferior classes; though they have also power¬ 
fully affected many enlightened and accom¬ 
plished individuals of a higher condition. 
In France, they have produced in some men 
of letters the play of a sort of poetical reli¬ 
gion round the fancy: but the general effect 
seems to have been a disposition to establish 
a double doctrine, — a system of infidelity 
for the initiated, with a contemptuous indul¬ 
gence and even active encouragement of 
superstition among the vulgar, like that 
which prevailed among the ancients before 
the rise of Christianity. This sentiment 
(from the revival of which the Lutheran Re¬ 
formation seems to have preserved Europe), 
though not so furious and frantic as the 
atheistical fanaticism of the Reign of Terror, 
is, beyond any permanent condition of human 
society, destructive of ingenuousness, good 
faith, and probity, — of intellectual courage, 
and manly character, — and of that respect 


for all human beings, without which there 
can be no justice or humanity from the 
powerful towards the humble. 

In Germany the effects have been also 
very remarkable. Some men of eminence 
in literature have become Catholics. In 
general, their tendency is towards a pious 
mysticism, which almost equally loves every 
sect where a devotional spirit prevails. They 
have returned rather to sentiment than to 
dogma, — more to religion than to theology. 
Their disposition to religious feeling, which 
they call “ religiosity,” is, to use the words 
of a strictly orthodox English theologian, 
“a love of divine things for the beauty of 
their moral qualities.” It is the love of the 
good and fair, wherever it exists, but chiefly 
when absolute and boundless excellence is 
contemplated in “ the first good, first perfect, 
first fair.” This moral enthusiasm easily 
adapts itself to the various ceremonies of 
worship, and even systems of opinion pre¬ 
valent among mankind. The devotional 
spirit, contemplating different parts of the 
order of nature, or influenced by a different 
temper of mind, may give rise to very dif¬ 
ferent and apparently repugnant theological 
doctrines. These doctrines are considered 
as modifications of human nature, under the 
influence of the religious principle, — not as 
propositions which argument can either esta¬ 
blish or confute, or reconcile with each other. 
The Ideal philosophy favours this singular 
manner of considering the subject. As it 
leaves no reality but in the mind, it lessens 
the distance between belief and imagination, 
and disposes its adherents to regard opinions 
as the mere play of the understanding,— 
incapable of being measured by any outward 
standard, and important chiefly from re¬ 
ference to the sentiment from which they 
spring, and on which they powerfully react. 
The union of a mystical piety with a philo¬ 
sophy verging towards Idealism, has ac¬ 
cordingly been observed in periods of the 
history of the human understanding very 
distant from each other, and, in most of their 
other circumstances, extremely dissimilar. 
The same language, respecting the anni¬ 
hilation of self and of the world, may be 





REVIEW OF DE L’ALLEMAGNE. 533 

used by the sceptic and by the enthusiast. 
Among the Hindu philosophers in the most 
ancient times, — among the Sufis in modern 
Persia,—during the ferment of Eastern and 
Western opinions, which produced the latter 
Platonism, — in Malebranche and his English 
disciple Norris, — and in Berkeley himself, 
though in a tempered and mitigated state,— 
the tendency to this union may be distinctly 
traced. It seems, however, to be fitted only 
for few men; and for them not long. Sen¬ 
timents so sublime, and so distant from the 
vulgar affairs and boisterous passions of men, 
may be preserved for a time in the calm 
solitude of a contemplative visionary ; but in 
the bustle of the world they are likely soon to 
evaporate, when they are neither embodied 
in opinions, nor adorned by ceremonies, nor 
animated by the attack and defence of con¬ 
troversy. When the ardour of a short-lived 
enthusiasm has subsided, the poetical philo¬ 
sophy which exalted fancy to the level of be¬ 
lief, may probably leave the same ultimate 
result with the argumentative scepticism 
which lowered belief to the level of fancy. 

An ardent susceptibility of every disin¬ 
terested sentiment, — more especially of 
every social affection, — blended by the 
power of imagination with a passionate love 
of the beautiful, the grand, and the good, is, 
under the name of “ enthusiasm,” the subject 
of the conclusion, — the most eloquent part 
(if we perhaps except the incomparable 
chapter on “ Conjugal Love ”) of a work 
which, for variety of knowledge, flexibility 
of power, elevation of view, and compre¬ 
hension of mind, is unequal among the 
works of women ; and which, in the union 
of the graces of society and literature with 
the genius of philosophy, is not surpassed 
by many among those of men. To affect 
any tenderness in pointing out its defects or 
faults, would be an absurd assumption of 
superiority : it has no need of mercy. The 
most obvious and general objection will be, 
that the Germans are too much praised. 
But every writer must be allowed to value 
his subject somewhat higher than the spec¬ 
tator : unless the German feelings had been 
adopted, they could not have been forcibly 

1------*- 

represented. It will also be found, that 
the objection is more apparent than real. 
Mad. de Stael is indeed the most generous 
of critics ; but she almost always speaks the 
whole truth to intelligent ears; though she 
often hints the unfavourable parts of it so 
gently and politely, that they may escape 
the notice of a hasty reader, and be scarcely 
perceived by a gross understanding. A 
careful reader, who brings together all the 
observations intentionally scattered over 
various parts of the book, will find sufficient 
justice (though administered in mercy) in 
whatever respects manners or literature. It 
is on subjects of philosophy that the ad¬ 
miration will perhaps justly be considered as 
more undistinguishing. Something of the 
wonder excited by novelty in language and 
opinion still influences her mind. Many 
writers have acquired philosophical celebrity 
in Germany, who, if they had written with 
equal power, would have been unnoticed 
or soon forgotten in England. Our theo- 
sophists, the Ilutchinsonians, had as many 
men of talent among them, as those whom 
M. de Stael has honoured by her mention 
among the Germans: but they have long 
since irrecoverably sunk into oblivion. 
There is a writer now alive in England *, 
who has published doctrines not dissimilar 
to those which Mad. de Stael ascribes to 
Schelling. Notwithstanding the allure¬ 
ments of a singular character, and an un¬ 
intelligible style, his paradoxes are pro¬ 
bably not known to a dozen persons in this 
busy country of industry and ambition. In a 
bigoted age, he might have suffered the mar¬ 
tyrdom of Yanini or Bruno : in a metaphy¬ 
sical country, where a new publication was 
the most interesting event, and where twenty 
universities, unfettered by Church or State, 
were hotbeds of speculation, he might have 
acquired celebrity as the founder of a sect. 

In this as in the other writings of Mad. 
de Stael, the reader (or at least the lazy 
English reader) is apt to be wearied by too 
constant a demand upon his admiration. It 
seems to be part of her literary system, that 

* Probably Mr. William Taylor, of Norwich.—En. 
















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


534 


the pauses of eloquence must be filled up by 
ingenuity. Nothing plain and unornamented 
is left in composition. But we desire a 
plain groundwork, from which wit or elo¬ 
quence is to arise, when the occasion calls 
them forth. The effect would be often 
greater if the talent were less. The natural 
power of interesting scenes or events over 
the heart, is somewhat disturbed by too 
uniform a colour of sentiment, and by the 
constant pursuit of uncommon reflections or 
ingenious turns. The eye is dazzled by 
unvaried brilliancy. We long for the grate¬ 
ful vicissitude of repose. 

In the statement of facts and reasonings, 
no style is more clear than that of Mad. de 
Stael; — what is so lively must indeed be 
clear: but in the expression of sentiment 
she has been often thought to use vague 
language. In expressing either intense de¬ 
grees, or delicate shades, or intricate com¬ 
binations of feeling, the common reader will 
seldom understand that of which he has 
never been conscious ; and the writer placed 
on the extreme frontiers of human nature, 
is in danger of mistaking chimeras for 
realities, or of failing in a struggle to ex¬ 
press what language does not afford the 
means of describing. There is also a vague¬ 
ness incident to the language of feeling, 
which is not so properly a defect, as a 
quality which distinguishes it from the lan¬ 
guage of thought. Very often in poetry, 
and sometimes in eloquence, it is the office 
of words, not so much to denote a succession 
of separate ideas, as, like musical sounds, 
to inspire a series of emotions, or to pro¬ 
duce a durable tone of sentiment. The 
terms “ perspicuity ” and “ precision,” which 
denote the relations of language to intel¬ 
lectual discernment, are inapplicable to it 
when employed as the mere vehicle of a suc¬ 
cession of feelings. A series of words may, 
in this manner, be very expressive, where 
few of them singly convey a precise mean¬ 
ing : and men of greater intellect than sus¬ 
ceptibility, in such passages as those of 
Mad. de Stael, — where eloquence is em¬ 
ployed chiefly to inspire feeling, — unjustly 
charge their own defects to that deep, 


moral, and poetical sensibility with which 
they are unable to sympathise. 

The few persons in Great Britain who 
continue to take an interest in speculative 
philosophy, will certainly complain of some 
injustice in her estimate of German meta¬ 
physical systems. The moral painter of 
nations is indeed more authorised than the 
speculative philosopher to try these opi¬ 
nions by their tendencies and results. When 
the logical consequences of an opinion are 
false, the opinion itself must also be false : 
*but whether the supposed pernicious in¬ 
fluence of the adoption, or habitual contem¬ 
plation of an opinion, be a legitimate objec¬ 
tion to the opinion itself, is a question 
which has not yet been decided to the ge¬ 
neral satisfaction, nor perhaps even stated 
with sufficient precision. 

There are certain facts in human nature, 
derived either from immediate consciousness 
or unvarying observation, which are more 
certain than the conclusions of any abstract 
reasoning, and which metaphysical theories 
are destined only to explain. That a theory 
is at variance with such facts, and logically 
leads to the denial of their existence, is a 
strictly philosophical objection to the theory: 
that there is a real distinction between right 
and wrong, in some measure apprehended 
and felt by all men, — that moral senti¬ 
ments and disinterested affections, however 
originating, are actually a part of our na¬ 
ture, — that praise and blame, reward and 
punishment, may be properly bestowed on 
actions according to their moral character, 
— are principles as much more indubitable 
as they are more important than any theo¬ 
retical conclusions. Whether they be de¬ 
monstrated by reason, or perceived by 
intuition, or revealed by a primitive senti¬ 
ment, they are equally indispensable parts 
of every sound mind. But the mere incon¬ 
venience or danger of an opinion can never 
be allowed as an argument against its truth. 
It is indeed the duty of every good man to 
present to the public what he believes to be 
truth, in such a manner as may least wound 
the feelings, or disturb the principles of the 
simple and the ignorant: and that duty is 













OPENING OF THE LITERARY SOCIETY OF BOMBAY. 535 

not always easily reconcileable with the 
duties of sincerity and free inquiry. The 
collision of such conflicting duties is the 
painful and inevitable consequence of the 
ignorance of the multitude, and of the im¬ 
mature state, even in the highest minds, of 
the great talent for presenting truth under 
all its aspects, and adapting it to all the 
degrees of capacity or varieties of prejudice 
which distinguish men. That talent must 
one day be formed; and we may be per¬ 
fectly assured that the whole of truth can 
never be injurious to the whole of virtue. 
In the mean time philosophers would act 
more magnanimously, and therefore, per¬ 
haps, more wisely, if they were to suspend, 
during discussion*,their moral anger against 

doctrines which they deem pernicious; and, 
while they estimate actions, habits, and in¬ 
stitutions, by their tendency, to weigh opi¬ 
nions in the mere balance of reason. Virtue 
in action may require the impulse of senti¬ 
ment, and even of enthusiasm : but in theo¬ 
retical researches, her champions must not 
appear to decline the combat on any ground 
chosen by their adversaries, and least of all 
on that of intellect. To call in the aid of 
popular feelings in philosophical contests, is 
some avowal of weakness. It seems a more 
magnanimous wisdom to defy attack from 
every quarter, and by every weapon; and 
to use no topics which can be thought to 
imply an unworthy doubt whether the prin¬ 
ciples of virtue be impregnable by argu¬ 
ment, or to betray an irreverent distrust of 
the final and perfect harmony between 
morality and truth. 

* The observation may be applied to Cicero and 
Stewart, as well as to Mad. de Stael. 

DISCOURSE 

BEAD AT THE 

OPENING OF THE LITERARY SOCIETY OF BOMBAY. 

[26th Nov. 1804.] 

Gentlemen, — The smallest society brought 
together by the love of knowledge, is re¬ 
spectable in the eye of Reason ; and the fee¬ 
blest efforts of infant Literature in barren 
and inhospitable regions are in some respects 
more interesting than the most elaborate 
works and the most successful exertions of 
the human mind. They prove the diffusion, 
at least, if not the advancement of science ; 
and they afford some sanction to the hope, 
that Knowledge is destined one day to visit 
the whole earth, and, in her beneficial pro¬ 
gress, to illuminate and humanise the whole 

race of man. It is therefore, with singular 
pleasure, that I see a small but respectable 
body of men assembled here by such a prin¬ 
ciple. I hope that we agree in considering 
all Europeans who visit remote countries, 
whatever their separate pursuits may be, as 
detachments of the main body of civilised 
men, sent out to levy contributions of know¬ 
ledge, as well as to gain victories over 
barbarism. 

When a large portion of a country so inter¬ 
esting as India fell into the hands of one of 
the most intelligent and inquisitive nations 
















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


536 


of the world, it was natural to expect that its 
ancient and present state should at last be 
fully disclosed. These expectations were, 
indeed, for a time disappointed: during the 
tumult of revolution and war it would have 
been unreasonable to have entertained them; 
and when tranquillity was established in that 
country, which continues to be the centre of 
the British power in Asia*, it ought not to 
have been forgotten that every Englishman 
was fully occupied by commerce, by military 
service, or by administration; that we had 
among us no idle public of readers, and, con¬ 
sequently, no separate profession of writers; 
and that every hour bestowed on study was 
to be stolen from the leisure of men often 
harassed by business, enervated by the cli¬ 
mate, and more disposed to seek amusement 
than new occupation, in the intervals of their 
appointed toils. 

It is, besides, a part of our national cha¬ 
racter, that we are seldom eager to display, 
and not always ready to communicate, what 
we have acquired. In this respect we differ 
considerably from other lettered nations. 
Our ingenious and polite neighbours on the 
continent of Europe, — to whose enjoyment 
the applause of others seems more indispen¬ 
sable,- and whose faculties are more nimble 
and restless, if not more vigorous than ours, 
— are neither so patient of repose, nor so 
likely to be contented with a secret hoard of 
knowledge. They carry even into their lite¬ 
rature a spirit of bustle and parade; — a 
bustle, indeed, which springs from activity, 
and a parade which animates enterprise, but 
which are incompatible with our sluggish 
and sullen dignity. Pride disdains ostenta¬ 
tion, scorns false pretensions, despises even 
petty merit, refuses to obtain the objects of 
pursuit by flattery or importunity, and 
scarcely values any praise but that which 
she has the right to command. Pride, with 
which foreigners charge us, and which under 
the name of a “ sense of dignity ” we claim 
for ourselves, is a lazy and unsocial quality; 
and is in these respects, as in most others, 
the very reverse of the sociable and good- 


* Bengal.—En. 


humoured vice of vanity. It is not, there¬ 
fore, to be wondered at, if in India our 
national character, co-operating with local 
circumstances, should have produced some 
real and perhaps more apparent inactivity in 
working the mine of knowledge of which we 
had become the masters. 

Yet some of the earliest exertions of pri¬ 
vate Englishmen are too important to be 
passed over in silence. The compilation of 
laws by Mr. Halhed, and the Ayeen Akbaree, 
translated by Mr. Gladwin, deserve honour¬ 
able mention. Mr. Wilkins gained the me¬ 
morable distinction of having opened the 
treasures of a new learned language to 
Europe. 

But, notwithstanding the merit of these 
individual exertions, it cannot be denied that 
the era of a general direction of the mind of 
Englishmen in this country towards learned 
inquiries, was the foundation of the Asiatic 
Society by Sir William Jones. To give such 
an impulse to the public understanding is 
one of the greatest benefits that a man can 
confer on his fellow-men. On such an occa¬ 
sion as the present, it is impossible to pro¬ 
nounce the name of Sir William Jones with¬ 
out feelings of gratitude and reverence. He 
was among the distinguished persons who 
adorned one of the brightest periods of En¬ 
glish literature. It was no mean distinction 
to be conspicuous in the age of Burke and 
Johnson, of Hume and Smith, of Gray and 
Goldsmith, of Gibbon and Robertson, of 
Reynolds and Garrick. It was the fortune 
of Sir William Jones to have been the friend 
of the greater part of these illustrious men. 
Without him, the age in which he lived 
would have been inferior to past times in 
one kind of literary glory: he surpassed all 
his contemporaries, and perhaps even the 
most laborious scholars of the two former 
centuries, in extent and variety of attain¬ 
ment. His facility in acquiring was almost 
prodigious ; and he possessed that faculty of 
arranging and communicating his knowledge 
which these laborious scholars very generally 
wanted. Erudition, which in them was often 
disorderly and rugged, and had something of 
an illiberal and almost barbarous air, was by 






OPENING OF THE LITERARY SOCIETY OF BOMBAY. 537 

him presented to the world with all the | 
elegance and amenity of polite literature. 
Though he seldom directed his mind to those j 
subjects the successful investigation of which 
confers the name of a “ philosopher,” yet he 
possessed in a very eminent degree that 
habit of disposing his knowledge in regular 
and analytical order, which is one of the 
properties of a philosophical understanding. 
His talents as an elegant writer in verse 
were among his instruments for attaining 
knowledge, and a new example of the va¬ 
riety of his accomplishments. In his easy 
and flowing prose, we justly admire that 
order of exposition and transparency of 
language, which are the most indispensable 
qualities of style, and the chief excellencies 
of which it is capable, when it is employed 
solely to instruct. His writings everywhere 
breathe pure taste in morals as well as in lite¬ 
rature ; and it may be said with truth, that 
not a single sentiment has escaped him which 
does not indicate the real elegance and dig¬ 
nity which pervaded the most secret recesses 
of his mind. He had lived, perhaps, too ex¬ 
clusively in the world of learning for the 
cultivation of his practical understanding. 
Other men have meditated more deeply on 
the constitution of society, and have taken 
more comprehensive views of its complicated 
relations and infinitely varied interests. 
Others have, therefore, often taught sounder 
principles of political science: but no man 
more warmly felt, and no author is better 
calculated to inspire, those generous senti¬ 
ments of liberty, without which the most 
just principles are useless and lifeless, and 
which will, I trust, continue to flow through 
the channels of eloquence and poetry into 
the minds of British youth. It has, indeed, 
been somewhat lamented that he should have 
exclusively directed inquiry towards anti¬ 
quities. But every man must be allowed to 
recommend most strongly his own favourite 
pursuits ; and the chief difficulty as well as 
the chief merit is his, who first raises the 
minds of men to the love of any part of 
knowledge. When mental activity is once 
roused, its direction is easily changed ,• and 
the excesses of one writer, if they are not 

checked by public reason, are compensated 
by the opposite ones of his successor. “What¬ 
ever withdraws us from the dominion of the 
senses, —whatever makes the past, the dis¬ 
tant, and the future predominate over the 
present, advances us in the dignity of think¬ 
ing beings.” * 

It is not for me to attempt an estimate of 
those exertions for the advancement of know¬ 
ledge which have arisen from the example 
and exhortations of Sir William J ones. In 
all judgments pronounced on our contempo¬ 
raries it is so certain that we shall be ac¬ 
cused, and so probable that we may be justly 
accused, of either partially bestowing, or 
invidiously withholding praise, that it is in 
general better to attempt no encroachment 
on the jurisdiction of Time, which alone im¬ 
partially and justly estimates the works of 
men. But it would be unpardonable not to 
speak of the College at Calcutta, the original < 
plan of which was doubtless the most magni¬ 
ficent attempt ever made for the promotion 
of learning in the East. I am not conscious 
that I am biassed either by personal feelings 
or literary prejudices when I say, that I 
consider that original plan as a wise and 
noble proposition, the adoption of which in 
its full extent would have had the happiest 
tendency in securing the good government 
of India, as well as in promoting the interest 
of science. Even in its present mutilated 
state we have seen, at the last public ex¬ 
hibition, Sanscrit declamation by English 
youth f; — a circumstance so extraordinary, 
that, if it be followed by suitable advances, 
it will mark an epoch in the history of 
learning. 

Among the humblest fruits of this spirit, 

I take the liberty to mention the project of 
forming this Society, which occurred to me 
before I left England, but which never could 
have advanced even to its present state 
without your hearty concurrence, and which 
must depend on your active co-operation for 
i all hopes of future success. 

* Dr. Johnson at Iona. — Ed. 
f It must be remembered that this was written 
in 1804. — Ed. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


538 


You will not suspect me of presuming to 
dictate the nature and object of our common 
exertions. To be valuable they must be spon¬ 
taneous ; and no literary society can subsist 
on any other principle than that of equality. 
In the observations which I shall make on 
the plan and subject of our inquiries, I shall 
offer myself to you only as the representative 
of the curiosity of Europe. I am ambitious 
of no higher office than that of faithfully 
conveying to India the desires and wants of 
the learned at home, and of stating the sub¬ 
jects on which they wish and expect satis¬ 
faction, from inquiries which can be pursued 
only in India. 

In fulfilling the duties of this mission, I 
shall not be expected to exhaust so vast a 
subject; nor is it necessary that I should 
attempt an exact distribution of science. A 
very general sketch is all that I can promise; 
in which I shall pass over many subjects 
rapidly, and dwell only on those parts on 
which from my own habits of study I may 
think myself least disqualified to offer useful 
suggestions. 

The objects of these inquiries, as of all 
human knowledge, are reducible to two 
classes, which, for want of more significant 
and precise terms, we must be content to 
call “Physical” and “Moral,”—aware of the 
laxity and ambiguity of these words, but not 
affecting a greater degree of exactness than 
is necessary for our immediate purpose. 

The physical sciences afford so easy and 
pleasing an amusement; they are so directly 
subservient to the useful arts ; and in their 
higher forms they so much delight our ima¬ 
gination and flatter our pride, by the display 
of the authority of man over nature, that 
there can be no need of arguments to prove 
their utility, and no want of powerful and 
obvious motives to dispose men to their cul¬ 
tivation. The whole extensive and beautiful 
science of Natural History, which is the 
foundation of all physical knowledge, has 
many additional charms in a country where 
so many treasures must still be unexplored. 

The science of Mineralogy, which has 
been of late years cultivated with great ac¬ 
tivity in Europe, has such a palpable con¬ 


nexion with the useful arts of life, that it 
cannot be necessary to recommend it to the 
attention of the intelligent and curious. 
India is a country which I believe no mine¬ 
ralogist has yet examined, and which would 
doubtless amply repay the labour of the first 
scientific adventurers who explore it. The 
discovery of new sources of wealth would 
probably be the result of such an investi¬ 
gation; and something might perhaps be 
contributed towards the accomplishment of 
the ambitious projects of those philosophers, 
who, from the arrangement of earths and 
minerals, have been bold enough to form 
conjectures respecting the general laws 
which have governed the past revolutions of 
our planet, and which preserve its parts in 
their present order. 

The Botany of India has been less neg¬ 
lected, but it cannot be exhausted. The 
higher parts of the science, the structure, 
the functions, the habits of vegetables, — 
all subjects intimately connected with the 
first of physical sciences, though, unfor¬ 
tunately, the most dark and difficult, the 
philosophy of life, — have in general been 
too much sacrificed to objects of value, in¬ 
deed, but of a value far inferior : and pro¬ 
fessed botanists have usually contented 
themselves with observing enough of plants 
to give them a name in their scientific lan¬ 
guage, and a place in their artificial ar¬ 
rangement. 

Much information also remains to be 
gleaned on that part of natural history 
which regards Animals. The manners of 
many tropical races must have been imper¬ 
fectly observed in a few individuals sepa¬ 
rated from their fellows, and imprisoned in 
the unfriendly climate of Europe. 

The variations of temperature, the state 
of the atmosphere, all the appearances that 
are comprehended under the words “weather” 
and “ climate,” are the conceivable subject 
of a science of which no rudiments yet 
exist. It will probably require the observ¬ 
ations of centuries to lay the foundations 
of theory on this subject. There can scarce 
be any region of the world more favourably 
circumstanced for observation than India; 












OPENING OF THE LITERARY SOCIETY OF BOMBAY. 539 


for there is none in which the operation of 
these causes is more regular, more powerful, 
or more immediately discoverable in their 
effect on vegetable and animal nature. Those 
philosophers who have denied the influence 
of climate on the human character were not 
inhabitants of a tropical country. 

To the members of the learned profession 
of medicine, who are necessarily spread over 
every part of India, all the above inquiries 
peculiarly, though not exclusively, belong. 
Some of them are eminent for science ; many 
must be well-informed; and their profes¬ 
sional education must have given to all some 
tincture of physical knowledge. With even 
moderate preliminary acquirements they 
may be very useful, if they will but con¬ 
sider themselves as philosophical collectors, 
whose duty it is never to neglect a favour¬ 
able opportunity for observations on weather 
and climate, to keep exact journals of what¬ 
ever they observe, and to transmit, through 
their immediate superiors, to the scientific 
depositories of Great Britain, specimens of 
every mineral, vegetable, or animal pro¬ 
duction which they conceive to be sin¬ 
gular, or with respect to which they .suppose 
themselves to have observed any new and 
important facts. If their previous studies 
have been imperfect, they will, no doubt, be 
sometimes mistaken : but these mistakes are 
perfectly harmless. It is better that ten 
useless specimens should be sent to London, 
than that one curious one should be neglected. 

But it is on another and a still more im¬ 
portant subject that we expect the most 
valuable assistance from our medical asso¬ 
ciates :—this is, the science of Medicine 
itself. It must be allowed not to be quite 
so certain as it is important. But though 
every man ventures to scoff at its uncer¬ 
tainty as long as he is in vigorous health, 
yet the hardiest sceptic becomes credulous 
as soon as his head is fixed to the pillow. 
Those who examine the history of medicine 
without either scepticism or blind admir¬ 
ation, will find that every civilised age, after 
all the fluctuations of systems, opinions, and 
modes of practice, has at length left some 
balance, however small, of new truth to the 


succeeding generation; and that the stock 
of human knowledge in this as well as in 
other departments is constantly, though, it 
must be owned, very slowly, increasing. 
Since my arrival here, I have had sufficient 
reason to believe that the practitioners of 
medicine in India are not unworthy of their 
enlightened and benevolent profession. From 
them, therefore, I hope the public may de¬ 
rive, through the medium of this Society, 
information of the highest value. Diseases 
and modes of cure unknown to European 
physicians may be disclosed to them; and if 
the causes of disease are more active in this 
country than in England, remedies are em¬ 
ployed and diseases subdued, at least in 
some cases, with a certainty which might 
excite the wonder of the most successful 
practitioners in Europe. By full and faith¬ 
ful narratives of their modes of treatment 
they will conquer that distrust of new plans 
of cure, and that incredulity respecting 
whatever is uncommon, which sometimes 
prevail among our English physicians; which 
are the natural result of much experience 
and many disappointments ; and which, 
though individuals have often just reason 
to complain of their indiscriminate appli¬ 
cation, are not ultimately injurious to the 
progress of the medical art. They never 
finally prevent the adoption of just theory 
or of useful practice: they retard it no 
longer than is necessary for such a severe 
trial as precludes all future doubt. Even in 
their excess, they are wholesome correctives 
of the opposite excesses of credulity and 
dogmatism; they are safeguards against 
exaggeration and quackery; they are tests 
of utility and truth. A philosophical phy¬ 
sician, who is a real lover of his art, ought 
not, therefore, to desire the extinction of 
these dispositions, though he may suffer tem¬ 
porary injustice from their influence. 

Those objects of our inquiries which I 
have called “ Moral ” (employing that term 
in the sense in which it is contradistinguished 
from “Physical”) will chiefly comprehend 
the past and present condition of the in¬ 
habitants of the vast country which sur¬ 
rounds us. 











540 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


To begin with their present condition : — 
I take the liberty of very earnestly recom¬ 
mending a kind of research, which has 
hitherto been either neglected or only car¬ 
ried on for the information of Government, 
— I mean the investigation of those facts 
which are the subjects of political arithmetic 
and statistics, and which are a part of the 
foundation of the science of Political Eco¬ 
nomy. The numbers of the people; the 
number of births, marriages, and deaths; 
the proportion of children who are reared 
to maturity; the distribution of the people 
according to their occupations and castes, 
and especially according to the great divi¬ 
sion of agricultural and manufacturing; 
and the relative state of these circumstances 
at different periods, which can only be as¬ 
certained by permanent tables, — are the 
basis of this important part of knowledge. 
No tables of political arithmetic have yet 
been made public from any tropical country. 
I need not expatiate on the importance of 
the information which such tables would 
be likely to afford. I shall mention only as 
an example of their value, that they must 
lead to a decisive solution of the problems 
with respect to the influence of polygamy 
on population, and the supposed origin of 
that practice in the disproportioned number 
of the sexes. But in a country where every 
part of the system of manners and institu¬ 
tions differs from those of Europe, it is 
impossible to foresee the extent and variety 
of the new results which an accurate survey 
might present to us. 

These inquiries are naturally followed by 
those which regard the subsistence of the 
people; the origin and distribution of public 
wealth ; the wages of every kind of labour, 
from the rudest to the most refined; the 
price of commodities, and especially of pro¬ 
visions, which necessarily regulates that of 
all others; the modes of the tenure and 
occupation of land; the profits of trade; 
the usual and extraordinary rates of interest, 
which is the price paid for the hire of money; 
the nature and extent of domestic commerce, 
everywhere the greatest and most profitable, 
though the most difficult to be ascertained ; 


those of foreign traffic, more easy to be 
determined by the accounts of exports and 
imports; the contributions by which the 
expenses of government, of charitable, 
learned, and religious foundations are de¬ 
frayed ; the laws and customs which regu¬ 
late all these great objects, and the fluctu¬ 
ation which has been observed in all or any 
of them at different times and under different 
circumstances. These are some of the points 
towards which I should very earnestly wish 
to direct the curiosity of our intelligent 
countrymen in India. 

These inquiries have the advantage of 
being easy and open to all men of good 
sense. They do not, like antiquarian and 
philological researches, require great pre¬ 
vious erudition and constant reference to 
extensive libraries. They require nothing 
but a resolution to observe facts attentively 
and to relate them accurately; and whoever 
feels a disposition to ascend from facts to 
principles will, in general, find sufficient aid 
to his understanding in the great work of 
Dr. Smith,—the most permanent monu¬ 
ment of philosophical genius which our 
nation has produced in the present age. 

They have the further advantage of being 
closely and intimately connected with the 
professional pursuits and public duties of 
every Englishman who fills a civil office in 
this country : they form the very science of 
administration. One of the first requisites 
to the right administration of a district is 
the knowledge of its population, industry, 
and wealth. A magistrate ought to know 
the condition of the country which he super¬ 
intends ; a collector ought to understand its 
revenue ; a commercial resident ought to be 
thoroughly acquainted with its commerce. 
We only desire that part of the knowledge 
which they ought to possess should be com¬ 
municated to the world.* 


[* “ The English in India are too familiar with 
that country to feel much wonder in most parts of 
it, and are too transiently connected with it to take 
a national interest in its minute description. To 
these obstacles must be opposed both a sense of 
duty and a prospect of reputation. The servants 
of the Company would qualify themselves for the 






OPENING OF THE LITERARY SOCIETY OF BOMBAY. 541 

I will not pretend to affirm that no part 
of this knowledge ought to be confined to 
Government. I am not so intoxicated by 
philosophical prejudice as to maintain that 
the safety of a state is to be endangered 
for the gratification of scientific curiosity. 
Though I am far. from thinking that this is 
the department in which secresy is most 
useful, yet I do not presume to exclude it. 
But let it be remembered, that whatever 
information is thus confined to a Government 
may, for all purposes of science, be supposed 
not to exist. As long as the secresy is 
thought important, it is of course shut up 
from most of those who could turn it to best 

account; and when it ceases to be guarded 
with jealousy, it is as effectually secured 
from all useful examination by the mass of 
official lumber under which it is usually 
buried: for this reason, after a very short 
time, it is as much lost to the Government 
itself as it is to the public. A transient 
curiosity, or the necessity of illustrating 
some temporary matter, may induce a public 
officer to dig for knowledge under the heaps 
of rubbish that encumber his office ; but I 
have myself known intelligent public officers 
content themselves with the very inferior 
information contained in printed books, while 
their shelves groaned under the weight of 

performance of their public duties, by collecting 
the most minute accounts of the districts which 
they administer. The publication of such accounts 
must often distinguish the individuals, and always 
do credit to the meritorious body of which they 
are a part. Even the most diffident magistrate or 
collector might enlarge or correct the articles re¬ 
lating to his district and neighbourhood, in the 
lately published Gazetteer of India; and, by the 
communication of such materials, the very laudable 
and valuable essay of Mr. Hamilton might, in suc¬ 
cessive editions, grow into a complete system of 

Indian topography.Meritorious publications 

by servants of the East India Company have, in 
our opinion, peculiar claims to liberal commenda¬ 
tion. The price which Great Britain pays to the 
inhabitants of India for her dominion, is the secu¬ 
rity that their government shall be administered 
by a class of respectable men. In fact, they are 
governed by a greater proportion of sensible and 
honest men, than could fall to their lot under the 
government of their own or of any other nation. 
Without this superiority, and the securities which 
exist for its continuance, in the condition of the 
persons, in their now excellent education, in their 
general respect for the public opinion of a free 
country, in the protection afforded, and the restraint 
imposed by the press and by Parliament, all regu¬ 
lations for the administration of India would be 
nugatory, and the wisest system of laws would be 
no more than waste paper. The means of exe¬ 
cuting the laws are in the character of the ad¬ 
ministrators. To keep that character pure, they 
must be taught to respect themselves; and they 
ought to feel, that, distant as they are, they will 
be applauded and protected by their country, when 
they deserve commendation, or require defence. 
Their public is remote, and ought to make some 
compensation for distance by promptitude and zeal. 

The principal object for which the East India 
Company exists in the newly modified system 
[of 1813— Ed.] is to provide a safe body of electors 
to Indian offices. Both in the original appoint¬ 
ments, and in subsequent preferment, it was 
thought that there was no medium between pre¬ 
serving their power, or transferring the patronage 
to the Crown. Upon the whole, it cannot be 
denied that they are tolerably well adapted to per¬ 
form these functions. They are sufficiently nu¬ 
merous and connected with the more respectable 
classes of the community, to exempt their patron¬ 
age from the direct influence of the Crown, and to 
spread their choice so widely, as to afford a reason¬ 
able probability of sufficient personal merit. Much 
— perhaps enough — has been done by legal regu¬ 
lations, to guard preferment from great abuse. 
Perhaps, indeed, the spirit of activity and emu¬ 
lation may have been weakened by precautions 
against the operation of personal favour. But this 
is, no doubt, the safe error. The Company, and 
indeed any branch of the Indian administration in 
Europe, can do little directly for India: they are 
far too distant for much direct administration. 
The great duty which they have to perform, is to 
control their servants and to punish delinquency in 
deeds; but — as the chief principle of their ad¬ 
ministration— to guard the privileges of these 
servants, to maintain their dignity, to encourage 
their merits, to animate those principles of self- 
respect and honourable ambition, which are the 
true securities of honest and effectual service to 
the public. In every government, the character 
of the subordinate officers is of great moment: but 
the privileges, the character and the importance of 
the civil and military establishments, are, in the last 
result, the only conceivable security for the pre¬ 
servation and good government of India.” Edin¬ 
burgh Review , vol. xxv. p. 435. — Ed.] 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


542 


MSS., which would be more instructive if 
they could be read. Further, it must be 
observed, that publication is always the best 
security to a Government that they are not 
deceived by the reports of their servants; 
and where these servants act at a distance, 
the importance of such a security for their 
veracity is very great. For the truth of a 
manuscript report they never can have a 
better warrant than the honesty of one ser¬ 
vant who prepares it, and of another who 
examines it; but for the truth of all long- 
uncontested narrations of important facts in 
printed accounts, published in countries 
where they may be contradicted, we have 
the silent testimony of every man who 
might be prompted by interest, prejudice, 
or humour, to dispute them if they were not 
true. 

I have already said that all communica¬ 
tions merely made to Government are lost 
to science ; while, on the other hand, perhaps, 
the knowledge communicated to the public 
is that of which a Government may most 
easily avail itself, and on which it may most 
securely rely. This loss to science is very 
great; for the principles of political economy 
have been investigated in Europe, and the 
application of them to such a country as 
India must be one of the most curious tests 
which could be contrived of their truth and 
universal operation. Every thing here is 
new; and if they are found here also to be 
the true principles of natural subsistence 
and wealth, it will be no longer possible to 
dispute that they are the general laws which 
everywhere govern this important part of 
the movements of the social machine. 

It has been lately observed, that “ if the 
various states of Europe kept and published 
annually an exact account of their popula¬ 
tion, noting carefully in a second column 
the exact age at which the children die, this 
second column would show the relative 
merit of the Governments and the compara¬ 
tive happiness of their subjects. A simple 
arithmetical statement would then, perhaps, 
be more conclusive than all the arguments 
which could be produced.” I agree with 
the ingenious writers who have suggested 


this idea, and I think it must appear per¬ 
fectly evident that the number of children 
reared to maturity must be among the tests 
of the happiness of a society, though the 
number of children born cannot be so con¬ 
sidered, and is often the companion and one 
of the causes of public misery. It may be 
affirmed, without the risk of exaggeration, 
that every accurate comparison of the state 
of different countries at the same time, or of 
the same country at different times, is an 
approach to that state of things in which the 
manifest palpable interest of every Govern¬ 
ment will be the prosperity of its subjects, 
which never has been, and which never will 
be, advanced by any other means than those 
of humanity and justice. The prevalence 
of justice would not indeed be universally 
ensured by such a conviction ; for bad Go¬ 
vernments, as well as bad men, as often act 
against their own obvious interest as against 
that of others: but the chances of tyranny 
must be diminished when tyrants are com¬ 
pelled to see that it is folly. In the mean 
time, the ascertainment of every new fact, 
the discovery of every new principle, and 
even the diffusion of principles known be¬ 
fore, add to that great body of slowly and 
reasonably formed public opinion, which, 
however weak at first, must at last, with a 
gentle and scarcely sensible coercion, compel 
every Government to pursue its own real 
interest. This knowledge is a control on 
subordinate agents for Government, as well 
as a control on Government for their sub¬ 
jects : and it is one of those which has not 
the slightest tendency to produce tumult or 
convulsion. On the contrary, nothing more 
clearly evinces the necessity of that firm 
protecting power by which alone order can 
be secured. The security of the governed 
cannot exist without the security of the 
governors. 

Lastly, of all kinds of knowledge, Politi¬ 
cal Economy has the greatest tendency to 
promote quiet and safe improvement in the 
general condition of mankind; because it 
shows that improvement is the interest of 
the Government, and that stability is the 
interest of the people. The extraordinary 












A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 543 

and unfortunate events of our times have 
indeed damped the sanguine hopes of good 
men, and filled them with doubt and fear: 
but in all possible cases the counsels of this 
science are at least safe. They are adapted 
to all forms of government: they require 
only a wise and just administration. They 
require, as the first principle of all pro¬ 
sperity, that perfect security of persons and 
property which can only exist where the 
supreme authority is stable. 

On these principles, nothing can be a 
means of improvement which is not also a 
means of preservation. It is not only absurd, 
but contradictory, to speak of sacrificing the 
present generation for the sake of posterity. 
The moral order of the world is not so dis¬ 
posed. It is impossible to promote the in¬ 
terest of future generations by any measures 
injurious to the present; and he who labours 
industriously to promote the honour, the 
safety, and the prosperity of his own country, 
by innocent and lawful means, may be as¬ 
sured that he is contributing, probably as 
much as the order of nature will permit a 
private individual, towards the welfare of all 
mankind. 

These hopes of improvement have sur¬ 
vived in my breast all the calamities of our 
European world, and are not extinguished 
by that general condition of national insecu¬ 
rity which is the most formidable enemy of 
improvement. Founded on such principles, 
they are at least perfectly innocent: they are 
such as, even if they were visionary, an 
admirer or cultivator of letters ought to be 
pardoned for cherishing. Without them, 
literature and philosophy can claim no more 
than the highest rank among the amuse¬ 
ments and ornaments of human life. With 
these hopes, they assume the dignity of 
being part of that discipline under which 
the race of man is destined to proceed to the 
highest degree of civilisation, virtue, and 
happiness, of which our nature is capable. 

On a future occasion I may have the 
honour to lay before you my thoughts on 
the principal objects of inquiry in the geo¬ 
graphy, ancient and modern, the languages, 
the literature, the necessary and elegant 
arts, the religion, the authentic history, and 
the antiquities of India; and on the mode in 
which such inquiries appear to me most 
likely to be conducted with success. 

Wutiuriae (galltcae. 

A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

AND ITS ENGLISH ADMIRERS, 

AGAINST 

THE ACCUSATIONS OF THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE, 

INCLUDING SOME STRICTURES ON THE LATE PRODUCTION OF 

MONS. DE CALONNE. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The late opinions of Mr. Burke furnished 
more matter of astonishment to those who 
had distantly observed, than to those who 

had correctly examined, the system of his 
former political life. An abhorrence for 
abstract politics, a predilection for aristo¬ 
cracy,.^and a dread of innovation, have ever 
been among the most sacred articles of his 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


544 


public creed: and it was not likely that at 
his age he should abandon, to the invasion 
of audacious novelties, opinions which he 
had received so early, and maintained so 
long, — which had been fortified by the ap¬ 
plause of the great, and the assent of the 
wise,— which he had dictated to so many 
illustrious pupils, and supported against so 
many distinguished opponents. Men who 
early attain eminence, repose in their first 
i creed, to the neglect of the progress of the 
human mind subsequent to its adoption; 
and when, as in the present case, it has burst 
forth into action, they regard it as a tran¬ 
sient madness, worthy only of pity or de¬ 
rision. They mistake it for a mountain 
torrent that will pass away with the storm 
that gave it birth : they know not that it is 
the stream of human opinion in omne volu- 
bilis cevum , which the accession of every 
day will swell, and which is destined to 
sweep into the same oblivion the resistance 
of learned sophistry, and of powerful op¬ 
pression. 

But there still remained ample matter of 
astonishment in the Philippic, of Mr. Burke.* 
He might deplore the sanguinary excesses, 
—-he might deride the visionary policy, that 
seemed to him to tarnish the lustre of the 
Revolution; but it was hard to suppose that 
he would exhaust against it every epithet 
of contumely and opprobrium that language 
, can furnish to indignation; that the rage of 
his declamation would not for one moment 
be suspended, and that his heart would not 
betray one faint glow of triumph, at the 
splendid and glorious delivery of so great a 
people. All was invective : the authors and 
admirers of the Revolution, — every man 
who did not execrate it, even his own most 
enlightened and accomplished friends, — 
were devoted to odium and ignominy. The 
speech did not stoop to argument; the whole 
was dogmatical and authoritative: the cause 
seemed decided without discussion, — the 
anathema fulminated before trial. 

But the ground of the opinions of this 


* The speech on the Army Estimates, 9th Feb. 
1790. —Ed. 


famous speech, which, if we may believe a 
foreign journalist, will form an epoch in the 
history of the eccentricities of the human 
mind, was impatiently expected in a work 
soon after announced. The name of the 
author, the importance of the subject, and 
the singularity of his opinions, all contri¬ 
buted to inflame the public curiosity, which, 
though it languished in a subsequent delay, 
has been revived by the appearance, and 
will be rewarded by the perusal, of the 
work.* 

It is certainly in every respect a perform¬ 
ance, of which to form a correct estimate 
would prove one of the most arduous efforts 
of critical skill. 

“ We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much.”f 

Argument, every where dexterous and spe¬ 
cious, sometimes grave and profound, clothed 
in the most rich and various imagery, and 
aided by the most pathetic and picturesque 
description, speaks the opulence and the 
powers of that mind, of which age has neither 
dimmed the discernment, nor enfeebled the 
fancy—neither repressed the ardour, nor 
narrowed the range. Virulent encomiums 
on urbanity and inflammatory harangues 
against violence, homilies of moral and re¬ 
ligious mysticism, better adapted to the 
amusement than to the conviction of an in¬ 
credulous age, though they may rouse the 
languor of attention, can never be dignified 
by the approbation of the understanding. 

Of the senate and people of France, Mr. 
Burke’s language is such as might have been 
expected towards a country which his fancy 
has peopled only with plots, assassinations, 
and massacres, and all the brood of dire 
chimeras which are the offspring of a prolific 
imagination, goaded by an ardent and de¬ 
luded sensibility. The glimpses of benevo-^ 
lence, which irradiate this gloom of invec¬ 
tive, arise only from generous illusion,— 
from misguided and misplaced compassion. 
His eloquence is not at leisure to deplore 


* The Reflections on the Revolution in France, 
published in 1790. — Ed. 
f Retaliation. — Ed. 













. A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 545 


the fate of beggared artisans, and famished 
peasants, — the victims of suspended in¬ 
dustry, and languishing commerce. The 
sensibility which seems scared by the homely 
miseries of the vulgar, is attracted only by 
the splendid sorrows of royalty, and agonises 
at the slenderest pang that assails the heart 
of sottishness or prostitution, if they are 
placed by fortune on a throne.* To the 
English friends of French freedom, his lan¬ 
guage is contemptuous, illiberal, and scur¬ 
rilous. In one of the ebbings of his fervour, 
he is disposed not to dispute “ their good 
intentions : ” but he abounds in intemperate 
sallies and ungenerous insinuations, which 
wisdom ought to have checked, as ebulli¬ 
tions of passion, — which genius ought to 
have disdained, as weapons of controversy. 

The arrangement of his work is as singular 
as the matter. Availing himself of all the 
privileges of epistolary effusion, in their 
utmost latitude and laxity, he interrupts, 
dismisses, and resumes argument at plea¬ 
sure. His subject is as extensive as political 
science: his allusions and excursions reach 
almost every region of human knowledge. 
It must be confessed that in this miscella¬ 
neous and desultory warfare, the superiority 
of a man of genius over common men is 
infinite. He can cover the most ignominious 
retreat by a brilliant allusion; he can parade 

* “ The vulgar clamour which has been raised 
with such malignant art against the friends of 
freedom, as the apostles of turbulence and sedition, 
has not even spared the obscurity of my name. 
To strangers I can only vindicate myself by 
defying the authors of such clamours to discover 
one passage in this volume not in the highest de¬ 
gree favourable to peace and stable government: 
those to whom I am known would, I believe, be 
slow to impute any sentiments of violence to a 
temper which the partiality of my friends must 
confess to be indolent, and the hostility of enemies 
will not deny to be mild. I have been accused, by 
valuable friends, of treating with ungenerous levity 
the misfortunes of the Royal Family of France. 
They will not however suppose me capable of de¬ 
liberately violating the sacredness of misery in a 
palace or a cottage; and I sincerely lament that I 
should have been betrayed into expressions which 
admitted that construction.” (.Advertisement to the 
third edition.') — Ed. 


his arguments with masterly generalship, 
where they are strong; he can escape from 
an untenable position into a splendid decla¬ 
mation ; he can sap the most impregnable 
conviction by pathos, and put to flight a host 
of syllogisms with a sneer; absolved from 
the laws of vulgar method, he can advance 
a group of magnificent horrors to make a 
breach in our hearts, through which the 
most undisciplined rabble of arguments may 
enter in triumph. 

Analysis and method, like the discipline 
and armour of modern nations, correct in 
some measure the inequalities of controver¬ 
sial dexterity, and level on the intellectual 
field the giant and the dwarf. Let us then 
analyse the production of Mr. Burke, and, 
dismissing what is extraneous and orna¬ 
mental, we shall discover certain leading 
questions, of which the decision is indispens¬ 
able to the point at issue. The natural 
order of these topics will dictate the method 
of reply. Mr. Burke, availing himself of 
the indefinite and equivocal term “Revo¬ 
lution,” has altogether reprobated that 
transaction. The first question, therefore, 
that arises, regards the general expediency 
and necessity of a Revolution in France. 
This is followed by the discussion of the 
composition and conduct of the National 
Assembly, of the popular excesses which 
attended the Revolution, and of the new 
Constitution that is to result from it. The 
conduct of its English admirers forms the 
last topic, though it is with rhetorical inver¬ 
sion first treated by Mr. Burke; as if the 
propriety of approbation should be deter¬ 
mined before the discussion of the merit or 
demerit of what was approved. In pur¬ 
suance of this analysis, the following sections 
will comprise the substance of our refu¬ 
tation : — 

Sect. I. The General Expediency and 
Necessity of a Revolution in France. 

Sect. II. The Composition and Character 
of the National Assembly considered. 

Sect. III. The Popular Excesses which, 
attended , or followed, the Revolution. 

Sect. IV. The ne w Constitution of France. 


NN 







546 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


Sect. Y. The Conduct of its English Ad¬ 
mirers justified. 

With this reply to Mr. Burke will be 
mingled some strictures on the late publi¬ 
cation of M. de Calonne.* That minister, 
who has for some time exhibited to the eyes 
of indignant Europe the spectacle of an 
exiled robber living in the most splendid 
impunity, has, with an effrontery that beg¬ 
gars invective, assumed in his work the tone 
of afflicted patriotism, and delivers his pol¬ 
luted Philippics as the oracles of persecuted 
virtue. His work is more methodical than 
that of his coadjutor .f Of his financial cal¬ 
culations it may be remarked, that in a work 
professedly popular they afford the strongest 
presumption of fraud. Their extent and 
intricacy seem contrived to extort assent 
from public indolence; for men will rather 
believe than examine them. His inferences 
are so outrageously incredible, that most 
men of sense will think it more safe to trust 
their own plain conclusions than to enter 
such a labyrinth of financial sophistry. The 
only part of his production that here de¬ 
mands reply, is that which relates to general 
political questions. Remarks on what he has 
offered concerning them will naturally find a 
place under the corresponding sections of 
the reply to Mr. Burke. Its most import¬ 
ant view is neither literary nor argument¬ 
ative : it appeals to judgments more de¬ 
cisive than those of criticism, and aims at 
wielding weapons more formidable than 
those of logic. It is the manifesto of a 
Counter-Revolution, and its obvious object 


* De l’Etat de la France. London, 1790.—Ed. 
f It cannot be denied that the production of M. 
de Calonne is “ eloquent, able,” and certainly very 
“ instructive ” in what regards his own character 
and designs. But it contains one instance of his¬ 
torical ignorance so egregious, that I cannot resist 
quoting it. In his long discussion of the preten¬ 
sions of the Assembly to the title of a “ National 
Convention,” he deduces the origin of that word 
from Scotland, where he informs us (p. 828.), “ On 
lui donna le nom de Convention Ecossoise; le 
resultat de ses deliberations fut appelle ‘ Covenant ,’ 
et ceux qui l’avoient souscrit ou qui y adheroient 
‘ Covenanters ! ’ ” 


is to inflame every passion and interest, real 
or supposed, that has received any shock in 
the establishment of freedom. lie probes 
the bleeding wounds of the princes, the 
nobility, the priesthood, and the great ju¬ 
dicial aristocracy: he adjures one body by 
its dignity degraded, another by its inherit¬ 
ance plundered, and a third by its authority 
destroyed, to repair to the holy banner of 
his philanthropic crusade. Confident in the 
protection of all the monarchs of Europe, 
whom he alarms for the security of their 
thrones, and having insured the moderation 
of a fanatical rabble, by giving out among 
them the savage war-whoop of atheism, he 
already fancies himself in full march to 
Paris, not to re-instate the deposed des¬ 
potism (for he disclaims the purpose, and 
who would not trust such virtuous dis¬ 
avowals !), but at the head of this army of 
priests, mercenaries, and fanatics, to dictate, 
as the tutelary genius of France, the estab¬ 
lishment of a just and temperate freedom, 
obtained without commotion and without 
carnage, and equally hostile to the interested 
ambition of demagogues and the lawless 
authority of kings. Crusades were an effer¬ 
vescence of chivalry, and the modern St. 
Francis has a knight for the conduct of these 
crusaders, who will convince Mr. Burke, 
that the age of chivalry is not past, nor the 
glory of Europe gone for ever. The Compte 
d’ Artois *, that scion worthy of Henry the 
Great, the rival of the Bayards and Sidneys, 
the new model of French knighthood, is to 
issue from Turin with ten thousand cavaliers, 
to deliver the peerless and immaculate An- 
toinetta of Austria from the durance vile in 
which she has so long been immured in the 
Tuilleries, from the swords of the discour¬ 
teous knights of Paris, and the spells of the 
sable wizards of democracy. 


* “Ce digne rejeton du grand Henri.” Calonne. 
“ Un nouveau modele de la Chevalerie Franchise.” 
Ibid. pp. 413—114. 











A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 547 

SECTION I. 


THE GENERAL EXPEDIENCY AND NECESSITY 
OF A REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 

It is asserted in many passages of Mr. Burke’s 
work, though no where with that precision 
which the importance of the assertion de¬ 
manded, that the French Revolution was 
not only in its parts reprehensible, but in 
the whole was absurd, inexpedient, and un¬ 
just ; yet he has nowhere exactly informed 
us what he understands by the term. The 
“ French Revolution,” in its most popular 
sense, perhaps, would be understood in Eng¬ 
land to consist of those splendid events that 
formed the prominent portion of its ex¬ 
terior, — the Parisian revolt, the capture of 
the Bastile, and the submission of the King. 
But these memorable events, though they 
strengthened and accelerated, could not con¬ 
stitute a political revolution, which must 
include a change of government. But the 
term, even when limited to that meaning, is 
equivocal and wide. It is capable of three 
senses. The King’s recognition of the rights 
of the States-General to a share in the legis¬ 
lation, was a change in the actual government 
of France, where the whole legislative and 
executive power had, without the shadow of 
an interruption, for nearly two centuries 
been enjoyed by the Crown; in that sense 
the meeting of the States-General was the 
Revolution, and the 5th of May was its sera. 
The union of the three Orders in one assem¬ 
bly was a most important change in the forms 
and spirit of the legislature; this too may be 
called the Revolution, and the 23rd of June 
will be its sera. This body, thus united, are 
forming a new Constitution*; this may be 
also called a Revolution, because it is of all 
the political changes the most important, 
and its epoch will be determined by the con¬ 
clusion of the labours of the National As¬ 
sembly. Thus equivocal is the import of 
Mr. Burke’s expressions. To extricate them 
from this ambiguity, a rapid survey of these 
events will be necessary. It will prove, too, 


* The Vindiciae Gallic® was published in April, 
1791. — Ed. 


the fairest and most forcible confutation of 
his arguments. It will best demonstrate the 
necessity and justice of all the successive 
changes in the state of France, which formed 
what is called the “Revolution.” It will 
discriminate legislative acts from popular 
excesses, and distinguish transient confu¬ 
sion from permanent establishment. It will 
evince the futility and fallacy of attributing 
to the conspiracy of individuals, or bodies, a 
Revolution which, whether it be beneficial 
or injurious, was produced only by general 
causes, and in which the most conspicuous 
individual produced little real effect. 

The Constitution of France resembled in 
the earlier stages of its progress the other 
Gothic governments of Europe. The history 
of its decline and the causes of its extinc¬ 
tion are abundantly known. Its infancy and 
youth were like those of the English govern¬ 
ment. The Champ de Mars , and the Wit- 
ienagemot ,—the tumultuous assemblies of 
rude conquerors, — were in both countries 
melted down into representative bodies. But 
the downfall of the feudal aristocracy hap¬ 
pening in France before commerce had 
elevated any other class of citizens into im¬ 
portance, its power devolved on the Crown. 
From the conclusion of the fifteenth cen¬ 
tury the powers of the States-General had 
almost dwindled into formalities. Their mo¬ 
mentary re-appearance under Henry III. and 
Louis XIII. served only to illustrate their 
insignificance: their total disuse speedily 
succeeded. 

The intrusion of any popular voice was 
not likely to be tolerated in the reign of 
Louis XIV. — a reign which has been so 
often celebrated as the zenith of warlike and 
literary splendour, but which has always ap¬ 
peared to me to be the consummation of 
whatever is afflicting and degrading in the 
history of the human race. Talent seemed, 
in that reign, robbed of the conscious ele¬ 
vation, — of the erect and manly port, which 
is its noblest associate and its surest indi¬ 
cation. The mild purity of Fenelon, — the 
lofty spirit of Bossuet,—the masculine mind 
of Boileau, — the sublime fervour of Cor¬ 
neille, — were confounded by the contagion 


NN 2 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


548 

of ignominious and indiscriminate servility. 
It seemed as if the “representative majesty” 
of the genius and intellect of man were 
prostrated before the shrine of a sanguinary 
and dissolute tyrant, who practised the cor¬ 
ruption of courts without their mildness, and 
incurred the guilt of wars without their 
glory. His highest praise is to have sup¬ 
ported the stage trick of Royalty with effect: 
and it is surely difficult to conceive any cha¬ 
racter more odious and despicable, than that 
of a puny libertine, who, under the frown of 
a strumpet, or a monk, issues the mandate 
that is to murder virtuous citizens, — to 
desolate happy and peaceful hamlets, — to 
wring agonising tears from widows and 
orphans. Heroism has a splendour that 
almost atones for its excesses: but what 
shall we think of him, who, from the luxu¬ 
rious and dastardly security in which he 
wallows at Versailles, issues with calm and 
cruel apathy his orders to butcher the Pro¬ 
testants of Languedoc, or to lay in ashes 
the villages of the Palatinate ? On the re- 
collection of such scenes, as a scholar, I blush 
for the prostitution of letters, — as a man, I 
blush for the patience of humanity. 

But the despotism of this reign was preg¬ 
nant with the great events which have sig¬ 
nalised our age : it fostered that literature 
which was one day destined to destroy it. 
The profligate conquests of Louis have 
eventually proved the acquisitions of hu¬ 
manity ; and his usurpations have served 
only to add a larger portion to the great 
body of freemen. The spirit of his policy 
was inherited by his successor : the rage of 
conquest, repressed for a while by the torpid 
despotism of Fleury, burst forth with reno¬ 
vated violence in the latter part of the reign 
of Louis XV. France, exhausted alike by 
the misfortunes of one war and the victories 
of another, groaned under a weight of impost 
and debt, which it was equally difficult to 
remedy or to endure. But the profligate 
expedients were exhausted by which suc¬ 
cessive ministers had attempted to avert the 
great crisis, in which the credit and power 
of the government must perish. 

The wise and benevolent administration 


of M. Turgot*, though long enough for his 

O ' o o o 

own glory, was too short, and perhaps too 


* “ Louis XVI. called to his councils the two 
most virtuous men in his dominions, M. Turgot 
and M. de Lamoignon Malesherbes. Few things 
could have been more unexpected than that such 
a promotion should have been made; and still 
fewer have more discredited the sagacity and 
humbled the wisdom of man than that so little 
good should ultimately have sprung from so glo¬ 
rious an occurrence. M. Turgot appears beyond 
most other men to have been guided in the exer¬ 
tion of his original genius and comprehensive in¬ 
tellect by impartial and indefatigable benevolence. 
He preferred nothing to the discovery of truth but 
the interest of mankind; and he was ignorant of 
nothing of which he did not forego the attainment, 
that he might gain time for the practice of his 
duty. Cooperating with the illustrious men who 
laid the foundation of the science of political eco¬ 
nomy, his -writings were distinguished from theirs 
by the simplicity, the geometrical order, and pre¬ 
cision of a mind without passion, intent only on 
the progress of reason towards truth. The charac¬ 
ter of M. Turgot considered as a private philo¬ 
sopher, or as an inferior magistrate, seems to have 
approached more near the ideal model of a perfect 
sage, than that of any other man of the modern 
world. But he was destined rather to instruct 
than reform mankind. Like Bacon (whom he so 
much resembled in the vast range of his intellect) 
he came into a court, and, like Bacon, — though 
from far nobler causes, — he fell. The noble error 
of supposing men to be more disinterested and en¬ 
lightened than they are, betrayed him. Though 
he had deeply studied human nature, he disdained 
that discretion and dexterity without which wisdom 
must return to her cell, and leave the dominion of 
the -world to cunning. The instruments of his 
benevolence depended on others: but the sources 
of his own happiness were independent, and he left 
behind him in the minds of his friends that enthu¬ 
siastic attachment and profound reverence with 
which, when superior attainments were more rare, 
the sages of antiquity inspired their disciples. The 
virtue of M. de Lamoignon was of a less perfect, 
but of a softer and more natural kind. Descended 
from one of the most illustrious families of the 
French magistracy, he was early called to high 
offices. He employed his influence chiefly in 
lightening the fetters which impeded the free exer¬ 
cise of reason; and he exerted his courage and his 
eloquence in defending the people against oppres¬ 
sive taxation. While he was a minister, he had 
prepared the means of abolishing arbitrary impri¬ 
sonment. No part of science or art was foreign to 







A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 549 


early, for those salutary and grand reforms 
which his genius had conceived, and his 
virtue would have effected. The aspect of 
purity and talent spread a natural alarm 
among the minions of a court; and they 
easily succeeded in the expulsion of such 
rare and obnoxious intruders. The magni- 
ficent ambition of M. de Vergennes, the bril¬ 
liant, profuse, and rapacious career of M. 
de Calonne; the feeble and irresolute vio¬ 
lence of M. de Brienne, — all contributed 
their share to swell this financial embarrass¬ 
ment. The deficit, or inferiority of the re¬ 
venue to the expenditure, at length rose to 
the enormous sum of 115 millions of livres, 
or about 4,750,000Z. annually.* * This was a 
disproportion between income and expense 
with which no government, and no indi¬ 
vidual, could long continue to exist. 

In this exigency there was no expedient 
left, but to guarantee the ruined credit of 
bankrupt despotism by the sanction of the 
national voice. The States-General were a 
dangerous mode of collecting it: recourse 
was, therefore, had to the Assembly of the 
Notables; a mode well known in the history 
of France, in which the King summoned a 
number of individuals, selected, at his dis¬ 
cretion, from the mass, to advise him in 
great emergencies. They were little better 
than a popular Privy Council. They were 
neither recognised nor protected by law: 
their precarious and subordinate existence 
hung on the nod of despotism. 


his elegant leisure. His virtue was without effort 
or system, and his benevolence was prone to diffuse 
itself in a sort of pleasantry and even drollery. 
In this respect he resembled Sir Thomas More; 
and it is remarkable that this playfulness — the 
natural companion of a simple and innocent mind 
— attended both these illustrious men to the scaf¬ 
fold on which they were judicially murdered.” — 
MS. Ed. 

* For this we have the authority of M. de Ca¬ 
lonne himself, p. 56. This was the account pre¬ 
sented to the Notables in April, 1787. He, indeed, 
makes some deductions on account of part of this 
deficit being expirable: but this is of no conse¬ 
quence to our purpose, which is to view the influ¬ 
ence of the present urgency,— the political, not the 
financial, state of the question. 


The Notables were accordingly called 
together by M. de Calonne, who has now 
the inconsistent arrogance to boast of the 
schemes which he laid before them, as the 
model of the Assembly whom he traduces. 
He proposed, it is true, the equalisation of 
imposts and the abolition of the pecuniary 
exemptions of the Nobility and Clergy; 
and the difference between his system and 
that of the Assembly, is only in what makes 
the sole distinction in human actions — its 
end. He would have destroyed the pri¬ 
vileged Orders, as obstacles to despotism: 
they have destroyed them, as derogations 
from freedom. The object of his plans was 
to facilitate fiscal oppression: the motive of 
theirs is to fortify general liberty. They 
have levelled all Frenchmen as men: he 
would have levelled them all as slaves. The 
Assembly of the Notables, however, soon 
gave a memorable proof, how dangerous are 
all public meetings of men, even without 
legal powers of control, to the permanence 
of despotism. They had been assembled 
by M. de Calonne to admire the plausibility 
and splendour of his speculations, and to 
veil the extent and atrocity of his rapine: 
but the fallacy of the one and the profligacy 
of the other were detected with equal ease. 
Illustrious orators, who have since found a 
nobler sphere for their talents, in a more 
free and powerful Assembly, exposed the 
plunderer. Detested by the Nobles and 
Clergy, of whose privileges he had suggested 
the abolition; undermined in the favour of 
the Queen, by his attack on one of her 
favourites (Breteuil); exposed to the fury 
of the people, and dreading the terrors of 
judicial prosecution, he speedily sought re¬ 
fuge in England, without the recollection of 
one virtue, or the applause of one party, to 
console his retreat. Thus did the Notables 
destroy their creator. Little appeared to 
be done to a superficial observer : but to a 
discerning eye, all was done; for the de¬ 
throned authority of Public Opinion was 
restored. 

The succeeding Ministers, uninstructed 
by the example of their predecessors, by the 
destruction of public credit, and by the 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


550 

fermentation of the popular mind, hazarded 
measures of a still more preposterous and 
perilous description. The usurpation of some 
share in the sovereignty by the Parliament 
of Paris had become popular and venerable, 
because its tendency was useful, and its ex¬ 
ercise virtuous. That body had, as it is 
well known, claimed a right, which, in fact, 
amounted to a negative on all the acts of 
the King: — they contended, that the regis¬ 
tration of his edicts by them was necessary 
to give them force. They would, in that 
case, have possessed the same share of legis¬ 
lation as the King of England. It is unne¬ 
cessary to descant on the historical fallacy, 
and political inexpediency, of doctrines, 
which would vest in a narrow aristocracy of 
lawyers, who had bought their places, such 
extensive powers. It cannot be denied that 
their resistance had often proved salutary, 
and was some feeble check on the capri¬ 
cious wantonness of despotic exaction : but 
the temerity of the Minister now assigned 
them a more important part. They refused 
to register two edicts for the creation of im¬ 
posts, averring that the power of imposing 
taxes was vested only in the national re¬ 
presentatives, and claiming the immediate 
convocation of the States-General of the 
kingdom: the Minister banished them to 
Troyes. But he soon found how much the 
French were changed from that abject and 
frivolous people, which had so often endured 
the exile of its magistrates : Paris exhibited 
the tumult and clamour of a London mob. 
The Cabinet, which could neither advance 
nor recede with safety, had recourse to the 
expedient of a compulsory registration. The 
Duke of Orleans, and the magistrates who 
protested against this execrable mockery, 
were exiled or imprisoned. But all these 
hackneyed expedients of despotism were in 
vain. These struggles, which merit notice 
only as they illustrate the progressive energy 
of Public Opinion, were followed by events 
still less equivocal. Lettres de Cachet were 
issued against MM. d’Espremenil and Goes- 
lard. They took refuge in the sanctuary of 
justice, and the Parliament pronounced them 
under the safeguard of the law and the 


King. A deputation was sent to Versailles, 
to intreat his Majesty to listen to sage coun¬ 
sels ; and Paris expected, with impatient 
solicitude, the result. When towards mid¬ 
night, a body of two thousand troops 
marched to the palace where the Parliament 
were seated, and their Commander, enter¬ 
ing into the Court of Peers, demanded his 
victims, a loud and unanimous acclama¬ 
tion replied,—“We are all d’Espremenil 
and Goeslard! ” These magistrates surren¬ 
dered themselves; and the satellite of des¬ 
potism led them off in triumph, amid the 
execrations of an aroused and indignant 
people. These spectacles were not with¬ 
out their effect: the spirit of resistance 
spread daily over France. The intermedi¬ 
ate commission of the States of Bretagne, 
the States of Dauphine, and many other 
public bodies, began to assume a new and 
menacing tone. The Cabinet was dissolved 
by its own feebleness, and M. Neckar was 
recalled. 

That Minister, probably upright, and not 
illiberal, but narrow, pusillanimous, and en¬ 
tangled by the habits of detail * in which he 
had been reared, possessed not that erect 
and intrepid spirit, — those enlarged and 
original views, which adapt themselves to 
new combinations of circumstances, and 
sway in the great convulsions of human 
affairs. Accustomed to the tranquil ac¬ 
curacy of commerce, or the elegant amuse¬ 
ments of literature, he was called on to 

“ Ride in the whirlwind, and direct the storm.” f 

He seemed superior to his privacy while he 
was limited to it, and would have been ad¬ 
judged by history equal to his elevation had 


* The late celebrated Dr. Adam Smith always 
held this opinion of Neckar, whom he had known 
intimately when a banker in Paris. He predicted 
the fall of his fame when his talents should be 
brought to the test, and always emphatically 
said, “ lie is but a man of detail.” At a time 
when the commercial abilities of Mr. Eden, the 
present Lord Auckland, were the theme of pro¬ 
fuse eulogy, Dr. Smith characterised him in the 
same words. 

f Addison, The Campaign. — Ed. 







A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 551 


he never been elevated.* The reputation 
of few men, it is true, has been exposed to 
so severe a test; and a generous observer 
will be disposed to scrutinise less rigidly the 
claims of a statesman, who has retired with 
the applause of no party, — who is detested 
by the aristocracy as the instrument of their 
ruin, and despised by the democratic leaders 
for pusillanimous and fluctuating policy. 
But had the character of M. Neckar pos¬ 
sessed more originality or decision, it could 
have had little influence on the fate of 
France. The minds of men had received an 
impulse ; and individual aid and individual 
opposition were equally vain. His views, 
no doubt, extended only to palliation; but 
he was involved in a stream of opinions 
and events, of which no force could resist 
the current, and no wisdom adequately pre¬ 
dict the termination. He is represented by 
M. de Calonne as the Lord Sunderland of 
Louis XVI., seducing the King to destroy 
his own power: but he had neither genius 
nor boldness for such designs. 

To return to our rapid survey : — The 
autumn of 1788 was peculiarly distinguished 
by the enlightened and disinterested pa¬ 
triotism of the States of Dauphine. They 
furnished, in many respects, a model for the 
future senate of France. Like them they 
deliberated amidst the terrors of ministerial 
vengeance and military execution. They 
annihilated the absurd and destructive dis¬ 
tinction of Orders; the three estates were 
melted into a Provincial Assembly; they 
declared, that the right of imposing taxes 
resided ultimately in the States-General of 
France; and they voted a deputation to the 
King to solicit the convocation of that As¬ 
sembly. Dauphine was emulously imitated 
by all the provinces that still retained the 
shadow of Provincial States. The States of 
Languedoc, of Velay, and Vivarois, the 
Tiers Etat of Provence, and all the Muni¬ 
cipalities of Bretagne, adopted similar reso¬ 
lutions. In Provence and Bretagne, where 


* Major privato visus, dum privatus fuit, et 
omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset. 
Tacitus, Hist. lib. i. cap. 49. 


the Nobles and Clergy, trembling for their 
privileges, and the Parliaments for their 
jurisdiction, attempted a feeble resistance, 
the fermentation was peculiarly strong. 
Some estimate of the fervour of public sen¬ 
timent may be formed from the reception 
of the Count de Mirabeau in his native pro¬ 
vince, where the burgesses of Aix assigned 
him a body-guard, where the citizens of 
Marseilles crowned him in the theatre, and 
where, under all the terrors of despotism, 
he received as numerous and tumultuous 
proofs of attachment as ever were bestowed 
on a favourite by the enthusiasm of the most 
free people. M. Caraman, the Governor of 
Provence, was even reduced to implore his 
interposition with the populace, to appease 
and prevent their excesses. The contest in 
Bretagne was more violent and sanguinary. 
She had preserved her independence more 
than any of those provinces which had been 
united to the crown of France. The Nobles 
and Clergy possessed almost the whole 
power of the States, and their obstinacy was 
so great, that their deputies did not take 
their seats in the National Assembly till an 
advanced period of its proceedings. 

The return of M. Neckar, and the recall 
of the exiled magistrates, restored a mo¬ 
mentary calm. The personal reputation of 
the Minister for probity, reanimated the 
credit of France. But the finances were too 
irremediably embarrassed for palliatives; 
and the fascinating idea of the States-Gene- 
ral, presented to the public imagination by 
the unwary zeal of the Parliament, awakened 
recollections of ancient freedom, and pro¬ 
spects of future splendour, which the virtue 
or popularity of no minister could banish. 
The convocation of that body was resolved 
on; but many difficulties respecting the 
mode of electing and constituting it re¬ 
mained, which a second Assembly of No¬ 
tables was summoned to decide. 

The Third Estate demanded representa¬ 
tives equal to those of the other two Orders 
jointly. They required that the number 
should be regulated by the population of the 
districts, and that the three Orders should 
vote in one Assembly. All the committees 








552 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


into which the Notables were divided, ex¬ 
cept that of which Monsieur was President, 
decided against the Third Estate in every¬ 
one of these particulars. They were strenu¬ 
ously supported by the Parliament of Paris, 
who, too late sensible of the suicide into 
which they had been betrayed, laboured to 
render the Assembly impotent, after they 
were unable to prevent its meeting. But 
their efforts were in vain: M. Neckar, whe¬ 
ther actuated by respect for justice, or de¬ 
sire of popularity, or yielding to the irre¬ 
sistible torrent of public sentiment, advised 
j the King to adopt the propositions of the 
J Third Estate in the two first particulars, 
and to leave the last to be decided by the 
States-General themselves. 

Letters-Patent were accordingly issued on 
the 24th of January, 1789, for assembling 
the States-General, to which were annexed 
regulations for the detail of their elections. 
In the constituent assemblies of the several 
provinces, bailliages, and constabularies of 
the kingdom, the progress of the public 
mind became still more evident. The Clergy 
and Nobility ought not to be denied the 
praise of having emulously sacrificed their 
pecuniary privileges. The instructions to the 
representatives breathed every where a spirit 
of freedom as ardent, though not so liberal 
and enlightened, as that which has since 
presided in the deliberations of the National 
Assembly. Paris was eminently conspicuous. 
The union of talent, the rapid communi¬ 
cation of thought, and the frequency of 
those numerous assemblies, where men learn 
their force and compare their wrongs, ever 
make a great capital the heart that circulates 
emotion and opinion to the extremities of an 
empire. No sooner had the convocation of 
the States-General been announced, than 
the batteries of the press were opened. 
Pamphlet succeeded pamphlet, surpassing 
each other in boldness and elevation; and 
the advance of Paris to light and freedom 
was greater in three months than it had 
been in almost as many centuries. Doc¬ 
trines were universally received in May, 
which in January would have been deemed 
treasonable, and which in March had been 


derided as the visions of a few deluded 
fanatics.* 

It was amid this rapid diffusion of light, 
and increasing fervour of public sentiment, 
that the States-General assembled at Ver¬ 
sailles on the 5th of May, 1789 — a day which 
will probably be accounted by posterity one 
of the most memorable in the annals of 
the human race. Any detail of the parade 
and ceremonial of their assembly would be 
totally foreign to our purpose, which is not 
to narrate events, but to seize their spirit, 
and to mark their influence on the political 
progress from which the Revolution was to 
arise. The preliminary operation necessary 
to constitute the Assembly gave rise to the 
first great question, — the mode of authenti¬ 
cating the commissions of the deputies. It 
was contended by the Clergy and Nobles, 
that, according to ancient usage, each Or¬ 
der should separately scrutinise and authen¬ 
ticate the commissions of its- own depu¬ 
ties. It was argued by the Commons, that, 
on general principles, all Orders, having an 
equal interest in the purity of the national 
representative, had an equal right to take 
cognisance of the authenticity of the com¬ 
missions of all the members who composed 
the body, and therefore to scrutinise them 
in common. To the authority of precedent 
it was answered, that it would establish too 
much; for in the ancient States, their ex¬ 
amination of powers was subordinate to the 
revision of Royal Commissaries, — a sub¬ 
jection too degrading and injurious for the 
free and vigilant spirit of an enlightened 
age. . 

This controversy involved another of 
more magnitude and importance. If the 
Orders united in this scrutiny, they were 


* The principles of freedom had long been un¬ 
derstood, perhaps better than in any country of 
the world, by the philosophers of France. It 
was as natural that they should have been more 
diligently cultivated in that kingdom than in 
England, as that the science of medicine should 
be less understood and valued among simple and 
vigorous, than among luxurious and enfeebled 
nations. But the progress which we have noticed 
was among the less instructed part of society. 














A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 553 


likely to continue in one Assembly; the se¬ 
parate voices of the two first Orders would 
be annihilated, and the importance of the 
Nobility and Clergy reduced to that of their 
individual suffrages. This great revolution 
was obviously meditated by the leaders of 
the Commons. They were seconded in the 
chamber of the Noblesse by a minority emi¬ 
nently distinguished for rank, character, and 
talent. The obscure and useful portion of 
the Clergy were, from their situation, ac¬ 
cessible to popular sentiment, and naturally 
coalesced with the Commons. Many who 
favoured the division of the Legislature in 
the ordinary arrangements of government, 
were convinced that the grand and radical 
reforms, which the situation of France de¬ 
manded, could only be effected by its union 
as one Assembly.* So many prejudices 
were to be vanquished, — so many diffi¬ 
culties to be surmounted, — such obstinate 
habits to be extirpated, and so formidable a 
power to be resisted, that there was an 
obvious necessity to concentrate the force of 
the reforming body. In a great revolution, 
every expedient ought to facilitate change: 
in an established government, every thing 
ought to render it difficult. Hence the 
division of a legislature, which in an esta¬ 
blished government, may give a beneficial 
stability to the laws, must, in a moment of 
revolution, be proportionably injurious, by 

* “ II n’est pas douteux que pour aujourd’hui, que 
pour cette premiere tenue une Chambre Unique 
n’ait ete preferable et peut-etre necessaire; il y 
avoit tant de difficult^ b surmonter, tant de pre- 
juges a vaincre, tant de sacrifices b faire, de si 
vieilles habitudes b deraciner, une puissance si forte 
b contenir, en un mot, tant b detruire et presque 
tout a crier” — “Ce nouvel ordre de choses que 
vous avez faite eclorre, tout cela vous en etes bien 
surs n’a jamais pu naitre que de la reunion de 
toutes les pei'sonnes, de tous les sentiments, et de 
tous les coeurs.” Discours de M. Lally-Tollendal 
b PAssemblee Nationale, 31 Aout, 1789, dans ses 
Pieces Justificatifs, pp. 105, 106. This passage is 
in more than one respect remarkable. It fully 
evinces the conviction of the author, that changes 
were necessary great enough to deserve the name 
of a Revolution, and, considering the respect of 
Mr. Burke for his authority, ought to have weight 
with him. 


fortifying abuse and unnerving reform. In 
a revolution, the enemies of freedom are 
external, and all powers are therefore to be 
united : under an establishment her enemies 
are internal, and power is therefore to be 
divided. But besides this general consider¬ 
ation, the state of France furnished others 
of more local and temporary cogency. The 
States-General, acting by separate Orders, 
were a body from which no substantial 
reform could be hoped. The two first Or¬ 
ders were interested in the perpetuity of 
every abuse that was to be reformed: their 
possession of two equal and independent 
voices must have rendered the exertions of 
the Commons impotent and nugatory. And 
a collusion between the Assembly and the 
Crown would probably have limited its 
illusive reforms to some sorry palliatives, — 
the price of financial disembarrassment. 
The state of a nation lulled into complacent 
servitude by such petty concessions, is far 
more hopeless than that of those who groan 
under the most galling despotism*; and the 
condition of France would have been more 
irremediable than ever. 

Such reasonings produced an universal 
conviction, that the question, whether the 
States-General were to vote individually, or 
in Orders, was a question, whether they 
were or were not to produce any important 
benefit. Guided by these views, and ani¬ 
mated by public support, the Commons 
adhered inflexibly to their principle of in¬ 
corporation. They adopted a provisory or¬ 
ganisation, but studiously declined whatever 
might seem to suppose legal existence, or to 
arrogate constitutional powers. The Nobles, 
less politic or timid, declared themselves a 
legally constituted Order, and proceeded to 
discuss the great objects of their convocation. 
The Clergy affected to preserve a media¬ 
torial character, and to conciliate the dis¬ 
cordant claims of the two hostile Orders. 
The Commons, faithful to their system, re¬ 
mained in a wise and masterly inactivity, 
which tacitly reproached the arrogant as¬ 
sumption of the Nobles, while it left no 
pretext to calumniate their own conduct, 
gave time for the increase of the popular 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


55 4 


fervour, and distressed the Court by the 
delay of financial aid. Several conciliatory 
plans were proposed by the Minister, and 
rejected by the haughtiness of the Nobility 
and the policy of the Commons. 

Thus passed the period between the 5 th 
of May and the 12th of June, when the 
popular leaders, animated by public sup¬ 
port, and conscious of the maturity of their 
schemes, assumed a more resolute tone. 
The Third Estate then commenced the 
scrutiny of commissions, summoned the 
Nobles and Clergy to repair to the Hall of 
the States-General, and resolved that the 
absence of the deputies of some districts and 
classes of citizens could not preclude them, 
who formed the representatives of ninety-six 
hundredths of the nation, from constituting 
themselves a National Assembly. 

These decisive measures betrayed the de¬ 
signs of the Court, and fully illustrate that 
bounty and liberality for which Louis XVI. 
has been so idly celebrated. That feeble 
Prince, whose public character varied with 
every fluctuation in his Cabinet, — the in¬ 
strument alike of the ambition of Vergennes, 
the prodigality of Calonne, and the osten¬ 
tatious popularity of Neckar, — had hitherto 
yielded to the embarrassment of the finances, 
and the clamour of the people. The cabal 
that retained its ascendant over his mind, 
permitted concessions which they hoped to 
make vain, and flattered themselves with 
frustrating, by the contest of struggling 
Orders, all idea of substantial reform. But 
no sooner did the Assembly betray any 
symptom of activity and vigour, than their 
alarms became conspicuous in the Royal 
conduct. The Comte d’Artois, and the other 
Princes of the Blood, published the boldest 
manifestoes against the Assembly; the credit 
of M. Neckar at Court declined every day; 
the Royalists in the chamber of the Noblesse 
spoke of nothing less than an impeachment 
of the Commons for high-treason, and an 
immediate dissolution of the States; and a 
vast military force and a tremendous park 
of artillery were collected from all parts of 
the kingdom towards Versailles and Paris. 
Under these menacing and inauspicious cir¬ 


cumstances, the meeting of the States- 
General was prohibited by the King’s order 
till a Royal Session, which was destined for 
the 22nd but not held till the 23rd of June, 
had taken place. On repairing to their 
Hall on the 20th, the Commons found it 
invested with soldiers, and themselves ex¬ 
cluded by the point of the bayonet. They 
were summoned by their President to a 
Tennis-Court , where they were reduced to 
hold their assembly, and which they ren¬ 
dered famous as the scene of their unani¬ 
mous and memorable oath, — never to 
separate till they had achieved the regene¬ 
ration of France. 

The Royal Session thus announced, cor¬ 
responded with the new tone of the Court. 
Its exterior was marked by the gloomy and 
ferocious haughtiness of despotism. The 
Royal Puppet was now evidently moved 
by different persons from those who had 
prompted its Speech at the opening of the 
States. He probably now spoke both with 
the same spirit and the same heart, and felt 
as little firmness under the cloak of arro¬ 
gance, as he had been conscious of sensi¬ 
bility amidst his professions of affection; he 
was probably as feeble in the one as he had 
been cold in the other: but his language is 
some criterion of the system of his prompters. 
This speech was distinguished by insulting 
condescension and ostentatious menace. He 
spoke not as the Chief of a free nation to its 
sovereign Legislature, but as a Sultan to his 
Divan. He annulled and prescribed de¬ 
liberations at pleasure. He affected to re¬ 
present his will as the rule of their conduct, 
and his bounty as the source of their free¬ 
dom. Nor was the matter of his harangue 
less injurious than its manner was offensive. 
Instead of containing any concession im¬ 
portant to public liberty, it indicated a re¬ 
lapse into a more lofty despotism than had 
before marked his pretensions. Tithes, feudal 
and seignorial rights, he consecrated as the 
most inviolable property; and of Lettres de 
Cachet themselves, by recommending the 
regulation, he obviously condemned the 
abolition. The distinction of Orders he con¬ 
sidered as essential to the Constitution of 












A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 


the kingdom, and their present union as 
only legitimate by his permission. He con¬ 
cluded with commanding them to separate, 
and to assemble on the next day in the 
Halls of their respective Orders. 

The Commons, however, inflexibly adher¬ 
ing to their principles, and conceiving them¬ 
selves constituted as a National Assembly, 
treated these threats and injunctions with 
equal neglect. They remained assembled in 
the Hall, which the other Orders had quitted 
in obedience to the Royal command; and 
when the Marquis de Breze, the King’s 
Master of the Ceremonies, reminded them 
of his Majesty’s orders, he was answered by 
M. Bailly, with Spartan energy, — “ The 
Nation assembled has no orders to receive.” 
They proceeded to pass resolutions decla¬ 
ratory of adherence to their former decrees, 
and of the personal inviolability of the mem¬ 
bers. The Royal Session, which the Aris¬ 
tocratic party had expected with such 
triumph and confidence, proved the severest 
blow to their cause. Forty-nine members 
of the Nobility, at the head of whom was 
M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, repaired on the 
26th of June to the Assembly.* The popu¬ 
lar enthusiasm was inflamed to such a degree, 
that alarms were either felt, or affected, for 
the safety of the King, if the union of Orders 
was delayed. The union was accordingly 
resolved on ; and the Duke of Luxembourg, 
President of the Nobility, was authorised by 
his Majesty to announce to his Order the 
request and even command of the King, to 
unite themselves with the others. He re¬ 
monstrated with the King on the fatal con¬ 
sequences of this step. “ The Nobility,” he 
remarked, “ were not fighting their own 
battles, but those of the Crown. The sup¬ 
port of the monarchy was inseparably con¬ 
nected with the division of the States- 
General: divided, that body was subject to 


* It deserves remark, that in this number were 
Noblemen who have ever been considered as of the 
moderate party. Of these may be mentioned MM. 
Lally, Virieu, and Clermont-Tonnerre, none of 
whom certainly can be accused of democratic en¬ 
thusiasm. 


555 

the Crown; united, its authority was sove- / ' 
reign, and its force irresistible.” * The King 
was not, however, shaken by these con¬ 
siderations, and on the following day noti¬ 
fied his pleasure in an official letter to the 
Presidents of the Nobility and the Clergy. 

A gloomy and reluctant obedience was 
yielded to this mandate, and the union of 
the National Representatives at length pro¬ 
mised some hope to France. 

But the general system of the Govern¬ 
ment formed a suspicious and tremendous 
contrast with this applauded concession. 

New hordes of foreign mercenaries were 
summoned to the blockade of Paris and Ver¬ 
sailles, from the remotest provinces ; an im¬ 
mense train of artillery was disposed in all 
the avenues of these cities; and 70,000 men 
already invested the capital, when the last 
blow was hazarded against the public hopes, 
by the ignominious banishment of M. Neckar. 
Events followed the most unexampled and 
memorable in the annals of mankind, which 
history will record and immortalise, but on 
which the object of the political reasoner is 
only to speculate. France was on the brink 
of civil war. The Provinces were ready to 
march immense bodies to the rescue of their 
representatives. The courtiers and their * 
minions, princes and princesses, male and 
female favourites, crowded to the camps 
with which they had invested Versailles, 
and stimulated the ferocious cruelty of their 
mercenaries, by caresses, by largesses, and 
by promises. Meantime the people of Paris 
revolted; the French soldiery felt that they 
were citizens; and the fabric of Despotism 
fell to the ground. 

These soldiers, whom posterity will cele¬ 
brate for patriotic heroism, are stigmatised 
by Mr. Burke as “ base hireling deserters,” 
who sold their King for an increase of pay.f 


* These remarks of M. de Luxembourg are equi¬ 
valent to a thousand defences of the Revolutionists 
against Mr. Burke. They unanswerably prove 
that the division of Orders was supported only as 
necessary to palsy the efforts of the Legislature 
against the Despotism. 

f Mr. Burke is sanctioned in this opinion by an 











556 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


This position he every where asserts or in¬ 
sinuates : but nothing seems more false. 
Had the defection been confined to Paris, 
there might have been some speciousness in 
the accusation. The exchequer of a faction 
might have been equal to the corruption of 
the guards: the activity of intrigue might 
have seduced the troops cantoned in the 
neighbourhood of the capital. But what 
policy, or fortune, could pervade by their 
agents, or donatives, an army of 150,000 
men, dispersed over so great a monarchy as 
France. The spirit of resistance to uncivic 
commands broke forth at once in every part 
of the empire. The garrisons of the cities of 
Rennes, Bourdeaux, Lyons, and Grenoble 
refused, almost at the same moment, to resist 
the virtuous insurrection of their fellow - 
citizens. No largesses could have seduced, 
— no intrigues could have reached so vast 
and divided a body. Nothing but sympathy 
with the national spirit could have produced 
their noble disobedience. The remark of 
Mr. Hume is here most applicable, “ that 
what depends on a few may be often attri¬ 
buted to chance (secret circumstances) ; but 
that the actions of great bodies must be ever 
ascribed to general causes.” It was the 
apprehension of Montesquieu, that the spirit 
of increasing armies would terminate in con¬ 
verting Europe into an immense camp, in 
changing our artizans and cultivators into 
military savages, and reviving the age of 
Attila and Genghis. Events are our pre¬ 
ceptors, and France has taught us that this 
evil contains in itself its own remedy and 
limit. A domestic army cannot be in¬ 
creased without increasing the number of 
its ties with the people, and of the channels 
by which popular sentiment may enter, 
r Every man who is added to the army is a 
new link that unites it to the nation. If all 
citizens were compelled to become soldiers, 


authority not the most respectable, that of his late 
countryman Count Dalton, Commander of the 
Austrian troops in the Netherlands. In September, 
1789, he addressed the Regiment de Ligne, at 
Brussels, in these terms: — “ J’espbre que vous 
'ii’imiterez jamais ces laches Francois qui ont aban- 
donne leur Souverain! ” 


all soldiers must of necessity adopt the feel¬ 
ings of citizens; and despots cannot increase 
their army without admitting into it a 
greater number of men interested in de¬ 
stroying them. A small army may have 
sentiments different frem the great body of 
the people, and no interest in common with 
them, but a numerous soldiery cannot. This 
is the barrier which Nature has opposed to 
the increase of armies. They cannot be 
numerous enough to enslave the people, 
without becoming the people itself. The 
effects of this truth have been hitherto con¬ 
spicuous only in the military defection of 
France, because the enlightened sense of 
general interest has been so much more 
diffused in that nation than in any other 
despotic monarchy of Europe: but they must 
be felt by all. An elaborate discipline may 
for a while in Germany debase and brutalise 
soldiers too much to receive any impressions 
from their fellow-men: artificial and local 
institutions are, however, too feeble to resist 
the energy of natural causes. The consti¬ 
tution of man survives the transient fashions 
of despotism; and the history of the next 
century will probably evince on how frail 
and tottering a basis the military tyrannies 
of Europe stand. 

The pretended seduction of the troops by 
the promise of increased pay, is in every 
view contradicted by facts. This increase 
of pay did not originate in the Assembly; 
it was not even any part of their policy : it 
was prescribed to them by the instructions 
of their constituents, before the meeting of 
the States.* It could not therefore be the 
project of any cabal of demagogues to seduce 
the army: it was the decisive and unanimous 
voice of the nation; and if there was any 
conspiracy, it must have been that of the 
people. What had demagogues to offer ? 
The soldiery knew that the States must, in 
obedience to their instructions, increase their 
pay. This increase could, therefore, have 
been no temptation to them; for of it they 
felt themselves already secure, as the na¬ 
tional voice, had prescribed it. It was in 


* Calonne, p. 390. 







A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 557 


fact a necessary part of the system which 
was to raise the army to a body of respect¬ 
able citizens, from a gang of mendicant ruf¬ 
fians. An increase of pay must infallibly 
operate to limit the increase of armies in the 
North. This influence has been already felt 
in the Netherlands, which fortune seems to 
have restored to Leopold, that they might 
furnish a school of revolt to German soldiers. 
The Austrian troops have there murmured 
at their comparative indigence, and have 
supported their plea for increase of pay by 
the example of France. The same example 
must operate on the other armies of Europe: 
and the solicitations of armed petitioners 
must be heard. The indigent despots of 
Germany and the North will feel a limit to 
their military rage, in the scantiness of their 
exchequer. They will be compelled to re¬ 
duce the number, and increase the pay of 
their armies : and a new barrier will be 
opposed to the progress of that depopulation 
and barbarism, which philosophers have 
dreaded from the rapid increase of military 
force. These remarks on the spirit which 
actuated the French army in their unex¬ 
ampled, misconceived, and calumniated con¬ 
duct, are peculiarly important, as they serve 
to illustrate a principle, which cannot too 
frequently be presented to view,—that in 
the French Revolution all is to be attributed 
to general causes influencing the whole body 
of the people, and almost nothing to the 
schemes and the ascendant of individuals. 

But to return to our rapid sketch: — it 
was at the moment of the Parisian revolt, 
and of the defection of the army, that the 
whole power of France devolved on the 
National Assembly. It is at that moment, 
therefore, that the discussion commences, 
whether that body ought to have re-esta¬ 
blished and reformed the government which 
events had subverted, or to have proceeded 
to the establishment of a new constitution, 
on the general principles of reason and free¬ 
dom. The arm of the ancient Government 
had been palsied, and its power reduced to 
a mere formality, by events over which the 
Assembly possessed no control. It was theirs 
to decide, not whether the monarchy was to 


be subverted, for that had been already 
effected, but whether, from its ruins, frag¬ 
ments were to be collected for the re-con¬ 
struction of the political edifice. They had 
been assembled as an ordinary Legislature 
under existing laws : they were transformed 
by these events into a National Convention, 
and vested with powers to organise a go¬ 
vernment. It is in vain that their adver¬ 
saries contest this assertion, by appealing to 
the deficiency of forms * : it is in vain to 
demand the legal instrument that changed 
their constitution, and extended their powers. 
Accurate forms in the conveyance of power 
are prescribed by the wisdom of law, in the 
regular administration of states : but great 
revolutions are too immense for technical 
formality. All the sanction that can be 
hoped for in such events, is the voice of the 
people, however informally and irregularly 
expressed. This cannot be pretended to have 
been wanting in France. Every other species 
of authority was annihilated by popular acts, 
but that of the States-General. On them, 
therefore, devolved the duty of exercising 
their unlimited trust f, according to their best 


* This circumstance is thus shortly stated by 
Mr. Burke (p.242.) : — “I can never consider this 
Assembly as anything else than a voluntary asso¬ 
ciation of men, who have availed themselves of 
circumstances to seize upon the power of the State. 
They do not hold the authority they exercise under 
any constitutional law of the State. They have 
departed from the instructions of the people that 
sent them.” The same argument is treated by 
M. de Calonne, in an expanded memorial of 44 
pages (314—358.), against the pretensions of the 
Assembly to be a Convention, with much unavail¬ 
ing ingenuity and labour. 

f A distinction made by Mr. Burke between the 
abstract and moral competency of a Legislature 
(p. 27.), has been much extolled by his admirers. 
To me it seems only a novel and objectionable 
mode of distinguishing between a right and the 
expediency of using it. But the mode of illustrating 
the distinction is far more pernicious than a mere 
novelty of phrase. This moral competence is sub¬ 
ject, says our author, to “faith, justice, and fixed 
fundamental policy:” thus illustrated, the dis¬ 
tinction appears liable to a double objection. It is 
false that the abstract competence of a Legislature 
extends to the violation of faith and justice: it is 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


558 


views of general interest. Their enemies 
have, even in their invectives, confessed the 
subsequent adherence of the people, for they 
have inveighed against it as the infatuation 
of a dire fanaticism. The authority of the 
Assembly was then first conferred on it by 
public confidence; and its acts have been 
since ratified by public approbation. No¬ 
thing can betray a disposition to indulge in 
puny and technical sophistry more strongly, 
than to observe with M. de Calonne, “ that 
this ratification, to be valid, ought to have 
been made by Erance, not in her new or¬ 
ganisation of municipalities, but in her 
ancient division of bailliages and provinces.” 
The same individuals act in both forms; the 
approbation of the men legitimatises the 
government: it is of no importance, whether 
they are assembled in bailliages or in muni¬ 
cipalities. 

If this latitude of informality, this sub¬ 
jection of laws to their principle, and of 
government to its source, are not permitted 
in revolutions, how are we to justify the 
assumed authority of the English Convention 
of 1688 ? “ They did not hold the authority 
they exercised under any constitutional law 
of the State.” They were not even legally 
elected, as, it must be confessed, was the 
case with the French Assembly. An evi¬ 
dent, though irregular, ratification by the 
people, alone legitimatised their acts. Yet 
they possessed, by the confession of Mr. 
Burke, an authority only limited by prudence 
and virtue. Had the people of England given 
instructions to the members of that Con¬ 
vention, its ultimate measures would pro¬ 
bably have departed as much from those 
instructions as the French Assembly have 
deviated from those of their constituents; 
and the public acquiescence in the deviation 


false that its moral competence does not extend to 
the most fundamental policy. Thus to confound 
fundamental policy with faith and justice, for the 
sake of stigmatising innovators, is to stab the 
vitals of morality. There is only one maxim of 
policy truly fundamental — the good of the go¬ 
verned ; and the stability of that maxim, rightly 
understood, demonstrates the mutability of all 
policy that is subordinate to it. 


would, in all likelihood, have been the same. 
It will be confessed by any man who has 
considered the public temper of England at 
the landing of William, that the majority of 
those instructions would not have proceeded 
to the deposition of James. The first aspect 
of these great changes perplexes and intimi¬ 
dates men too much for just views and bold 
resolutions : it is by the progress of events 
that their hopes are emboldened, and their 
views enlarged. This influence was felt in 
France. The people, in an advanced period 
of the Revolution, virtually recalled the in¬ 
structions by which the feebleness of their 
political infancy had limited the power of 
their representatives : for they sanctioned 
acts by which those instructions were con¬ 
tradicted. The formality of instructions was 
indeed wanting in England: but the change 
of public sentiment, from the opening of the 
Convention to its ultimate decision, was as 
remarkable as the contrast which has been 
so ostentatiously displayed by M. de Calonne, 
between the decrees of the National Assem¬ 
bly and the first instructions of their con¬ 
stituents. 

We now resume the consideration of this 
exercise of authority by the Assembly, and 
proceed to inquire, whether they ought to 
have reformed, or destroyed their govern¬ 
ment ? The general question of innovation 
is an exhausted common-place, to which the 
genius of Mr. Burke has been able to add 
nothing but splendour of eloquence and 
felicity of illustration. It has long been so 
notoriously of this nature, that it is placed 
by Lord Bacon among the sportive contests 
which are to exercise rhetorical skill. No 
man will support the extreme on either side: 
perpetual change and immutable establish¬ 
ment are equally indefensible. To descend 
therefore from these barren generalities to a 
nearer view of the question, let us state it 
more precisely:—Was the civil order in 
France corrigible, or was it necessary to 
destroy it ? Not to mention the extirpation 
of the feudal system, and the abrogation of 
the civil and criminal code, we have first to 
consider the destruction of the three great 
corporations, of the Nobility, the Church, l 








A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 559 


and the Parliaments. These three Aristo¬ 
cracies were the pillars which in fact formed 
the government of France. The question 
then of forming or destroying these bodies 
was fundamental. 

There is one general principle applicable 
to them all adopted by the French legislators, 
— that the existence of Orders is repugnant 
to the principles of the social union. An 
Order is a legal rank, a body of men com¬ 
bined and endowed with privileges by law. 
There are two kinds of inequality : the one 
personal, that of talent and virtue, the source 
of whatever is excellent and admirable in 
society; the other, that of fortune, which 
must exist, because property alone can sti¬ 
mulate to labour, and labour, if it were not 
necessary to the existence, would be indis¬ 
pensable to the happiness of man. But 
though it be necessary, yet in its excess it 
is the great malady of civil society. The 
accumulation of that power which is con¬ 
ferred by wealth in the hands of the few, is 
the perpetual source of oppression and neglect 
to the mass of mankind. The power of the 
wealthy is farther concentrated by their 
tendency to combination, from which, num¬ 
ber, dispersion, indigence, and ignorance 
equally preclude the poor. The wealthy 
are formed into bodies by their professions, 
their different degrees of opulence (called 
“ ranks”), their knowledge, and their small 
number. They necessarily in all countries 
administer government, for they alone have 
skill and leisure for its functions. Thus cir¬ 
cumstanced, nothing can be more evident 
than their inevitable preponderance in the 
political scale. The preference of partial to 
general interests is, however, the greatest of 
all public evils. It should therefore have 
been the object of all laws to repress this 
malady; but it has been their perpetual 
tendency to aggravate it. Not content with 
the inevitable inequality of fortune, they 
have superadded to it honorary and poli¬ 
tical distinctions. Not content with the in¬ 
evitable tendency of the wealthy to combine, 
they have embodied them in classes. They 
have fortified those conspiracies against the 
general interest, which they ought to have 


resisted, though they could not disarm. 
Laws, it is said, cannot equalise men;—No: 
but ought they for that reason to aggravate 
the inequality which they cannot cure ? 
Laws cannot inspire unmixed patriotism : 
but ought they for that reason to foment 
that corporation spirit which is its most 
fatal enemy ? “ All professional combina¬ 

tions,” said Mr. Burke, in one of his late 
speeches in Parliament, “ are dangerous in a 
free state.” Arguing on the same principle, 
the National Assembly has proceeded further. 
They have conceived that the laws ought to 
create no inequality of combination, to re¬ 
cognise all only in their capacity of citizens, 
and to offer no assistance to the natural 
preponderance of partial over general in¬ 
terest. 

But, besides the general source of hostility 
to Orders, the particular circumstances of 
France presented other objections, which it 
is necessary to consider more in detail. 

It is in the first place to be remarked, that 
all the bodies and institutions of the king¬ 
dom participated in the spirit of the ancient 
government, and in that view were incapable 
of alliance with a free constitution. They 
were tainted by the despotism of which they 
had been either members or instruments. 
Absolute monarchies, like every other con¬ 
sistent and permanent government, assimilate 
every thing with which they are connected 
to their own genius. The Nobility, the 
Priesthood, the Judicial Aristocracy, were 
unfit to be members of a free government, 
because their corporate character had been 
formed under arbitrary establishments. To 
have preserved these great corporations, 
would be to have retained the seeds of re¬ 
viving despotism in the bosom of freedom. 
This remark may merit the attention of Mr. 
Burke, as illustrating an important difference 
between the French and English Revolu¬ 
tions. The Clergy, the Peerage, and Judi¬ 
cature of England had imbibed in some 
degree the sentiments inspired by a govern¬ 
ment in which freedom had been eclipsed, 
but not extinguished. They were therefore 
qualified to partake of a more stable and 
improved liberty. But the case of France 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


560 

was different. These bodies had there im¬ 
bibed every sentiment, and adopted every 
habit under arbitrary power. Their pre¬ 
servation in England, and their destruction 
in France, may in this view be justified on 
similar grounds. It is absurd to regard the 
Orders as remnants of that free constitution 
which France, in common with the other 
Gothic nations of Europe, once enjoyed. 
Nothing remained of these ancient Orders 
but the name. The Nobility were no longer 
those haughty and powerful Barons, who 
enslaved the people, and dictated to the 
King. The Ecclesiastics were no longer 
that Priesthood before whom, in-a benighted 
and superstitious age, all civil power was 
impotent and mute. They had both dwin¬ 
dled into dependents on the Crown. Still 
less do the opulent and enlightened Com¬ 
mons of France resemble its servile and 
beggared populace in the sixteenth century. 
Two hundred years of uninterrupted exer¬ 
cise had legitimatised absolute authority as 
much as prescription can consecrate usurp¬ 
ation. The ancient French Constitution 
was therefore no farther a model than that 
of any foreign nation which was to be judged 
of alone by its utility, and possessed in no 
respect the authority of establishment. It 
had been succeeded by another government; 
and if France was to recur to a period ante¬ 
cedent to her servitude for legislative models, 
she might as well ascend to the sera of Clovis 
or of Charlemagne, as be regulated by the 
precedents of Henry III. or Mary of Medi- 
cis. All these forms of government existed 
only historically. 

These observations include all the Orders. 
Let us consider each of them successively. 
The devotion of the Nobility of France to 
the Monarch was inspired equally by their 
sentiments, their interests, and their habits. 
“ The feudal and chivalrous spirit of fealty,” 
so long the prevailing passion of Europe, 
was still nourished in their bosoms by the 
military sentiments from which it first arose. 
The majority of them had still no profession 
but war, — no hope but in Royal favour. 
The youthful and indigent filled the camps ; 
the more opulent and mature partook the 


splendour and bounty of the Court: but 
they were equally dependents on the Crown. 
To the plenitude of the Royal power were 
attached those immense and magnificent 
privileges, which divided France into dis¬ 
tinct nations; which exhibited a Nobility 
monopolising the rewards and offices of the 
State, and a people degraded to political 
helotism.* Men do not cordially resign such 
privileges, nor quickly dismiss the senti¬ 
ments which they have inspired. The 
ostentatious sacrifice of pecuniary exemp¬ 
tions in a moment of general fermentation 
is a wretched criterion of their genuine 
feelings. They affected to bestow as a gift, 
what they would have been speedily com¬ 
pelled to abandon as an usurpation ; and 
they hoped by the sacrifice of a part to 
purchase security for the rest. They have 
been most justly stated to be a band of 
political Janissaries fj—far more valuable to 
a Sultan than mercenaries, because attached 
to him by unchangeable interest and indel¬ 
ible sentiment. Whether any reform could 
have extracted from this body an elclnent 
which might have entered into the new Con¬ 
stitution is a question which we shall con¬ 
sider when that political system comes under 
our review. Their existence, as a member 
of the Legislature, is a question distinct 
from their preservation as a separate Order, 
or great corporation, in the State. A senate 
of Nobles might have been established, 
though the Order of the Nobility had been 
destroyed; and England would then have 
been exactly copied. But it is of the Order 
that we now speak; for we are now con¬ 
sidering the destruction of the old, not the 
formation of the new government. The 
suppression of the Nobility has been in 
England most absurdly confounded with 
the prohibition of titles. The union of the 
Orders in one Assembly was the first step 
towards the destruction of a legislative 


* T/Say political in contradistinction to civil, for 
in the latter sense the assertion would have been 
untrue. 

f See Air. Rous’s excellent Thoughts on Govern¬ 
ment. 







A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 561 


Nobility : the abolition of their feudal 
rights, in the memorable session of the 4th 
of August, 1789, may be regarded as the 
second. They retained after these measures 
no distinction but what was purely nominal; 
and it remained to be determined what place 
they were to occupy in the new Constitu¬ 
tion. That question was decided by the 
decree of the 22nd of December, in the 
same year, which enacted, that the Electoral 
Assemblies were to be composed without 
any regard to rank ; and that citizens of all 
orders were to vote in them indiscriminately. 
The distinction of Orders was thus de¬ 
stroyed: the Nobility were to form no part 
of the new Constitution, and were stripped 
of all that they had enjoyed under the old 
government, but their titles. 

Hitherto all had passed unnoticed, but no 
sooner did the Assembly, faithful to their 
principles, proceed to extirpate the external 
signs of the ranks, which they no longer 
tolerated, than all Europe resounded with 
clamours against their Utopian and levelling 
madness. The “ incredible ” * decree of the 
19th of June, 1790, for the suppression of 
titles, is the object of all these invectives; 
yet without that measure the Assembly 
would certainly have been guilty of the 
grossest inconsistency and absurdity. An 
untitled Nobility forming a member of the 
State, had been exemplified in some com¬ 
monwealths of antiquity ; — such were the 
Patricians in Rome : but a titled Nobility, 
without legal privileges, or political exist¬ 
ence, would have been a monster new in the 
annals of legislative absurdity. The power 
was possessed without the bauble by the 
Roman aristocracy: the bauble would have 
been reverenced, while the power was 
trampled on, if titles had been spared in 
France. A titled Nobility is the most 
undisputed progeny of feudal barbarism. 
Titles had in all nations denoted offices: it 
was reserved for Gothic Europe to attach 
them to ranhs. Yet this conduct of our 
remote ancestors admits explanation; for 
with them offices were hereditary, and hence 

* So called by M. de. Calonne. 


the titles denoting them became hereditary 
too. But we, who have rejected hereditary 
office, retain an usage to which it gave rise, 
and which it alone could justify. So egre- 
giously is this recent origin of a titled No¬ 
bility misconceived, that it has been even 
pretended to be necessary to the order and 
existence of society; — a narrow and arro¬ 
gant mistake, which would limit all political 
remark to the Gothic states of Europe, or 
establish general principles on events that 
occupy so short a period of history, and 
manners that have been adopted by so 
slender a portion of the human race. A 
titled Nobility was equally unknown to the 
splendid monarchies of Asia, and to the 
manly simplicity of the ancient common¬ 
wealths.* It arose from the peculiar cir¬ 
cumstances of modern Europe; and yet its 
necessity is now erected on the basis of 
universal experience, as if these other re¬ 
nowned and polished states were effaced 
from the records of history, and banished 
from the society of nations. “ Nobility is 
the Corinthian capital of polished states: ”— 
the august fabric of society is deformed and 
encumbered by such Gothic ornaments. The 
massy Doric that sustains it is Labour ; and 
the splendid variety of arts and talents that 
solace and embellish life, form the deco¬ 
rations of its Corinthian and Ionic capitals. 

Other motives besides the extirpation of 
feudality, disposed the French Legislature 
to the suppression of titles. To give sta¬ 
bility to a popular government, a demo¬ 
cratic character must be formed, and demo¬ 
cratic sentiments inspired. The sentiment 1 
of equality which titular distinctions have, 
perhaps, more than any other cause, ex- 


* Aristocratic bodies did indeed exist in the 
ancient world, but titles were unknown. Though 
they possessed political privileges, yet as these did 
not affect the manners , they had not the same in¬ 
evitable tendency to taint the public character as 
titular distinctions. These bodies too being in 
general open to property , or office, they are in no 
respect to be compared to the Nobles of Europe. 
They might affect the forms of a free government 
as much, but they did not in the same proportion 
injure the spirit of freedom. 


O O 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


562 


languished in Europe, and without which 
democratic forms are impotent and short¬ 
lived, was to he revived; and a free govern¬ 
ment was to be established, by carrying the 
spirit of equality and freedom into the 
feelings, the manners, and the most familiar 
intercourse of men. The badges of in¬ 
equality, which were perpetually inspiring 
sentiments adverse to the spirit of the go¬ 
vernment, were therefore destroyed, as 
distinctions which only served to unfit the 
Nobility for obedience, and the people for 
freedom, — to keep alive the discontent of 
the one, and to perpetuate the servility of 
the other, — to deprive the one of the mo¬ 
deration that sinks them into citizens, and 
to rob the other of the spirit that exalts 
them into free men. A single example can 
alone dispel inveterate prejudices. Thus 
thought our ancestors at the Revolution, 
when they deviated from the succession, to 
destroy the prejudice of its sanctity. Thus 
also did the legislators of France feel, when, 
by the abolition of titles, they gave a mortal 
blow to the slavish prejudices which unfitted 
their country for freedom. It was a prac¬ 
tical assertion of that equality which had 
been consecrated in the Declaration of 
Rights, but which no abstract assertion 
could have conveyed into the spirits and 
the hearts of men. It proceeded on the 
principle that the security of a revolution 
of government can only arise from a revolu¬ 
tion of character. 

To these reasonings it has been opposed, 
that hereditary distinctions are the moral 
treasure of a state, by which it excites and 
rewards public virtue and public service, 
and which, without national injury or bur¬ 
den, operates with resistless force on gene¬ 
rous minds. To this I answer, that of per¬ 
sonal distinctions this description is most 
true ; but that this moral treasury of honour 
is in fact impoverished by the improvident 
profusion that has made them hereditary. 
The possession of honours by that multitude, 
who have inherited but not acquired them, 
engrosses and depreciates these incentives 
and rewards of virtue. Were they purely 
personal, their value would be doubly en¬ 


hanced, as the possessors would be fewer, 
while the distinction was more honourable. 
Personal distinctions then every wise state 
will cherish as its surest and noblest re¬ 
source ; but of hereditary title, — at least 
in the circumstances of France *, — the abo¬ 
lition seems to have been just and politic. 

The fate of the Church, the second great 
corporation that sustained the French des¬ 
potism, has peculiarly provoked the indig¬ 
nation of Mr. Burke. The dissolution of 
the Church as a body, the resumption of its 
territorial revenues, and the new organ¬ 
isation of the priesthood, appear to him to 
be dictated by the union of robbery and 
irreligion, to glut the rapacity of stock¬ 
jobbers, and to gratify the hostility of 
atheists. All the outrages and proscriptions 
of ancient or modern tyrants vanish, in his 
opinion, in comparison with this confisca¬ 
tion of the property of the Gallican Church. 
Principles had, it is true, been on this sub¬ 
ject explored, and reasons had been urged 
by men of genius, which vulgar men deemed 
irresistible. But with these reasons Mr. 
Burke will not deign to combat. “ You do 
not imagine, Sir,” says he to his corre¬ 
spondent, “ that I am going to compliment 
this miserable description of persons with 
any long discussion ? ” f What immediately 


* I have been grossly misunderstood by those 
who have supposed this qualification an assumed 
or affected reserve. I believe the principle only as 
qualified by the circumstances of different nations. 

f The Abbe Maury, who is not less remarkable 
for the fury of eloquent declamation, than for the 
inept parade of historical erudition, attempted in 
the debate on this subject to trace the opinion 
higher. Base lawyers, according to him, had in¬ 
sinuated it to the Roman Emperors, and against 
it was pointed the maxim of the civil law, “ Omnia 
tenes Caesar imperio, sed non dominio.” Louis XIY. 
and Louis XV. had, if we may believe him, both been 
assailed by this Machiavelian doctrine, and both 
had repulsed it with magnanimous indignation. 
The learned Abbe committed only one mistake. 
The despots of Rome and France had indeed been 
poisoned with the idea that they were the imme¬ 
diate proprietors of their subjects’ estates. That 
opinion is execrable and flagitious; but it is not, 
as we shall see, the doctrine of the French legis¬ 
lators. 







A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 563 


follows this contemptuous passage is so 
outrageously offensive to candour and ur¬ 
banity, that an honourable adversary will 
disdain to avail himself of it. The passage 
itself, however, demands a pause. It alludes 
to an opinion, of which I trust Mr. Burke 
did not know the origin. That the Church 
lands were national property was not first 
asserted among the Jacobins, or in the 
Palais Royal. The author of that opinion, 
— the master of that wretched description of 
persons, whom Mr. Burke disdains to en¬ 
counter, was one whom he might have 
combated with glory, — with confidence of 
triumph in victory, and without fear or 
shame in defeat. The author of that opi¬ 
nion was Turgot! a name now too high 
to be exalted by eulogy, or depressed by 
invective. That benevolent and philoso¬ 
phic statesman delivered it, in the article 
“Foundation” of the Encyclopedic, as 
the calm and disinterested opinion of a 
scholar, at a moment when he could have 
no object in palliating rapacity, or prompt¬ 
ing irreligion. It was no doctrine con- 
trived for the occasion by the agents of 
tyranny: it was a principle discovered in 
pure and harmless speculation, by one of 
the best and wisest of men. I adduce 
the authority of Turgot, not to oppose the 
arguments (if there had been any), but to 
counteract the insinuations of Mr. Burke. 
The authority of his assertions forms a 
prejudice, which is thus to be removed 
before we can hope for a fair audience 
at the bar of Reason. If he insinuates 
the flagitiousness of these opinions by the 
supposed vileness of their origin, it cannot 
be unfit to pave the way for their recep¬ 
tion, by assigning to them a more illustrious 
pedigree. 

But dismissing the genealogy of doctrines, 
let us examine their intrinsic value, and 
listen to no voice but that of truth. “Are 
the lands occupied by the Church the pro¬ 
perty of its members ? ” Various consider¬ 
ations present themselves, which may elu¬ 
cidate the subject. 

It has not hitherto been supposed that 
any class of public servants are proprietors. 


They are salaried* by the State for the 
performance of certain duties. Judges are 
paid for the distribution of justice; kings 
for the execution of the laws; soldiers, 
where there is a mercenary army, for public 
defence ; and priests, where there is an esta¬ 
blished religion, for public instruction. The 
mode of their payment is indifferent to the 
question. It is generally in rude ages by 
land, and in cultivated periods by money. 
But a territorial pension is no more pro¬ 
perty than a pecuniary one. The right of 
the State to regulate the salaries of those 
servants whom it pays in money has not 
been disputed : and if it has chosen to pro¬ 
vide the revenue of a certain portion of 
land for the salary of another class of ser¬ 
vants, wherefore is its right more disputable, 
to resume that land, and to establish a new 
mode of payment ? In the early history of 
Europe, before fiefs became hereditary, 
great landed estates were bestowed by the 
sovereign, on condition of military service. 
By a similar tenure did the Church hold its 
lands. No man can prove, that because 
the State has entrusted its ecclesiastical ser¬ 
vants with a portion of land, as the source 
and security of their pensions , they are in 
any respect more the proprietors of it, than 
the other servants of the State are of that 
portion of the revenue from which they are 
paid. 

The lands of the Church possess not the 
most simple and indispensable requisites of 
property. They are not even pretended to 
be held for the benefit of those who enjoy 
them. This is the obvious criterion be¬ 
tween private property and a pension for 
public service. The destination of the first 
is avowedly the comfort and happiness of 
the individual who enjoys it: as he is con¬ 
ceived to be the sole judge of this hap¬ 
piness, he possesses the most unlimited 
rights of enjoyment, of alienation, and even 
of abuse. But the lands of the Church, 
destined for the support of public servants, 


* “ Ils sont ou salaries, ou mendians, ou voleurs,” 
was the expression of M. Mirabeau respecting the 
priesthood. 


00 2 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


564 

exhibited none of these characters of pro¬ 
perty. They were inalienable, because it 
would have been not less absurd for the 
priesthood to have exercised such authority 
over these lands, than it would be for sea¬ 
men to claim the property of a fleet which 
they manned, or soldiers that of a fortress 
they garrisoned. 

It is confessed that no individual priest 
was a proprietor, and that the utmost claim 
of any one was limited to a possession for 
life of his stipend. If all the priests, taken 
individually, were not proprietors, the priest¬ 
hood, as a body, cannot claim any such 
right. For what is a body, but an aggre¬ 
gate of individuals? and what new right 
can be conveyed by a mere change of 
name ? Nothing can so forcibly illustrate 
this argument as the case of other corpora¬ 
tions. They are voluntary associations of 
men for their own benefit. Every member 
of them is an absolute sharer in their pro¬ 
perty : it is therefore alienated and inherited. 
Corporate property is here as sacred as in¬ 
dividual, because in the ultimate analysis it 
is the same. But the priesthood is a cor¬ 
poration, endowed by the country, and 
destined for the benefit of others: hence 
the members have no separate, nor the 
body any collective, right of property. They 
are only entrusted with the administration 
of the lands from which their salaries are 
paid.* 

It is from this last circumstance that the 
legal semblance of property arises. In 
charters, bonds, and all other proceedings 
of law, these salaries are treated with the 
same formalities as real property. “They 
are identified,” says Mr. Burke, “ with the 
mass of private property; ” and it must be 
confessed, that if we are to limit our view 
to form, this language is correct. But the 
repugnance of these formalities to legal 
truth proceeds from a very obvious cause. 


* This admits a familiar illustration. If a land¬ 
holder chooses to pay his steward for the collection 
of his rents, by permitting him to possess a farm 
gratis, is he conceived to have resigned his property 
in the farm ? The case is precisely similar. 


If estates are vested in the clergy, to them 
most unquestionably ought to be entrusted 
the protection of these estates in all con¬ 
tests at law; and actions for that purpose 
can only be maintained with facility, sim¬ 
plicity, and effect, by the fiction of their 
being proprietors. Nor is this the only 
case in which the spirit and the forms of 
law are at variance respecting property. 
Scotland, where lands still are held by 
feudal tenures, will afford us a remarkable 
example. There, if we extend our views no 
further than legal forms, the “ superior ” is 
to be regarded as the proprietor, while the 
real proprietor appears to be only a tenant 
for life. In this case, the vassal is formally 
stript of the property which he in fact 
enjoys: in the other, the Church is formally 
invested with a property, to which in reality 
it had no claim. The argument of Pre¬ 
scription will appear to be altogether un¬ 
tenable : for prescription implies a certain 
period during which the rights of property 
have been exercised; but in the case be¬ 
fore us they never were exercised, because 
they never could be supposed to exist. It 
must be proved that these possessions were 
of the nature of property, before it can 
follow that they are protected by prescrip¬ 
tion ; and to plead the latter is to take for 
granted the question in dispute.* 


* There are persons who may not relish the 
mode of reasoning here adopted. They contend 
that property, being the creature of civil society, 
may be resumed by that public will which created 
it; and on this principle they justify the National 
Assembly of France. But such a justification is 
adverse to the principles of that Assembly, for they 
have consecrated it as one of the first maxims of 
their Declaration of Rights, “ that the State can¬ 
not violate property, except in cases of urgent 
necessity, and on condition of previous indemnifi¬ 
cation.” This defence too will not justify their 
selection of Church property, in preference of all 
others for resumption. It certainly ought in this 
view to have fallen equally on all citizens. The 
principle is besides false in the extreme to which 
it is assumed. Property is indeed in some sense 
created by an act of the public will: but it is by 
one of th.ose fundamental acts which constitute 
society. Theory proves it to be essential to the 













A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 565 


When the British Islands, the Dutch Re¬ 
public, and the German and Scandinavian 
States, reformed their ecclesiastical establish¬ 
ments, the howl of sacrilege was the only 
armour by which the Church attempted to 
protect its pretended property : the age was 
too tumultuous and unlettered for discus¬ 
sions of abstract jurisprudence. This howl 
seems, however, to have fallen into early 
contempt. The Treaty of Westphalia secu¬ 
larised many of the most opulent benefices 
of Germany, under the mediation and gua¬ 
rantee of the first Catholic Powers of Europe. 
In our own island, on the abolition of epis¬ 
copacy in Scotland at the Revolution, the 
revenues of the Church peaceably devolved 
on the sovereign, and he devoted a portion 
of them to the support of the new establish¬ 
ment. When, at a still later period, the 
Jesuits were suppressed in most Catholic 
monarchies, the wealth of that formidable 
and opulent body was everywhere seized by 
the sovereign. In all these memorable ex¬ 
amples, no traces are to be discovered of the 
pretended property of the Church. The 
salaries of a class of public servants were 
resumed by the State, when it ceased to 
deem their service, or the mode of it, useful. 
That claim, now so forcibly urged by M. de 
Calonne, was probably little respected by 
him, when he lent his agency to the destruc¬ 
tion of the Jesuits with such peculiar activity 
and rancour. The sacredness of their pro¬ 
perty could not have strongly impressed one 
who was instrumental in degrading the mem¬ 
bers of that renowned and accomplished 
society, the glory of Catholic Europe, from 
their superb endowments to the rank of 


social state. Experience proves that it has, in 
some degree, existed in every age and nation of 
the world. But those public acts which form and 
endow corporations are subsequent and subordi¬ 
nate ; they are only ordinary expedients of legisla¬ 
tion. The property of individuals is established 
on a general principle, which seems coeval with civil 
society itself: but corporate bodies are instruments 
fabricated by the legislator for a specific purpose, 
which ought to be preserved while they are bene¬ 
ficial, amended when they are impaired, and re¬ 
jected when they become useless or injurious. 


scanty and beggarly pensioners. The reli¬ 
gious horror which the priesthood had at¬ 
tached to spoliation of Church property has 
long been dispelled; and it was reserved for 
Mr. Burke to renew that cry of sacrilege, 
which, in the darkness of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, had resounded in vain. No man can 
be expected to oppose arguments to epithets. 
When a definition of sacrilege is given, con¬ 
sistent with good logic and plain English, it 
will be time enough to discuss it. Till that 
definition (with the Greek Calends) comes, 
I should as soon dispute about the meaning 
of sacrilege as about that of heresy or witch¬ 
craft. 

The whole subject is indeed so clear that 
little diversity of opinion could have arisen, 
if the question of the inviolability of Church 
property had not been confounded with the 
claims of the present incumbents. The dis¬ 
tinction, though neither stated by Mr. Burke 
nor M. de Calonne, is extremely simple. The 
State is the proprietor of the Church re¬ 
venues ; but its faith, it may be said, is 
pledged to those who have entered into the 
Church, for the continuance of the incomes, 
for which they have abandoned all other 
pursuits. The right of the State to arrange 
at its pleasure the revenues of any future 
priests may be confessed; while a doubt may 
be entertained, whether it is competent to 
change the fortune of those to whom it has 
solemnly promised a certain income for life. 
But these distinct subjects have been con¬ 
founded, that sympathy with suffering indi¬ 
viduals might influence opinion on a general 
question, — that feeling for the degradation 
of its hierarchy might supply the place of 
argument to establish the property of the 
Church. In considering this subject dis¬ 
tinctly, it cannot be denied, that the mildest, 
the most equitable, and the most usual ex¬ 
pedient of civilised states in periods of emer¬ 
gency, is the reduction of the salaries of their 
servants, and the suppression of superfluous 
places. This and no more has been done 
regarding the Church of France. Civil, 
naval, and military servants of the State are 
subject to such retrenchments in a moment 
of difficulty. Neither the reform of a civil 













566 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

office, nor the reduction of a regiment, can 
be effected without wounding individuals.* 
But all men who enter into the public ser¬ 
vice must do so with the implied condition 
of subjecting their emoluments, and even 
their official existence, to the exigencies of 
the State. The great grievance of such de¬ 
rangements is the shock they give to family 
sentiments. This was precluded in the in¬ 
stance under discussion by the compulsory 
celibacy of the Romish Church; and when 
the debts of the clergy are incorporated with 
those of the State, and their subsistence in¬ 
sured by moderate incomes, though Sensi¬ 
bility may, in the least retrenchment, find 
somewhat to lament, Justice will, in the 
whole of these arrangements, discover little 
to condemn. To the individual members of 
the Church of France, whose hopes and en¬ 
joyments have been abridged by this resump¬ 
tion, no virtuous mind will refuse the tribute 
of its sympathy and its regrets. Every man 
of humanity must wish that public exigencies 
had permitted the French Legislature to 
spare the income of the present incumbents, 
and more especially of those whom they still 
continue in the discharge of active functions. 

• But these sentiments imply no sorrow at the 
downfall of a great corporation, — the im¬ 
placable enemy of freedom, — at the con¬ 
version of an immense public property to 
national use, — or at the reduction of a 
servile and imperious priesthood to humble 
utility. The attainment of these great ob¬ 
jects consoles us for the portion of evil that 
was, perhaps, inseparable from it, and will 
be justly applauded by a posterity too re¬ 
mote to be moved by comparatively minute 
afflictions. 

The enlightened observer of an age thus 
distant will contemplate with peculiar as¬ 
tonishment the rise, progress, decay, and 
downfall of spiritual power in Christian 
Europe.f It will attract his attention as an 

appearance which stands alone in history. 
Its connexion in all stages of its progress 
with the civil power will peculiarly occupy 
his mind. He will remark the unpresuming 
humility by which it gradually gained the 
favour, and divided the power, of the magis¬ 
trate,— the haughty and despotic tone in 
which it afterwards gave law to sovereigns 
and their subjects, — the zeal with which, in 
the first desperate moments of decline, it 
armed the people against the magistrate, and 
aimed at re-establishing spiritual despotism 
on the ruins of civil order; and he will point 
out the asylum which it at last found from 
the hostilities of Reason in the prerogatives 
of that temporal despotism, of which it had 
so long been the implacable foe. The first 
and last of these periods will prove, that the 
priesthood are servilely devoted when they 
are weak: the second and third, that they 
are dangerously ambitious when strong. In 
a state of feebleness, they are dangerous to 
liberty: possessed of power, they are dan¬ 
gerous to civil government itself. But the 
last period of their progress will be that 
which will appear to have been peculiarly 
connected with the state of France. 

There can be no protection for the opu¬ 
lence and even existence* of an European 
priesthood in an enlightened period, but the 
throne. It forms the only bulwark against 
the inroads of Reason: for the superstition 
which once formed its power is gone. Around 
the throne therefore they rally; and to the 
monarch they transfer the devotion which 
formerly attached them to the Church ; 
while the fierceness of priestly f zeal has 
been succeeded by the more peaceful senti¬ 
ments of a courtly and polished servility. 
Such is, in a greater or less degree, the 
present condition of the Church in every 
nation of Europe. Yet it is for the dis¬ 
solution of such a body that France has been 
reproached. It might as well be maintained, 

* This is precisely the case of “ damnum absque 
injuriiL” 

f Did we not dread the ridicule of political pre¬ 
diction, it would not seem difficult to assign its 
period. Church power (unless some Revolution, 

auspicious to priestcraft, should replunge Europe 
into ignorance) will certainly not survive the nine¬ 
teenth century. 

* I always understand their corporate existence, 
f Odium Theologicum. 









A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 


that in her conquests over despotism she 
ought to have spared the strongest fortresses 
and most faithful troops of her adversary:— 
for such in truth were the corporations of 
the Nobility and the Church. The National 
Assembly have only ensured permanence to 
their establishments, by dismantling the for¬ 
tresses, and disbanding the troops of then- 
vanquished foe. 

In the few remarks that are here made on 
the Nobility and Clergy of France, we con¬ 
fine ourselves strictly to their political and 
collective character : Mr. Burke, on the con¬ 
trary, has grounded his eloquent apology 
purely on their individual and moral charac¬ 
ter. The latter, however, is totally irre¬ 
levant ; for we are not discussing what place 
they ought to occupy in society as indivi¬ 
duals, but as a body. We are not considering 
the demerit of citizens whom it is fit to 
punish, but the spirit of a body which it is 
politic to dissolve. 

The Judicial Aristocracy formed by the 
Parliaments, seems still less susceptible of 
union with a free government. Their spirit 
and claims were equally incompatible with 
liberty. They had imbibed a spirit con¬ 
genial to the authority under which they 
had acted, and suitable to the arbitrary 
genius of the laws which they had dispensed; 
while they retained those ambiguous and 
indefinite claims to a share in the legislation, 
which the fluctuations of power in the king¬ 
dom had in some degree countenanced. The 
spirit of a corporation was from the small¬ 
ness of their numbers more concentrated 
and vigorous in them than in the Nobles 
and Clergy; and whatever aristocratic zeal 
is laid to the charge of the Nobility, was 
imputable with tenfold force to the ennobled 
magistrates, who regarded their recent ho¬ 
nours with an enthusiasm of vanity, inspired 
by that bigoted veneration for rank which 
is the perpetual character of upstarts. A 
free people could not form its tribunals of 
men who pretended to any control on the 
legislature. Courts of justice, in which seats 
were legally purchased, had too long been 
endured : judges who regarded the right of 
dispensing justice as a marketable corn- 


567 

modity, could neither be fit organs of equit¬ 
able laws, nor suitable magistrates for a free 
state. It is vain to urge with Mr. Burke 
the past services of these judicial bodies. It 
is not to be denied that Montesquieu is 
correct, when he states, that under bad go¬ 
vernments one abuse often limits another. 
The usurped authority of the Parliaments 
formed, it is true, some bulwark against the 
caprice of the Court. But when ihe abuse 
is destroyed, why preserve the remedial evil ? 
Superstition certainly alleviates the despotism 
of Turkey: but if a rational government 
could be erected in that empire, it might 
with confidence disclaim the aid of the 
Koran, and despise the remonstrances of the 
Mufti. To such establishments, let us pay 
the tribute of gratitude for past benefit; 
but when their utility no longer exists, let 
them be canonised by death, that their ad¬ 
mirers may be indulged in all the plenitude 
of posthumous veneration. 

The three Aristocracies —Military, Sacer¬ 
dotal, and Judicial — may be considered as 
having formed the French Government. 
They have appeared, so far as we have con¬ 
sidered them, incorrigible. All attempts to 
improve them would have been little better 
than (to use the words of Mr. Burke) 
“ mean reparations on mighty ruins.” They 
were not perverted by the accidental de¬ 
pravity of their members; they were not 
infected by any transient passion, which new 
circumstances would extirpate; the fault 
was in the essence of the institutions them¬ 
selves, which were irreconcileable with a 
free government. 

But, it is objected, these institutions might 
have been gradually reformed *: the spirit 
of freedom would have silently entered ; the 
progressive wisdom of an enlightened nation 
would have remedied, in process of time, 
their defects, without convulsion. To this 
argument I confidently answer, that these 
institutions would have destroyed Liberty, 
before Liberty had corrected their spirit. 
Power vegetates with more vigour after 
these gentle prunings. A slender reform 


* Burke, pp. 248-252. 









568 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WOKKS. 


amuses and lulls the people : the popular 
enthusiasm subsides; and the moment of 
effectual reform is irretrievably lost. No 
important political improvement was ever 
obtained in a period of tranquillity. The 
corrupt interest of the governors is so strong, 
and the cry of the people so feeble, that it 
were vain to expect it. If the effervescence 
of the popular mind is suffered to pass away 
without effect, it would be absurd to expect 
from languor what enthusiasm has not ob¬ 
tained. If radical reform is not, at such a 
moment, procured, all partial changes are 
evaded and defeated in the tranquillity 
which succeeds.* The gradual reform that 
arises from the presiding principle exhibited 
in the specious theory of Mr. Burke, is 
belied by the experience of all ages. What¬ 
ever excellence, whatever freedom is dis¬ 
coverable in governments, has been infused 
into them by the shock of a revolution: and 
their subsequent progress has been only the 
accumulation of abuse. It is henee that the 
most enlightened politicians have recognised 
the necessity of frequently recalling their 
first principles; — a truth equally suggested 
to the penetrating intellect of Machiavel, by 
his experience of the Florentine democracy, 
and by his research into the history of an¬ 
cient commonwealths. Whatever is good 
ought to be pursued at the moment it is 
attainable. The public voice, irresistible in 
a period of convulsion, is contemned with 
impunity, when spoken during the lethargy 
into which nations are lulled by the tranquil 
course of their ordinary affairs. The ardour 
1 of reform languishes in unsupported tedi¬ 
ousness : it perishes in an impotent struggle 
with adversaries, who receive new strength 
with the progress of the day. No hope of 
great political improvement — let us repeat 


* “ Ignore-t-on que c’est en attaquant, en ren- 
versant tous les abus a la fois, qu’on peut esperer 
de s’en voir d^livre sans retour; que les reformes 
lentes et partielles ont toujours fini par ne rien 
reformer; enfin, que l’abus que 1’on conserve de- 
vient l’appui et bientot le restaurateur de tous 
ceux qu’on croioit avoir ddtruits?” Adresse 
aux Francis par l’Eveque d’Autun, 11 Fevrier, 
1790. 


it—is to be entertained from tranquillity*; 
for its natural operation is to strengthen all 
those who are interested in perpetuating 
abuse. The National Assembly seized the 
moment of eradicating the corruptions and 
abuses which afflicted their country. Their 
reform was total, that it might be commen¬ 
surate with the evil: and no part of it was 
delayed, because to spare an abuse at such 
a period was to consecrate it; and as the 
enthusiasm which carries nations to such 
enterprises is short-lived, so the opportunity 
of reform, if once neglected, might be irre¬ 
vocably fled. 

But let us ascend to more general prin¬ 
ciples, and hazard bolder opinions. Let us 
grant that the state of France was not so 
desperately incorrigible. Let us suppose 
that changes far more gentle, — innovations 
far less extensive,—would have remedied 
the grosser evils of her government, and 
placed it almost on a level with free and 
celebrated constitutions. These concessions, 
though too large for truth, will not convict 
the Assembly. By what principle of reason, 
or of justice, were they precluded from 
aspiring to give France a government less 
imperfect than accident had formed in other 
states ? Who will be hardy enough to 
assert, that a better constitution is not 
attainable than any which has hitherto ap¬ 
peared ? Is the limit of human wisdom to 
be estimated in the science of politics alone, 
by the extent of its present attainments ? 
Is the most sublime and difficult of all arts, 
—the improvement of the social order, — 
the alleviation of the miseries of the civil 
condition of man,—to be alone stationary, 
amid the rapid progress of every other— 
liberal and vulgar — to perfection ? Where 
would be the atrocious guilt of a grand ex¬ 
periment, to ascertain the portion of freedom 


* The only apparent exception to this principle 
is the case where sovereigns make important con¬ 
cessions to appease discontent, and avert convul¬ 
sion. This, however, rightly understood, is no 
exception; for it arises evidently from the same 
causes, acting at a period less advanced in the 
progress of popular interposition. 
















A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 569 


and happiness, that can be created by politi¬ 
cal institutions ? 

That guilt (if it be guilt) is imputable to 
the National Assembly. They are accused 
of having rejected the guidance of experi¬ 
ence,— of having abandoned themselves to 
the illusion of theory, — and of having 
sacrificed great and attainable good to the 
magnificent chimeras of ideal excellence. 
If this accusation be just, — if they have 
indeed abandoned experience, the basis of 
human knowledge, as well as the guide of 
human action, — their conduct deserves no 
longer any serious argument: but if (as 
Mr. Burke more than once insinuates) their 
contempt of it is avowed and ostentatious, it 
was surely unworthy of him to have ex¬ 
pended so much genius against so prepos¬ 
terous an insanity. But the explanation of 
terms will diminish our wonder. Experience 
may, both in the arts and in the conduct of 
human life, be regarded in a double view, 
either as furnishing models , or principles. 
An artist who frames his machine in exact 
imitation of his predecessor, is in the first 
sense said to be guided by experience. In 
this sense all improvements of human life, 
have been deviations from experience. The 
first visionary innovator was the savage who 
built a cabin, or covered himself with a rug. 
If this be experience, man is degraded to 
the unimproveable level of the instinctive 
animals. But in the second acceptation, an 
artist is said to be guided by experience, 
when the inspection of a machine discovers 
to him principles, which teach him to im¬ 
prove it; or when the comparison of many, 
both with respect to their excellences and 
defects, enables him to frame one different 
from any he had examined, and still more 
perfect. In this latter sense, the National 
Assembly have perpetually availed them¬ 
selves of experience. History is an immense 
collection of experiments on the nature and 
effect of the various parts of various govern¬ 
ments. Some institutions are experimentally 
ascertained to be beneficial; some to be most 
indubitably destructive; a third class, which 
produces partial good, obviously possesses 
the capacity of improvement. What, on 


such a survey, was the dictate of enlightened 
experience ? Not surely to follow any model 
in which these institutions lay indiscrimi¬ 
nately mingled; but, like the mechanic, to 
compare and generalise, and, guided equally 
by experience, to imitate and reject. The 
process is in both cases the same; the rights 
and the nature of man are to the legislator 
what the general properties of matter are to 
the mechanic, — the first guide, — because 
they are founded on the widest experience. 
In the second class are to be ranked ob¬ 
servations on the excellences and defects of 
all governments which have already existed, 
that the construction of a more perfect 
machine may result. But experience is the 
basis of all: — not the puny and trammelled 
experience of a statesman by trade , who 
trembles at any change in the tricks which 
he has been taught, or the routine in which 
he has been accustomed to move; but an 
experience liberal and enlightened, which 
hears the testimony of ages and nations, and 
collects from it the general principles which 
regulate the mechanism of society. 

Legislators are under no obligation to re¬ 
tain a constitution, because it has been found 
“ tolerably to answer the common purposes 
of government.” It is absurd to expect , but 
it is not absurd to pursue perfection. It is 
absurd to acquiesce in evils, of which the 
remedy is obvious, because they are less 
grievous than those which are endured by 
others. To suppose that social order is not 
capable of improvement from the progress 
of the human understanding, is to betray 
the inconsistent absurdity of an arrogant 
confidence in our attainments, and an abject 
distrust of our powers. If, indeed, the sum 
of evil produced by political institutions, 
even in the least imperfect governments, 
were small, there might be some pretence 
for this dread of innovation, — this horror 
at any remedy, — which has raised such a 
clamour over Europe. But, on the con¬ 
trary, in an estimate of the sources of human 
misery, after granting that one portion is to 
be attributed to disease, and another to pri¬ 
vate vices, it might perhaps be found that a 
third equal part arose from the oppressions 







570 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


and corruptions of government, disguised 
under various forms. All the governments 
that now exist in the world (except that of 
the United States of America) have been 
fortuitously formed : they are not the work 
of art. They have been altered, impaired, 
improved, and destroyed by accidental cir¬ 
cumstances, beyond the foresight or control 
of wisdom. Their parts thrown up against 
present emergencies formed no systematic 
whole. It was certainly not to have been 
presumed, that these fortuitous products 
should have surpassed the works of intellect, 
and precluded all nearer approaches to per¬ 
fection. Their origin without doubt fur¬ 
nishes a strong presumption of an opposite 
nature. It might teach us to expect in them 
many discordant principles, many jarring 
forms, much unmixed evil, and much im¬ 
perfect good, — many institutions which had 
long survived their motive, and many of 
which reason had never been the author, nor 
utility the object. Experience, even in the 
best of them , accords with such expectations. 

A government of art, the work of legis¬ 
lative intellect, reared on the immutable 
basis of natural right and general happiness, 
which should combine the excellences, and 
exclude the defects of the various constitu¬ 
tions which chance has scattered over the 
world, instead of being precluded by the 
perfection of any of those forms, was loudly 
demanded by the injustice and absurdity of 
them all. It was time that men should learn 
to tolerate nothing ancient that reason does ■ 
not respect, and to shrink from no novelty 
to which reason may conduct. It was time 
that the human powers, so long occupied by 
subordinate objects, and inferior arts, should 
mark the commencement of a new era in 
history, by giving birth to the art of improv¬ 
ing government, and increasing the civil 
happiness of man. It was time, as it has 
been wisely and eloquently said, that legis¬ 
lators, instead of that narrow and dastardly 
coasting which never ventures to lose sight 
of usage and precedent, should, guided by 
the polarity of reason, hazard a bolder 
navigation, and discover, in unexplored 
regions, the treasure of public felicity. 


The task of the French legislators was, 
however, less hazardous. The philosophers 
of Europe had for a century discussed all 
objects of public economy. The conviction 
of a great majority of enlightened men had, 
after many controversies, become on most 
questions of general politics, uniform. A 
degree of certainty, perhaps nearly equal to 
that which such topics will admit, had been 
attained. The National Assembly were, 
therefore, not called on to make discoveries : 
it was sufficient if they were not uninfluenced 
by the opinions, nor exempt from the spirit 
of their age. They were fortunate enough 
to live in a period when it was only neces¬ 
sary to affix the stamp of laws to what had 
been prepared by the research of philosophy. 
They will here, however, be attacked by a 
futile common-place. The most specious 
theory, it will be said, is often impracticable; 
and any attempt to transfer speculative doc¬ 
trines into the practice of states is chimerical 
and frantic. If by “ theory” be understood 
vague conjecture, the objection is not worth 
discussion : but if by theory be meant infer¬ 
ence from the moral nature and political 
state of man, then I assert, that whatever 
such theory pronounces to be true, must be 
practicable; and that whatever on the sub¬ 
ject is impracticable, must be false. To re¬ 
sume the illustration from the mechanical 
arts : — geometry, it may be justly said, 
bears nearly the same relation to mechanics 
that abstract reasoning does to politics.* 
The moral forces which are employed in 
politics are the passions and interests of 
men,'of which it is the province of meta¬ 
physics to teach the nature and calculate 
the strength, as mathematics do those of the 
mechanical powers. Now suppose it had 
been mathematically proved, that by a cer¬ 
tain alteration in the structure of a machine, 
its effect, would be increased four-fold, would 


* I confess my obligation for this parallel to a 
learned friend, who though so justly admired in 
the republic of letters for his excellent writings, is 
still more so by his friends for the rich, original, 
and masculine turn of thought that animates his 
conversation. But the Continuator of the History 
of Philip III. little needs my praise. 












A DEFENCE OF THE 

an instructed mechanic hesitate about the 
change? Would he be deterred, because 
he was the first to discover it ? Would he 
thus sacrifice his own advantage to the 
blindness of his predecessors, and the ob¬ 
stinacy of his cotemporaries ? Let us sup¬ 
pose a whole nation, of which the artizans 
thus rejected theoretical improvement: me¬ 
chanics might there, as a science, be most 
profoundly understood, while, as an art, it 
exhibited nothing but rudeness and bar¬ 
barism. The principles of Newton and 
Archimedes might be taught in the schools, 
while the architecture of the people might 
not have reached beyond the cabins of New 
Holland, or the ship-building of the Esqui¬ 
maux. In a state of political science some¬ 
what similar has Europe continued for a 
great part of the eighteenth century.* 

All the great questions of general politics 
had, as we have remarked, been nearly de¬ 
cided, and almost all the decisions had been 
hostile to established institutions ; yet these 
institutions still flourished in all their vigour. 
The same man who cultivated liberal science 
in his cabinet was compelled to administer a 
barbarous jurisprudence on the bench. The 
same Montesquieu, who at Paris reasoned 
as a philosopher of the eighteenth, was 
compelled to decide at Bourdeaux as a 
magistrate of the fourteenth century. The 
apostles of toleration and the ministers of 
the Inquisition were cotemporaries. The 
torture continued to be practised in the age 
of Beccaria: the Bastile devoured its vic¬ 
tims in the country of Turgot. The crimi¬ 
nal code, even where it was the mildest, was 


* Mechanics, because no passion or interest is 
concerned in the perpetuity of abuse, always yield 
to scientific improvement: politics, for the con¬ 
trary reason, always resist it. It was the remark 
of Hobbes, “ that if any interest or passion were 
concerned in disputing the theorems of geometry, 
different opinions would be maintained regarding 
them.” It has actually happened (as if to justify 
the remark of that great man) that under the 
administration of Turgot a financial reform, 
grounded on a mathematical demonstration, has 
been derided as visionary nonsense! So much for 
the sage preference of practice to theory. 


FRENCH REVOLUTION. 571 

oppressive and savage. The laws respecting 
religious opinion, even where there was a 
pretended toleration, outraged the most 
evident deductions of reason. The true 
principles of commercial policy, though they 
had been reduced to demonstration, influ¬ 
enced the councils of no states. Such was 
the fantastic spectacle presented by the 
European nations, who, philosophers in 
theory, and barbarians in practice, exhibited 
to the observing eye two opposite and in¬ 
consistent aspects of manners and opinions. 
But such a state of things carried in itself 
the seeds of its own destruction. Men will 
not long dwell in hovels, with the model of 
a palace before their eyes. 

Such was indeed in some measure the 
position of the ancient world. But the art 
of printing had not then provided a channel 
by which the opinions of the learned pass 
insensibly into the popular mind. A bul¬ 
wark then existed between the body of 
mankind and the reflecting few. They were 
distinct nations, inhabiting the same country; 
and the opinions of the one (I speak compa¬ 
ratively with modern times) had little in¬ 
fluence on those of the other. But that 
bulwark is now levelled with the ground. 
The convictions of philosophy insinuate 
themselves by a slow, but certain progress, 
into popular sentiment. It is vain for the 
arrogance of learning to condemn the people 
to ignorance by reprobating superficial 
knowledge. The people cannot be profound; 
but the truths which regulate the moral and 
political relations of man, are at no great 
distance from the surface. The great works 
in which discoveries are contained cannot be 
read by the people; but their substance 
passes through a variety of minute and cir¬ 
cuitous channels to the shop and the hamlet. 
The conversion of these works of unproduc¬ 
tive splendour into latent use and unobserved 
activity, resembles the process of nature in 
the external world. The expanse of a noble 
lake — the course of a majestic river — im¬ 
poses on the imagination by every impression 
of dignity and sublimity: but it is the 
moisture that insensibly arises from them 
which, gradually mingling with the soil, 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


572 


nourishes all the luxuriancy of vegetation, 
and adorns the surface of the earth. 

It may then be remarked, that though 
liberal opinions so long existed with defective 
establishments, it was not natural that this 
state of things should be permanent. The 
philosophers of antiquity did not, like Archi¬ 
medes, want a spot on which to fix their 
engines; but they wanted an engine where¬ 
with to move the moral world. The press is 
that engine, and has subjected the powerful 
to the wise. The discussion of great truths 
has prepared a body of laws for the National 
Assembly: the diffusion of political know¬ 
ledge has almost prepared a people to re¬ 
ceive them; and good men are at length 
permitted to indulge the hope, that the 
miseries of the human race are about to be 
alleviated. That hope may be illusive, for 
the grounds of its enemies are strong, — the 
folly and villany of men: yet they who 
entertain it will feel no shame in defeat, and 
no envy of the triumphant prediction of 
their adversaries; — “ Mehercule malim cum 
Platone errare.” Whatever be the ultimate 
fate of the French Revolutionists, the friends 
of freedom must ever consider them as the 
authors of the greatest attempt that has 
hitherto been made in the cause of man. 
They never can cease to rejoice, that in the 
long catalogue of calamities and crimes 
which blacken human annals, the year 1789 
presents one spot on which the eye of 
humanity may with complacence dwell. 


SECTION n. 

OP THE COMPOSITION AND CHARACTER OF 
THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 

Events are rarely separated by the historian 
from the character of those who are conspi¬ 
cuous in conducting them. From this alone 
they often receive the tinge which deter¬ 
mines their moral colour. What is admired 
as noble pride in Sully, would be execrated 
as intolerable arrogance in Richelieu. But 
the degree of this influence varies with the 


importance of the events. In the ordinary 
affairs of state it is great, because in fact 
they are only of importance to posterity, as 
they illustrate the characters of those who 
have acted distinguished parts on the theatre 
of the world. But in events, which them¬ 
selves are of immense magnitude, the cha¬ 
racter of those who conduct them becomes 
of far less relative importance. No igno¬ 
miny is at the present day reflected on the 
Revolution of 1688 from the ingratitude of 
Churchill, or the treachery of Sunderland. 
The purity of Somers, and the profligacy of 
Spencer, are equally lost in the splendour of 
that great transaction, — in the sense of its 
benefits, and the admiration of its justice. 
No moral impression remains on our mind, 
but that whatever voice speaks truth, what¬ 
ever hand establishes freedom, delivers the 
oracles and dispenses the gifts of God. 

If this be true of the deposition of James 
II., it is far more so of the French Revolu¬ 
tion. Among many circumstances which 
distinguished that event, as unexampled in 
history, it was none of the least extraor¬ 
dinary, that it might truly be said to have 
been a Revolution without leaders. It was 
the effect of general causes operating on the 
people. It was the revolt of a nation en¬ 
lightened from a common source. Hence 
it has derived its peculiar character; and 
hence the merits of the most conspicuous 
individuals have had little influence on its 
progress. The character of the National 
Assembly is of secondary importance indeed: 
but as Mr. Burke has expended so much 
invective against that body, a few strictures 
on his account of it will not be improper. 

The representation of the Third Estate 
was, as he justly states, composed of lawyers, 
physicians, merchants, men of letters, trades¬ 
men, and farmers. The choice was, indeed, 
limited by necessity; for except men of 
these ranks and professions, the people had 
no objects of election, the Army and the 
Church being engrossed by the Nobility. 
“ No vestige of the landed interest of the 
country appeared in this representation,” for 
an obvious reason; — because the Nobility 
of France, like the Gentry of England, 














A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 573 

formed almost exclusively the landed inter¬ 
est of the kingdom. These professions then 
could only furnish representatives for the 
Tiers Etat. They form the majority of that 
middle rank among whom almost all the 
sense and virtue of society reside. Their 
pretended incapacity for political affairs is 
an arrogant fiction of statesmen which the 
history of revolutions has ever belied. These 
emergencies have never failed to create 
politicians. The subtle counsellors of Philip 
II. were baffled by the Burgomasters of 
Amsterdam and Leyden. The oppression 
of England summoned into existence a race 
of statesmen in her colonies. The lawyers 
of Boston, and the planters of Virginia, were 
transformed into ministers and negotiators, 
who proved themselves inferior neither in 
wisdom as legislators, nor in dexterity as 
politicians. These facts evince that the 
powers of mankind have been unjustly de¬ 
preciated, — the difficulty of political affairs 
artfully magnified; and that there exists a 
quantity of talent latent among men, which 
ever rises to the level of the great occasions 
that call it forth. 

But the predominance of the profession 
of the law, — that profession which teaches 
men “ to augur misgovernment at a dis¬ 
tance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in 
every tainted breeze — was the fatal 

source from which, if we may believe Mr. 
Burke, have arisen the calamities of France. 
The majority of the Third Estate was in¬ 
deed composed of lawyers. Their talents 
of public speaking, and their professional 
habits of examining questions analogous to 
those of politics, rendered them the most 
probable objects of popular choice, espe¬ 
cially in a despotic country, where political 
speculation was no natural amusement for 
the leisure of opulence. But it does not 
appear that the majority of them consisted 
of the unlearned, mechanical, members of 
the profession.j* From the list of the States- 
General, it would seem that the majority 

were provincial advocates , — a name of very 
different import from “ country attorneys ,” 
and whose importance is not to be estimated 
by purely English ideas. 

All forensic talent and eminence is here 
concentered in the capital: but in France, 
the institution of circuits did not exist; 
the provinces were imperfectly united; their 
laws various; their judicatures distinct, and 
almost independent. Twelve or thirteen 
Parliaments formed as many circles of ad¬ 
vocates, who nearly emulated in learning 
and eloquence the Parisian Bar. This dis¬ 
persion of talent was in some respect also 
the necessary effect of the immensity of the 
kingdom. No liberal man will in England 
bestow on the Irish and Scottish Bar the 
epithet “ provincial ” with a view of dis¬ 
paragement. The Parliaments of many pro¬ 
vinces in France, presented as wide a field 
for talent as the Supreme Courts of Ireland 
and Scotland. The Parliament of Rennes, 
for example, dispensed justice to a province 
which contained two million three hundred 
thousand inhabitants * —a population equal 
to that of some respectable kingdoms of 
Europe. The cities of Bourdeaux, Lyons, 
and Marseilles surpass in wealth and popu¬ 
lation Copenhagen, Stockholm, Petersburg, 
and Berlin. Such were the theatres on 
which the provincial advocates of France 
pursued professional fame. A general Con¬ 
vention of the British empire would yield, 
perhaps, as distinguished a place to Curran 
and Erskine, and the other eminent and ac¬ 
complished barristers of Dublin and Edin¬ 
burgh, as to those of the capital: and on 
the same principles have the Thourets and 
Chapeliers of Rouen, and Rennes, acquired 
as great an ascendant in the National As¬ 
sembly as the Targets and Camuses of the 
Parisian Bar. 

The proof that this “ faculty influence,” 
as Mr. Burke chooses to phrase it, was not 
injuriously predominant, is to be found in 
the decrees of the Assembly respecting the 

* Mr. Burke’s Speech on American Affairs, 1775. 
f See an accurate list of them in the Supple¬ 
ment to the Journal de Paris, 31st of May, 1789. 

* See a Report of the Population of France to 
the National Assembly, by M. Biron de la Tour, 
Engineer and Geographer to the King, 1790. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


574- 


judicial order. It must on his system have 
been their object to have established what 
he calls “ a litigious constitution.” The 
contrary has so notoriously been the case, — 
all their decrees have so obviously tended 
to lessen the importance of lawyers, by 
facilitating arbitrations, by the adoption of 
juries, by diminishing the expense and 
tediousness of suits, by the destruction of 
an intricate and barbarous jurisprudence, 
and by the simplicity introduced into all 
judicial proceedings, that their system has 
been accused of a direct tendency to ex¬ 
tinguish the profession of the law. It is a 
system which may be condemned as leading 
to visionary excess, but which cannot be pre¬ 
tended to bear very strong marks of the 
supposed ascendant of “ chicane.” 

To the lawyers, besides the parochial 
clergy, whom Mr. Burke contemptuously 
styles “ Country Curates *,” were added, 
those Noblemen whom he so severely stig¬ 
matises as deserters from their Order. Yet 
the deputation of the Nobility who first 
joined the Commons, and to whom therefore 
that title best belongs, was not composed of 
men whom desperate fortunes and profligate 
ambition prepared for civil confusion. In 
that number were found the heads of the 
most ancient and opulent families in France, 
— the Rochefoucaults, the Richelieus, the 
Montmorencies, the Noailles. Among them 
was M. Lally, who has received such liberal 
praise from Mr. Burke. It will be difficult 
to discover in one individual of that body 
any interest adverse to the preservation of 
order, and the security of rank and wealth. 

Having thus followed Mr. Burke in a 
very short sketch of the classes of men who 
compose the Assembly, let us proceed to 
consider his representation of the spirit and 
general rules which have guided it, and 
which, according to him, have presided over 
all the events of the Revolution. “ A cabal 
of philosophic atheists had conspired the 
abolition of Christianity. A monied in¬ 
terest, who had grown into opulence from 


* It is hardly necessary to remark that cure 
means rector. 


the calamities of France, contemned by the 
Nobility for their origin, and obnoxious to 
the people by their exactions, sought the 
alliance of these philosophers ; by whose in¬ 
fluence on public opinion they were to 
avenge themselves on the Nobility, and con¬ 
ciliate the people. The atheists were to be 
gratified with the extirpation of religion, 
and the stock-jobbers with the spoils of the 
Nobles and the Church. The prominent 
features of the Revolution bear evidence of 
this league of impiety and rapine. The de¬ 
graded establishment of the Church is pre¬ 
paratory to the abolition of Christianity; 
and all the financial operations are designed 
to fill the coffers of the monied capitalists of 
Paris.” Such is the theory of Mr. Burke 
respecting the spirit and character of the 
French Revolution. To separate the por¬ 
tion of truth that gives plausibility to his 
statement from the falsehood that invests it 
with all its horrors, will however neither be 
a tedious nor a difficult task. 

The commercial or monied interest has in 
all nations of Europe (taken as a body) 
been less prejudiced, more liberal, and more 
intelligent than the landed gentry. Their 
views are enlarged by a wider intercourse 
with mankind; and hence the important 
influence of commerce in liberalising the 
modern world. We cannot wonder then 
that this enlightened class ever prove the 
most ardent in the cause of freedom, and 
the most zealous for political reform. It is 
not wonderful that philosophy should find in 
them more docile pupils, and liberty more 
active friends, than in a haughty and pre¬ 
judiced aristocracy. The Revolution in 
1688 produced the same division in England. 
The monied interest long formed the strength 
of Whiggism, while a majority of the landed 
gentlemen long continued zealous Tories. 
It is not unworthy of remark, that the 
pamphleteers of Toryism accused the Whigs 
of the same hostility to religion of which 
Mr. Burke now supposes the existence in 
France. They predicted the destruction of 
the Church, and even the downfall of Chris¬ 
tianity itself from the influx of heretics, 
infidels, and atheists, which the new Govern- 













A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 


ment of England protected. Their pam¬ 
phlets have perished with the topic which 
gave them birth; but the talents and fame 
of Swift have preserved his, which furnish 
abundant proof of this coincidence in cla¬ 
mour between the enemies of the English, 
and the detractors of the French Revo¬ 
lution. 

That the philosophers, the other party in 
this unwonted alliance between affluence 
and literature, in this new union of authors 
and bankers, did prepare the Revolution by 
their writings, it is the glory of its admirers 
to avow.* What the speculative opinions 
of these philosophers were on remote and 
mysterious questions is here of no import¬ 
ance. It is not as atheists, or theists, but 
as political reasoners, that they are to be 
considered in a political revolution. All 
their writings, on the subjects of meta¬ 
physics and theology, are foreign to the 
question. If Rousseau has had any in¬ 
fluence in promoting the Revolution, it is 
not by his Letters from the Mountains, but 
by his Social Contract. If Voltaire con¬ 
tributed to spread liberality in France, it 
was not by his Philosophical Dictionary, but 
by his Defences of Toleration. The obloquy 
of their atheism (if it existed) is personal: 
it does not belong to the Revolution; for 
that event could neither have been pro¬ 
moted nor retarded by abstract discussions 
of theology. The supposition of their con¬ 
spiracy for the abolition of Christianity, is 


* Mr. Burke’s remark on the English Free¬ 
thinkers is unworthy of him. It more resembles 
the rant by which priests inflame the languid 
bigotry of their fanatical adherents, than the calm, 
ingenuous, and manly criticism of a philosopher 
and a scholar. Had he made extensive inquiries 
among his learned friends, he must have found many 
who have read and admired Collins’s incomparable 
tract on Liberty and Necessity. Had he looked 
abroad into the world, he would have found many 
who still read the philosophical works of Boling- 
broke, not as philosophy, but as eloquent and 
splendid declamation. What he means by “their 
successors,” I will not conjecture: I will not sup¬ 
pose that, with Dr. Hurd, he regards David Hume 
as “ a puny dialectician from the north! ” —yet it 
is hard to understand him in any other sense. 


575 

one of the most extravagant chimeras that 
ever entered the human imagination. Let 
us grant their infidelity in the fullest extent: 
still their philosophy must have taught them 
that the passions, whether rational or irra¬ 
tional, from which religion arises, could be 
eradicated by no human power from the 
heart of man ; while their incredulity must 
have made them indifferent as to what par¬ 
ticular mode of religion might prevail. 
These philosophers were not the apostles 
of any new revelation that was to supplant 
the faith of Christ: they knew that the 
heart can on this subject bear no void, and 
they had no interest in substituting the 
Vedam, or the Koran, for the Gospel. They 
could have no reasonable motives to pro¬ 
mote any revolution in the popular faith: 
their purpose was accomplished when the 
priesthood was disarmed. Whatever might 
be the freedom of their private speculations, 
it was not against religion, but against the 
Church, that their political hostility was 
directed. 

But, says Mr. Burke, the degraded pen¬ 
sionary establishment, and the elective con¬ 
stitution of the new clergy of France is 
sufficient evidence of the design. The clergy 
are to be made contemptible, that the popu¬ 
lar reverence for religion may be destroyed, 
and the way thus paved for its abolition. 
It is amusing to examine the different 
aspects which the same object presents to 
various minds. Mr. Hume vindicates the 
policy of an opulent establishment, as a 
bribe which purchases the useful inactivity 
of the priesthood. They have no longer, he 
supposes, any temptation to court a dan¬ 
gerous dominion over the minds of the 
people, because they are independent of it. 
Had that philosopher been now alive, he 
must on the same principle have remarked, 
that an elective clergy and a scantily en¬ 
dowed Church, had a far greater tendency 
to produce fanaticism than irreligion. If 
the priests depend on the people, they can 
only maintain their influence by cultivating 
those passions in the popular mind, which 
give them an ascendant over it: to inflame 
these passions is their obvious ambition. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


576 

Priests would be in a nation of sceptics con¬ 
temptible,— in a nation of fanatics omni¬ 
potent. It has not therefore been more 
uniformly the habit of a clergy that depends 
on a court, to practise servility, than it 
would evidently be the interest of a clergy 
that depends on the people to cultivate reli¬ 
gious enthusiasm. Scanty endowments too 
would still more dispose them to seek a con¬ 
solation for the absence of worldly enjoy¬ 
ments, in the exercise of a flattering autho¬ 
rity over the minds of men. Such would 
have been the view of a philosopher who 
was indifferent to Christianity, on the new 
constitution of the Gallican Church. He 
never would have dreamt of rendering Re¬ 
ligion unpopular by devoting her ministers 
to activity,—contemptible by compelling 
them to purity, —or unamiable by divesting 
her of invidious splendour. He would 
have seen in these changes the seeds of 
enthusiasm and not of laxity. But he would 
have been consoled by the reflection, that 
the dissolution of the Church as a corpora¬ 
tion had broken the strength of the priest¬ 
hood; that religious liberty without limit 
would disarm the animosity of sects; and 
that the diffusion of knowledge would re¬ 
strain the extravagances of fanaticism. 

I am here only considering the establish¬ 
ment of the Gallican Church as an evidence 
of the supposed plan for abolishing Chris¬ 
tianity: I am not discussing its intrinsic 
merits. I therefore personate [a philosophic 
infidel, who, it would appear, must have 
discerned the tendency of this plan to be 
directly the reverse of that conceived by 
Mr. Burke.* It is, in truth, rather a fana¬ 


* The theory of Mr. Burke on the subject of 
religious establishments, I am utterly at a loss to 
comprehend. He will not adopt the impious rea¬ 
soning of Mr. Hume, nor does he suppose with 
Warburton any “ alliance between Church and 
State; ” for he seems to conceive them to be ori¬ 
ginally the same. When he or his admirers trans¬ 
late his statements (pp. 145, 146.) into a series of 
propositions expressed in precise and unadorned 
English, they may become the proper objects of 
argument and discussion. In their present state 
they irresistibly remind one of the observations of 


tical than an irreligious spirit which dictates 
the organisation of the Church of France. 
A-Jansenist party had been formed in the 
old Parliaments through their long hosti¬ 
lities to the Jesuits and the see of Rome; 
members of which party have in the Na¬ 
tional Assembly, by the support of the in¬ 
ferior Clergy, acquired the ascendant in 
ecclesiastical affairs. Of this number is M. 
Camus. The new constitution of the Church 
accords exactly with their dogmas.* The 
clergy are, according to their principles, to 
notify to the Bishop of Rome their union in 
doctrine, but to recognise no subordination 
in discipline. The spirit of a dormant sect 
thus revived in a new shape at so critical a 
period, — the unintelligible subtleties of the 
Bishop of Ypres thus influencing the insti¬ 
tutions of the eighteenth century, might 
present an ample field of reflection to an 
enlightened observer of human affairs: but 
it is sufficient for our purpose to observe the 
fact, and to remark the error of attributing 
to the hostile designs of atheism what in so 
great a degree has arisen from the ardour of 
religious zeal. 

The establishment of the Church has not 
furnished any evidence of that to which 
Mr. Burke has attributed so much of the 
system of the National Assembly. Let us 
examine whether a short review of their 
financial operations will supply the defect-t 

To the gloomy statement of French finance 


Lord Bacon:—“ Pugnax enim philosophise genus 
et sophisticum illaqueat intellectum; at illud 
alteram phantasticum, et tumidum, et quasi poeti- 
cum, magis blanditur intellectui. Inest enim 
homini qusedam intellectus ambitio non minor 
quam voluntatis, praesertim in ingeniis altis et 
elevatis.” Novum Organum, sect. xlv. 

* See the Speech of M. Sieyes on Religious 
Liberty, where he reproaches the Ecclesiastical 
Committee with abusing the Revolution for the 
purpose of reviving the seminary of Port Royal. 
See also M. Condorcet, Sur l’lnstruction Publique. 

j- It maybe remarked,that on the subject of 
finance I have declined all details. They were not 
necessary to my purpose, which was to consider 
the Assembly’s arrangements of revenue, more 
with a view to their supposed political profligacy, 
than to their financial talents. 

_I 








-* 

A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 


offered by M. de Calonne, let us oppose the 
report of M. de la Rochefoucault, from the 
Committee of Finance, on the 9th of De¬ 
cember, 1790, which, from premises that 
appear indisputable, infers a considerable 
surplus revenue in the present year. The 
purity of that distinguished person has 
hitherto been arraigned by no party. That 
understanding must be of a singular con¬ 
struction which could hesitate between the 
statements of the Due de la Rochefoucault 
and M. de Calonne. But without using this 
argumentum ad verecundiam , we remark, that 
there are radical faults, which vitiate the 
whole calculations of the latter, and the 
consequent reasonings of Mr. Burke. They 
are taken from a year of languishing and 
disturbed industry, and absurdly applied to 
the future revenue of peaceful and flourish¬ 
ing periods;—from a year in which much 
of the old revenue of the state had been 
destroyed, and during which the Assembly 
had scarcely commenced its new scheme of 
taxation. It is an error to assert that it was 
the Assembly that destroyed the former 
oppressive taxes, which formed so important 
a source of revenue: these taxes perished 
in the expiring struggle of the ancient go¬ 
vernment. No authority remaining in Franee 
could have maintained them. Calculations 
cannot fail of being most grossly illusive, 
which are formed from a period when many 
taxes had failed before they could be re¬ 
placed by new impost, and when produc¬ 
tive industry itself, the source of all revenue, 
was struck with a momentary palsy.* Mr. 
Burke discussed the financial merit of the 
Assembly before it had begun its system of 
taxation. It is still premature to examine its 
general scheme of revenue, or to establish 
general maxims on the survey of a period 


* Mr. Burke exults in the deficiency confessed 
by M. Vemet to amount in August, 1790, to 8 
millions sterling. He follows it with an invective 
against the National Assembly, which one simple 
reflection would have repressed. The suppression 
of the gabelle alone accounted for almost half of 
that deficiency! Its produce was estimated at 
60 millions of livres, or about two millions and a 
half sterling. 


577 

which may be considered as an interregnum 
of finance. 

The only financial operation which may 
be regarded as complete is their emission of 
assignats — the paper representative of the 
national property; which, while it facilitated 
the sale of that property, should supply the 
absence of specie in ordinary circulation. 
On this, as well as most other topics, the 
predictions of their enemies have been com¬ 
pletely falsified. They predicted that no 
purchasers would be found hardy enough to 
trust their property on the tenure of a new 
and insecure establishment: but the national 


property has in all parts been bought with 
the greatest avidity. They predicted that 
the estimate of its value would prove exag¬ 
gerated : but it has sold uniformly for double 
and treble that estimate. They predicted 
that the depreciation of the assignats would 
in effect heighten the price of the neces¬ 
saries of life, and fall with the most cruel 
severity on the most indigent class of man¬ 
kind : the event has however been, that the 
assignats , supported in their credit by the 
rapid sale of the property which they repre¬ 
sented, have kept almost at par; that the 
price of the necessaries of life has lowered; 
and that the sufferings of the indigent have 
been considerably alleviated. Many millions 
of assignats , ak*eady committed to the flames, 
form the most unanswerable reply to the ob¬ 
jections urged against them.* Many pur¬ 
chasers, not availing themselves of that in¬ 
dulgence for gradual payment, which in so 
immense a sale was unavoidable, have paid 
the whole price in advance. This has been 
peculiarly the case in the northern pro¬ 
vinces, where opulent farmers have been the 
chief purchasers ; — a happy circumstance, 
if it only tended to multiply that most useful 
and respectable class of men, who are at 
once proprietors and cultivators of the 
ground. 

The evils of this emission in the circum¬ 
stances of France were transient; — the 
beneficial effects permanent. Two great 
objects were to be obtained by it;— one of 

* At this moment nearly one-third. 



















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


578 


policy, and another of finance. The first 
was to attach a great body of proprietors to 
the Revolution, on the stability of which 
must depend the security of their fortunes. 
This is what Mr. Burke terms, making them 
accomplices in confiscation; though it was 
precisely the policy adopted by the English 
Revolutionists, when they favoured the 
growth of a national debt, to interest a body 
of creditors in the permanence of their new 
establishment. To render the attainment of 
the other great object, — the liquidation of 
the public debt, — improbable, M. de Ca- 
lonne has been reduced to so gross a mis¬ 
representation, as to state the probable value 
of the national property at only two milliards 
(about 83 millions sterling), though the best 
Qalculations have rated it at more than 
double that sum. There is every proba¬ 
bility that this immense national estate will 
speedily disburden France of the greatest 
part of her national debt, remove the load 
of impost under which her industry has 
groaned, and open to her that career of 
prosperity for which she was so evidently 
destined by the bounty of Nature. With 
these great benefits, with the acquittal of 
the public debt, and the stability of free¬ 
dom, this operation has, it must be con¬ 
fessed, produced some evils. It cannot be 
denied to have promoted, in some degree, a 
spirit of gambling; and it may give an 
undue ascendant in the municipal bodies to 
the agents of the paper circulation. But 
these evils are fugitive: the moment that 
witnesses the extinction of the assignats , by 
the complete sale of the national lands, must 
terminate them; and that period, our past 
experience renders probable is not very 
remote. There was one general view, which 
to persons conversant with political economy 
would, from the commencement of the 
operation, have appeared decisive. Either 
the assignats were to retain their value, or 
they were not: if they retained their value, 
none of the apprehended evils could arise: 
if they were discredited, every fall in their 
value was a new motive to their holders to 
exchange them for national lands. No man 
would retain depreciated paper who could 


acquire solid property. If a great portion 
of them should be thus employed, the value 
of those left in circulation must immedi¬ 
ately rise, both because their number was 
diminished, and their security become more 
obvious. The failure as a medium of cir¬ 
culation must have improved them as an 
instrument of sale; and their success as 
an instrument of sale must in return have 
restored their utility as a medium of circu¬ 
lation. This action and re-action was in¬ 
evitable, though the slight depreciation of 
the assignats had not made its effects very 
conspicuous in France. 

So determined is the opposition of Mr. 
Burke to those measures of the Assembly 
which regard the finances of the Church, 
that even monastic institutions have in him 
found an advocate. Let us discuss the argu¬ 
ments which he urges for the preservation 
of these monuments of human madness. In 
support of an opinion so singular, he pro¬ 
duces one moral and one commercial reason * : 
— “ In monastic institutions was found a 
great power for the mechanism of politic 
benevolence; to destroy any power growing 
wild from the rank productive force of the 
human mind, is almost tantamount, in the 
moral world, to the destruction of the ap¬ 
parently active properties of bodies in the 
material.” In one word, the spirit and the 
institutions of monachism were an instru¬ 
ment in the hand of the legislator, which he 
ought to have converted to some public use. 
I confess myself so far to share the blindness 
of the National Assembly, that I cannot form 
the most remote conjecture concerning the 
various uses which “have suggested them¬ 
selves to a contriving mind.” But without 
expatiating on them, let us attempt to con¬ 
struct an answer to his argument on a 
broader basis. The moral powers by which 
a legislator moves the mind of man are his 
passions ; and if the insane fanaticism which 
first peopled the deserts of Upper Egypt 
with anchorites, still existed in Europe, he 
must attempt the direction of a spirit which 
humanity forbids him to persecute, and 


* Eurke, pp. 232—241. 











A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 579 


wisdom to neglect. But monastic institu¬ 
tions have for ages survived the spirit which 
gave them birth; and it is not necessary for 
any legislature to destroy “ that power grow¬ 
ing wild out of the rank productive force of 
the human mind,” from which monachism 
arose. Being, like all other furious and un¬ 
natural passions, in its nature transient, it 
languished in the discredit of miracles and 
the absence of persecution, and was gradually 
melted in the sunshine of tranquillity and 
opulence so long enjoyed by the Church. 
The soul which actuated monachism had 
fled: the skeleton only remained to deform 
society. The dens of fanaticism, where they 
did not become the recesses of sensuality, 
were converted into the styes of indolence 
and apathy. The moral power, therefore, 
no longer existed; for the spirit by which 
the legislator could alone have moved these 
bodies was no more. Nor had any new spirit 
succeeded which might be an instrument in 
the hands of legislative skill. These short¬ 
lived phrenzies leave behind them an inert 
product, in the same manner as, when the 
fury and splendour of volcanic eruption is 
past for ages, there still remains a mass of 
lava to encumber the soil, and deform the 
aspect of the earth.* 


* It is urged by Mr. Burke, as a species of inci¬ 
dental defence of monachism, that there are many 
modes of industry, from which benevolence would 
rather rescue men than from monastic quiet. This 
must be allowed, in one view, to be true. But, 
though the laws must permit the natural progress 
which produces this species of labour, does it follow, 
that they ought to create monastic seclusion ? Is 
the existence of one source of misery a reason for 
opening another? Because noxious drudgery 
must be tolerated, are we to sanction compulsory- 
inutility? Instances of similar bad reasoning 
from what society must suffer to what she ought to 
enact, occur in other parts of Mr. Burke’s pro¬ 
duction. We in England, he says, do not think 
10,000/. a year worse in the hands of a bishop than 
in those of a baronet or a ’squire. Excessive in¬ 
equality is in both cases an enormous evil. The 
laws must permit property to grow as the course of 
things effect it: but ought they to add a new facti¬ 
tious evil to this natural and irremediable one ? They 
cannot avoid inequality in the income of property, 
because they must permit property to distribute 


The sale of the monastic estates is also 
questioned by Mr. Burke on commercial 
principles. The sum of his reasoning may 
be thus expressed:—The surplus product 
of the earth forms the income of the landed 
proprietor; that surplus the expenditure of 
some one must disperse; and of what import 
is it to society, whether it be circulated by 
the expense of one landholder, or of a society 
of monks ? A very simple statement fur¬ 
nishes an unanswerable reply to this defence. 
The wealth of society is its stock of pro¬ 
ductive labour. There must, it is true, be 
unproductive consumers, but the fewer their 
number, the greater (all things else being 
the same) must be the opulence of a state. 
The possession of an estate by a society of 
monks establishes, let us suppose forty, un¬ 
productive consumers : the possession of the 
same estate by a single landholder only 
necessarily produces one. It is therefore 
evident that there is forty times the quantity 
of labour subtracted from the public stock, 
in the first case, than there is in the second. 
If it be objected that the domestics of a 
landholder are unproductive, let it be re¬ 
marked that a monastery has its servants; 
and that those of a lay proprietor are not 
professionally and perpetually unproductive, 
as many of them become farmers and arti- 
zans, and that, above all, many of them are 
married. Nothing then can appear, on plain'" 
commercial views, more evident than the 
distinction between lay and monkish land¬ 
holders. It is surely unnecessary to appeal 
to the motives which have every where pro¬ 
duced statutes of mortmain, the neglect in 
which the land of ecclesiastical corporations 
is suffered to remain, and the infinite utility 
which arises from changes of property in 
land. The face of those countries where the 
transfers have been most rapid, will suffi¬ 
ciently prove their benefit. Purchasers sel¬ 
dom adventure without fortune; and the 
novelty of, their acquisition inspires them 
with the ardour of improvement. 


itself: but they can remedy excessive inequalities 
in the income of office, because the income and the 
office are their creatures. 


P P 2 









580 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


No doubt can be entertained that the 
estates possessed by the Church will increase 
immensely in their value. It is vain to say 
that they will be transferred to Stock¬ 
jobbers. Situations, not names, are to be 
considered in human affairs. He that has 
once tasted the indolence and authority of a 
landholder, will with difficulty return to the 
comparative servility and drudgery of a 
monied capitalist. But should the usurious 
habits of the immediate purchaser be in¬ 
veterate, his son will imbibe other sentiments 
from his birth. The heir of the stock-jobbing 
Alpheus may acquire as perfectly the habits 
of an active improver of his patrimonial 
estate, as the children of Cincinnatus or 
Cato. 

To aid the feebleness of these arguments, 
Mr. Burke has brought forward a pane¬ 
gyrical enumeration of the objects on which 
monastic revenue is expended. On this 
masterpiece of fascinating and magnificent 
eloquence it is impossible to be too lavish of 
praise. It would have been quoted by Quin¬ 
tilian as a splendid model of rhetorical com¬ 
mon-place. But criticism is not our object; 
and all that the display of such powers of 
oratory can on such a subject suggest, is 
embodied in a sentiment which might per¬ 
haps have served as a characteristic motto 
to Mr. Burke’s production: — 

“ Addidit invalidce robur Facundia causa.” 


SECTION III. 

POPULAR EXCESSES WHICH ATTENDED THE 
REVOLUTION. 

That no great revolutions can be accom¬ 
plished without excesses and miseries at 
which humanity revolts, is a truth which 
cannot be denied. This unfortunately is 
true in a peculiar manner of those Revolu¬ 
tions, which, like that of France, are strictly 
popular. Where the people are led by a 
faction, its leaders find no difficulty in the 
re-establishment of that order, which must 
be the object of their wishes, because it is 


the sole security of their power. But when 
a general movement of the popular mind 
levels a despotism with the ground, it is far 
less easy to restrain excess. There is more 
resentment to satiate and less authority to 
control. The passion which produced an 
effect so tremendous, is too violent to subside 
in a moment into serenity and submission. 

The attempt to punish the spirit that ac¬ 
tuates a people, if it were just, would be 
vain, and if it were possible, would be cruel. 
No remedies are therefore left but the pro¬ 
gress of instruction, the force of persuasion, 
the mild authority of opinion: and these, 
though infallible, are of slow operation. In 
the interval which elapses before a calm suc¬ 
ceeds the boisterous moments of a revolution, 
it is vain to expect that a people inured to 
barbarism by their oppressors, and which 
has ages of oppression to avenge, will be 
punctiliously generous in their triumph, 
nicely discriminative in their vengeance, or 
cautiously mild in their mode of retaliation. 
“ They will break their chains on the heads 
of their oppressors.” * 

Such was the state of France; and such 
were the obvious causes of scenes which the 
friends of freedom deplore as tarnishing her 
triumphs. They feel these evils as men of 
humanity : but they will not bestow this 
name on that womanish sensibility, towards 
which, even in the still intercourse of private 
life, love is not unmingled with indulgence. 
The only humanity which, in the great affairs 
of men, claims their respect, is that manly 
and expanded sentiment, which fixes its 
steady eye on the means of general happi¬ 
ness. The sensibility which shrinks at pre¬ 
sent evil, without extending its view to 
future good, is not a virtue; for it is not 
a quality beneficial to mankind. It would 
arrest the arm of a surgeon in amputating a 
gangrened limb, or the hand of a judge in 
signing the sentence of a parricide. I do 
not say (God forbid!) that a crime may be 
committed for the attainment even of a good 
end : such a doctrine would shake morals to 


* The eloquent expression of Mr. Curran in the 
Irish House of Commons. 








A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 581 


their centre. The man who would erect 
freedom on the ruins of morals neither 
understands nor loves either. But the case 
of the French Revolutionists is totally dif¬ 
ferent. Has any moralist ever pretended, 
that we are to decline the pursuit of a good 
which our duty prescribes to us, because we 
foresee that some partial and incidental evil 
would arise from it ? But the number of the 
French leaders against whom such charges 
have been insinuated is so small, that, sup¬ 
posing (what I do not believe) its truth, it 
only proves that some corrupt and ambitious 
men will mix with all great bodies. The 
question with respect to the rest is reducible 
to this : — Whether they were to abstain 
from establishing a free government, because 
they foresaw that it could not be effected 
without confusion and temporary distress, 
or to be consoled for such calamities by the 
view of that happiness to which their labours 
were to give ultimate permanence and dif¬ 
fusion ? A minister is not conceived to be 
guilty of systematic immorality, because he 
balances the evils of the most just war with 
the advantages of that national security 
which is produced by the reputation of spirit 
and power:—neither ought the patriot, who, 
balancing the evils of transient anarchy 
against the inestimable good of established 
liberty, finds the last preponderate in the 
scale. 

/ Such, in fact, has ever been the reasoning 
of the leaders in those insurrections which 
have preserved the remnant of freedom that 
still exists among mankind. Holland, Eng¬ 
land, and America must have reasoned 
thus; and the different portions of liberty 
which they enjoy have been purchased by 
the endurance of far greater calamities than 
have been suffered by France. It is un¬ 
necessary to appeal to the wars which for 
almost a century afflicted the Low Countries: 
but it may not be so to remind England of 
the price she paid for the establishment of 
the principles of the Revolution. The dis¬ 
puted succession which arose from that 
event, produced a destructive civil war in 
Ireland, two rebellions in Scotland, and the 
consequent slaughter and banishment of 


thousands of citizens, with the widest con¬ 
fiscation of their properties;—not to men¬ 
tion the continental connexions and the 
foreign wars into which it plunged us, and 
the necessity thus imposed upon us of main¬ 
taining a standing army, and accumulating 
an enormous public debt.’ 1 ' 

The freedom of America was purchased 
by calamities still more inevitable. The 
authors of it must have foreseen them; for 
they were not contingent or remote, but 
ready in a moment to burst on their heads 
Their case is most similar to that of France, 
and best answers one of Mr. Burke’s most 
triumphant arguments. They enjoyed some 
liberty, which their oppressors did not at¬ 
tack ; and the object for which they resisted, 
was conceded in the progress of the war: 
but like France, after the concessions of her 
King, they refused to acquiesce in an im¬ 
perfect liberty, when a more perfect one was 
within their reach. They pursued what Mr. 
Burke, — whatever were then, his sentiments, 
— on his present system, must reprobate as 
a speculative and ideal good. They sought 
their beloved independence through new 
calamities, and the prolonged horrors of 
civil war. Their resistance, from that mo¬ 
ment, “ was against concession; and their 
blows were aimed at a hand holding forth 
immunity and favours.” Events have in¬ 
deed justified that noble resistance: America 
has emerged from her struggle into tran¬ 
quillity and freedom, — into affluence and 
credit; and the authors of her Constitution 
have constructed a great permanent ex¬ 
perimental answer to the sophisms and de¬ 
clamations of the detractors of liberty. 

But what proportion did the price she 
paid for so great blessing bear to the 
transient misfortunes which have afflicted 
France ? The extravagance of the com¬ 
parison shocks every unprejudiced mind. 
No series of events in history have probably 

* Yet this was only the combat of reason and 
freedom against one prejudice,— that of hereditary 
right; whereas the French I*evolution is, as has 
been sublimely said by the Bishop of Autun, “ Le 
premier combat qui se soit jamais livre entre tous 
les Principes et toutes les Erreurs! ” 











582 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

been more widely, malignantly, and system¬ 
atically exaggerated than the French com¬ 
motions. An enraged, numerous, and opu¬ 
lent body of exiles, dispersed over Europe, 
have possessed themselves of every venal 
press, and filled the public ear with a per¬ 
petual buzz of the crimes and horrors that 
were acting in France. Instead of entering 
on a minute scrutiny, of which the importance 
would neither expiate the tediousness, nor 
reward the toil, let us content ourselves with 
opposing one general fact to this host of 
falsehoods : — no commercial house of im¬ 
portance has failed in France since the Revo¬ 
lution ! How is this to be reconciled with 
the tales that have been circulated? As 
well might the transfers of the Royal Ex¬ 
change be quietly executed in the ferocious 
anarchy of Gondar, and the peaceful opulence 
of Lombard-street flourish amidst hordes 
of Galla and Agows.* Commerce, which 
shrinks from the breath of civil confusion, 
has resisted this tempest; and a mighty 
Revolution has been accomplished with less/ 
commercial derangement than could arise 
from the bankruptcy of a second-rate house 
in London or Amsterdam. The manufac/- 
turers of Lyons, the merchants of Bourdeau|c 
and Marseilles, are silent amidst the lament¬ 
ations of the Abbe Maury,-M.de Calonne, 
and Mr. Burke. Happy is that peopre 
whose commerce flourishes in ledgers, whil4 
it is bewailed in orations ; and remains un-^ 
touched in calculation, while it expires in 
the pictures of eloquence. This unques¬ 
tionable fact is, on such a subject, worth a 
thousand arguments, and to any mind quali¬ 
fied to judge, must expose in their true 
light those execrable fabrications, which 
have sounded such a “ senseless yell ” 
through Europe. 

But let us admit for a moment their 
truth, and take as a specimen of the evils 
of the Revolution, the number of lives 
which have been lost in its progress. That 
no possibility of cavil may remain, let us 
surpass in an exaggerated estimate the 
utmost audacity of falsehood: let us make 

a statement, from which the most frontless 
hireling of M. de Calonne would shrink. 
Let us for a moment suppose, that in the 
course of the Revolution twenty thousand 
lives have been lost. On the comparison of 
even this loss with parallel events in history, 
is there any thing in it from which a manly 
and enlightened humanity will recoil ? Com¬ 
pare it with the expenditure of blood by 
which in ordinary wars so many pernicious 
and ignoble objects are sought. Compare it 
with the blood spilt by England in the at¬ 
tempt to subjugate America : and if such be 
the guilt of the Revolutionists of France, 
for having, at the hazard of this evil, sought 
the establishment of freedom, what new 
name of obloquy shall be applied to the 
Minister of England, who with the certainty 
of a destruction so much greater, attempted 
the establishment of tyranny ? 

The illusion which prevents the effect of 
these comparisons, is not peculiar to Mr. 
Burke^The massacres of war, and the mur- 
^ders committed by the sword of justice, are 
disguised by the solemnities which invest 
them: but the wild justice of the people 
has a naked and undisguised horror. Its 
slighest motion awakens all our indignation; 
while murder and rapine, if arrayed in the 
gorgeous disguise of acts of state, may with 
impunity stalk abroad. We forget that the 
evils of anarchy must be short-lived, while 
fcdhose of despotism are fatally permanent. 
^"Another illusion has, particularly bH^ng^' 
land, favoured the exaggeration of the ex¬ 
iles : — we judge of France by our own situ¬ 
ation, instead of comparing her conduct 
with that of other nations in similar circum¬ 
stances. With us, “ the times may be mode¬ 
rate, and therefore ought to be peaceable* 
but in France the times were not moderate, 
and could not be peaceable. Let us correct 
these illusions of moral optics which make 
near objects so disproportionately large. 
Let us place the scene of the French Revo¬ 
lution in a remote age, or in a distant nation, 
and then let us calmly ask our own minds, 
whether the most reasonable subject of 

* Abyssinian tribes. — Ed. 

* Junius. 








A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 583 


wonder be not its unexampled mildness, and 
the small number of individuals crushed in 
the fall of so vast a pile. 

Such are the general reflections suggested 
by the disorders of the French Revolution. 
Of these, the first in point of time, as well as 
of importance, was the Parisian insurrec¬ 
tion and the capture of the Bastile. The 
mode in which that memorable event is 
treated by Mr Burke, is worthy of notice. 
It occupies no conspicuous place in his 
work; it is only obscurely and con¬ 
temptuously hinted at as one of those ex¬ 
amples of successful revolt, which have 
fostered a mutinous spirit in the soldiery. 
“They have not forgot the taking of the 
King’s castles in Paris and Marseilles. That 
they murdered with impunity in both places 
the governors, has not escaped their minds.” * 
Such is the courtly circumlocution by which 
Mr. Burke designates the Bastile — “the 
King's castle at Paris ! ”; such is the igno¬ 
minious language in which he speaks of the 
summary justice executed on the titled 
ruffian who was its governor ; and such is 
the apparent art with which he has thrown 
into the back-ground invective and asperity, 
that, had they been prominent, would have 
provoked the indignation of mankind! “ Je 
sais,” says Mounier, in the language of that 
frigid and scanty approbation that is ex¬ 
torted from an enemy, “ qu’il est des circon- 
stances qui legitiment l’insurrection, et je 
mets dans ce nombre celles qui ont cause le 
siege de la Bastile.” f 

But the admiration of Europe and of pos¬ 
terity, is not to be estimated by the penu¬ 
rious applause of M. Mounier, nor repressed 
by the insidious hostility of Mr. Burke. It 
will correspond to the splendour of an 
insurrection, as much ennobled by heroism as 
it was justified by necessity, in which the 
citizens of Paris, — the unwarlike inhabitants 
of a voluptuous capital, — listening to no 
voice but that of the danger which menaced 
their representatives, their families, and 
their country, and animated, instead of 
awed, by the host of disciplined mercenaries 


* Burke, p. 307. f Expose, &c. p. 24. 


which invested them on every side, attacked 
with a gallantry and success equally in¬ 
credible, a fortress formidable from its 
strength, and tremendous from its destina¬ 
tion, and changed the destiny of France. 
To palliate or excuse such a revolt, would 
be abject treachery to its principles. It 
was a case in which revolt was the dictate of 
virtue and the path of duty; and in which 
submission would have been the most das¬ 
tardly baseness, and the foulest crime. It 
was an action not to be excused, but ap¬ 
plauded, — not to be pardoned, but admired. 
I shall not therefore descend to vindicate 
acts of heroism, which history will teach the 
remotest posterity to revere, and of which 
the recital is destined to kindle in unborn 
millions the holy enthusiasm of freedom. 

Commotions of another description fol¬ 
lowed, partly arising from the general causes 
before stated, and partly from others of 
more limited and local operation. The pea¬ 
santry of the provinces, buried for so many 
ages in the darkness of servitude, saw but 
indistinctly and confusedly, in the first dawn 
of liberty, the boundaries of their duties and 
their rights. It was no wonder that they 
should little understand that freedom which 
so long had been remote from their views. 
The name conveyed to their ear a right to 
reject all restraint, to gratify every resent¬ 
ment, and to attack all property. Ruffians, 
mingling with the deluded peasants, in hopes 
of booty, inflamed their ignorance and pre¬ 
judices, by forged authorities from the King 
and the Assembly for their licentiousness. 
Many country houses were burnt; and some 
obnoxious persons were assassinated: but 
one may without excessive scepticism doubt, 
whether they had been the mildest masters 
whose chateaux had undergone that fate; 
and the peasants had to avenge those silent 
grinding oppressions which formed almost 
the only intercourse of the rich with the 
indigent, and which, though less flagrant 
than those of Government, were perhaps 
productive of more intolerable and diffused 
misery. 

But whatever was the demerit of these 
excesses, they can by no process of reasoning 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


584 


be made imputable to tlie National As¬ 
sembly, or the leaders of the Revolution. 
In what manner were they to repress them ? 
If they exerted against them their own 
authority with rigour, they must have pro¬ 
voked a civil war: if they invigorated the 
police and tribunals of the deposed govern¬ 
ment, — besides incurring the hazard of the 
same calamity, — they put arms into the 
hands of their enemies. Placed in this di¬ 
lemma, they were compelled to expect a slow 
remedy from the returning serenity of the 
public mind, and from the progress of the 
new government towards consistence and 
vigour.* That the conduct of the populace 
of Paris towards them should not have been 
the most decorous and circumspect, — that 
it should have been frequently irregular and 
tumultuous was, in the nature of things, 
inevitable. But the horrible picture which 
Mr. Burke has drawn of that “ stern ne¬ 
cessity” under which this “captive” As¬ 
sembly votes, is neither justified by this 
concession, nor by the state of facts. It is 
the overcharged colouring of a fervid ima¬ 
gination. Those to whom he alludes as 
driven away by assassins, — MM. Lally 
and Mounier, — might surely have remained 
with'perfect safety in an Assembly in which 
such furious invectives are daily bellowed 
forth with impunity against the popular 
leaders. No man will deny, that that mem¬ 
ber of the minority enjoyed liberty of speech 
in its utmost plenitude, who called M. 
Mirabeau “ le plus vil de tous les assassins .” 
“ The terrors of the lamp-post and bayonet ” 
have hitherto been visionary. Popular fury 
has hitherto spared the most furious de- 


* If this statement be candid and exact, what 
shall we think of the language of Mr. Burke, when 
he speaks of the Assembly as “ authorising treasons, 
robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaughters, and 
burnings, throughout all their harassed land.” 
(p. 58.) In another place (p. 200.) he connects 
the legislative extinction of the Order of Nobles 
with the popular excesses committed against in¬ 
dividual Noblemen, to load the Assembly with the 
accumulated obloquy; — a mode of proceeding 
more remarkable for controversial dexterity than 
for candour. 


claimers of Aristocracy ; and the only “ de¬ 
cree,” so far as I can discern, which has even 
been pretended to have been materially in¬ 
fluenced by the populace, is that respecting 
the prerogatives of war and peace. That 
tumult has frequently derogated from the 
dignity which ought to distinguish the deli¬ 
berations of a legislative assembly, is not to 
be denied. But that their debates have been 
tumultuous, is of little importance, if their 
decisions have been independent. Even in 
this question of war and peace, “ the highest 
bidder at the auction of popularity”* did 
not succeed. The scheme of M. Mirabeau, 
with few amendments, prevailed, while the 
more “ splendidly popular ” propositions, 
which vested in the legislature alone the 
prerogative of war and peace, were rejected. 

We are now conducted by the course 
of these strictures to the excesses committed 
at Versailles on the 5 th and 6th of October, 
1789. After the most careful perusal of 
the voluminous evidence before the Chatelet, 
of the controversial pamphlets of MM. 
d’ Orleans and Mounier, and of the official 
report of M. Chabroud to the Assembly, the 
details of the affair seem to me so much in¬ 
volved in obscurity and contradiction, that 
they afford little on which a candid mind 
can with confidence pronounce. They afford, 
indeed, to frivolous and puerile adversaries 
the means of convicting Mr. Burke of some 
minute errors. M. Miomandre, the sentinel 
at the Queen’s gate, it is true, survives; but 
it is no less true, that he was left for dead 
by his assassins. On the comparison of evi¬ 
dence it seems probable, that the Queen’s 
chamber was not broken into, — “ that the 
asylum of beauty and Majesty was not pro¬ 
faned.” f But these slight corrections pal¬ 
liate little the atrocity, and alter not in the 


* Burke, p. 353. 

f The expression of M. Chabroud. Five wit¬ 
nesses assert that the ruffians did not break into 
the Queen’s chamber. Two give the account fol¬ 
lowed by Mr. Burke; and to give this prepon¬ 
derance its due force, let it be recollected, that the 
whole proceedings before the Chatelet were ex 
parte. See Procedure Criminelle fait au Chatelet 
de Paris, &c. 1790. 








A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 585 


least the general complexion, of these fla¬ 
gitious scenes. 

The most important question which the 
subject presents is, whether the Parisian 
populace were the instruments of conspira¬ 
tors, or whether their fatal march to Ver¬ 
sailles was a spontaneous movement, pro¬ 
duced by real or chimerical apprehensions 
of plots against their freedom. I confess 
that I incline to the latter opinion. Natural 
causes seem to me adequate to account for 
the movement. A scarcity of provision is 
not denied to have existed in Paris. The 
dinner of the body-guards might surely 
have provoked the people of a more tranquil 
city. The maledictions poured forth against 
the National Assembly, the insults offered to 
the patriotic cockade, the obnoxious ardour 
of loyalty displayed on that occasion, might 
have awakened even the jealousy of a people 
whose ardour had been sated by the long 
enjoyment, and whose alarms had been 
quieted by the secure possession, of liberty. 
The escape of the King would be the infal¬ 
lible signal of civil war: the exposed situa¬ 
tion of the Royal residence was therefore a 
source of perpetual alarm. These causes, 
operating on that credulous jealousy which 
is the malady of the public mind in times of 
civil confusion, seeing hostility and conspi¬ 
racy on every side, would seem sufficient 
ones. The apprehensions of the people in 
such a period torture the most innocent and 
frivolous accidents into proofs of sanguinary 
plots: — witness the war of conspiracies car¬ 
ried on by the contending factions in the 
reign of Charles the Second. The partici¬ 
pation of Queen Mary in Babington’s plot 
against Elizabeth, is still the subject of con¬ 
troversy. We, at the present day, dispute 
about the nature of the connexion which 
subsisted between Charles the First and the 
Catholic insurgents of Ireland. It has oc¬ 
cupied the labour of a century to separate 
truth from falsehood in the Rye-house Plot, 
— the views of the leaders from the schemes 
of the inferior conspirators, — and to disco¬ 
ver that Russell and Sydney had, indeed, con¬ 
spired a revolt, but that the underlings alone 
had plotted the assassination of the King. 


It may indeed be said, that ambitious 
leaders availed themselves of the inflamed 
state of public feeling, — that by false ru¬ 
mours, and exaggerated truths, they stimu¬ 
lated the revenge, and increased the fears of 
the populace, — that their emissaries, mix¬ 
ing with the mob, and concealed by its 
confusion, were to execute their flagitious 
purposes, and fanatics, as usual, were the 
dupes of hypocrites. Such are the accusa¬ 
tions which have been made against MM. 
d’Orleans and Mirabeau. The defence of 
profligate ambition is not imposed on the 
admirers of the French Revolution ; and to 
become the advocate of individuals were to 
forget the dignity of a discussion that re¬ 
gards the rights and interests of an eman¬ 
cipated nation. Of their guilt, however, I 
will be bold to say no evidence was collected, 
by the malignant activity of an avowedly 
hostile tribunal, which, for a moment, would 
have suspended their acquittal by an Eng¬ 
lish jury. It will be no mean testimony to 
the innocence of M. Mirabeau, that an op¬ 
ponent, not the mildest in his enmity, nor the 
most candid in his judgment, confessed, that 
he saw no serious ground of accusation 
against him.* 

The project is attributed to them, of inti¬ 
midating the King into a flight, that there 
might be a pretext for elevating the Duke 
of Orleans to the office of Regent. But the 
King could have had no rational hopes of 
escaping f; for he must have traversed 200 
miles of a country guarded by a people in 
arms, before he could reach the nearest 
frontier of the kingdom. The object was 
too absurd to be pursued by conspirators, 
to whom talent and sagacity have not been 
denied by their enemies. That the popular 
leaders in France did, indeed, desire to fix 
the Royal residence at Paris, it is impossible 
to doubt: the name, the person, and the 
authority of the King would have been most 
formidable weapons in the hands of their 


* Discours de M. l’Abbe Maury dans PAssemblce 
Nationale, 1 Octobre, 1790. 

f The circumstances of his late attempt [the 
flight to Yarennes — Ed.] sanction this reasoning. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


586 


adversaries. The peace of their country, — 
the stability of their freedom, called on them 
to use every measure that could prevent 
their enemies from getting possession of that 
“Royal Figure.” The name of the King 
would have sanctioned foreign powers in 
supporting the aristocracy. Their inter¬ 
position, which now would be hostility against 
the King and kingdom, would then have 
been only regarded as aid against rebellion. 
Against all these dreadful consequences 
there seemed only one remedy, — the resi¬ 
dence of the King at Paris. Whether that 
residence is to be called a “ captivity,” or 
any other harsh name, I will not hesitate to 
affirm, that the Parliament of England would 
have merited the gratitude of their country, 
and of posterity, by a similar prevention of 
the escape of Charles I. from London. For¬ 
tunate would it have been for England if 
the person of James II. had been retained 
while his authority was limited. She would 
then have been circumstanced as France is 
now. The march to Versailles seems to 
have been the spontaneous movement of an 
alarmed populace. Their views, and the 
suggestions of their leaders, were probably 
bounded by procuring the King to change 
his residence to Paris; but the collision of 
armed multitudes terminated in unforeseen 
excesses and execrable crimes. 

In the eye of Mr. Burke, however, these 
crimes and excesses assume an aspect far 
more important than can be communicated 
to them by their own insulated guilt. They 
form, in his opinion, the crisis of a revolu¬ 
tion, — a far more important one than any 
mere change of government, — in which the 
sentiments and opinions that have formed 
the manners of the European nations are to 
perish. “ The age of chivalry is gone, and 
the glory of Europe extinguished for ever.” 
He follows this exclamation by an eloquent 
eulogium on chivalry, and by gloomy pre¬ 
dictions of the future state of Europe, when 
the nation that has been so long accustomed 
to give her the tone in arts and manners is 
thus debased and corrupted. A caviller 
might remark that ages, much more near 
the meridian fervour of chivalry than ours, 


have witnessed a treatment of queens as 
little gallant and generous as that of the 
Parisian mob. He might remind Mr. Burke, 
that in the age and country of Sir Philip 
Sidney, a Queen of France, whom no blind¬ 
ness to accomplishment, — no malignity of 
detraction, can reduce to the level of Marie 
Antoinette, was, by “ a nation of riien of 
honour and cavaliers,” permitted to languish 
in captivity and expire on a scaffold; and 
he might add, that the manners of a country 
are more surely indicated by the systematic 
cruelty of a sovereign than by the licentious 
frenzy of a mob. He might remark, that 
the mild system of modern manners which 
survived the massacres with which fanati¬ 
cism had for a century desolated, and almost 
barbarised Europe, might, perhaps, resist 
the shock of one day’s excesses committed 
by a delirious populace. He might thus, 
perhaps, oppose specious and popular topics 
to the declamation of Mr. Burke. 

But the subject itself is, to an enlarged 
thinker, fertile in reflections of a different 
nature. That system of manners which 
arose among the Gothic nations of Europe, 
and of which chivalry was more properly 
the effusion than the source, is without doubt 
one of the most peculiar and interesting ap¬ 
pearances in human affairs. The moral 
causes which formed its character have not, 
perhaps, been hitherto investigated with the 
happiest success: but, — to confine our¬ 
selves to the subject before us, — chivalry 
was certainly one of the most prominent of 
its features and most remarkable of its 
effects. Candour must confess, that this 
singular institution was not admirable only 
as the corrector of the ferocious ages in 
which it flourished; but that in contributing 
to polish and soften manners it paved the 
way for the diffusion of knowledge and the 
extension of commerce, which afterwards, in 
some measure, supplanted it. Society is 
inevitably progressive. Commerce has over¬ 
thrown the “ feudal and chivalrous system ” 
under whose shade it first grew; while 
learning has subverted the superstition 
whose opulent endowments had first fostered 
it. Peculiar circumstances connected with 











A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 587 


the manners of chivalry favoured this ad¬ 
mission of commerce and this growth of 
knowledge; while the sentiments peculiar 
to it, already enfeebled in the progress from 
ferocity and turbulence, were almost ob¬ 
literated by tranquillity and refinement. 
Commerce and diffused knowledge have, in 
fact, so completely assumed the ascendant in 
polished nations, that it will be difficult to 
discover any relics of Gothic manners, but 
in a fantastic exterior, which has survived 
the generous illusions through which these 
manners once seemed splendid and seduc¬ 
tive. Their direct influence has long ceased 
in Europe; but their indirect influence, 
through the medium of those causes which 
would not perhaps have existed but for the 
mildness which chivalry created in the midst 
of a barbarous age, still operates with in¬ 
creasing vigour. The manners of the middle 
age were, in the most singular sense, com¬ 
pulsory : enterprising benevolence was pro¬ 
duced by general fierceness, — gallant cour¬ 
tesy by ferocious rudeness; and artificial 
gentleness resisted the torrent of natural 
barbarism. But a less incongruous system 
has succeeded, in which commerce, which 
unites men’s interests, and knowledge, which 
excludes those prejudices that tend to em¬ 
broil them, present a broader basis for the 
stability of civilised and beneficent manners. 

Mr. Burke, indeed, forebodes the most 
fatal consequences to literature from events, 
which he supposes to have given a mortal 
blow to the spirit of chivalry. I have ever 
been protected from such apprehensions by 
my belief in a very simple truth, — “ that 
diffused knowledge immortalises itself.” A 
literature which is confined to a few, may be 
destroyed by the massacre of scholars and the 
conflagration of libraries : but the diffused 
knowledge of the present day could only be 
annihilated by the extirpation of the civilised 
part of mankind. 

Far from being hostile to letters, the 
French Revolution has contributed to serve 
their cause in a manner hitherto unexampled. 
The political and literary progress of nations 
has hitherto been simultaneous ; the period 
of their eminence in arts has also been the 


era of their historical fame; and no example 
occurs in which their great political splen¬ 
dour has been subsequent to the Augustan 
age of a people. But in France, which is 
destined to refute every abject and arrogant 
doctrine that would limit the human powers, 
the ardour of a youthful literature has been 
infused into a nation tending to decline; and 
new arts are called forth when all seemed to 
have passed their zenith. She enjoyed one 
Augustan age, fostered by the favour of 
despotism: she seems about to witness 
another, created by the energy of freedom. 

In the opinion of Mr. Burke, however, 
she is advancing by rapid strides to igno¬ 
rance and barbarism.* “ Already,” he in¬ 
forms us, “ there appears a poverty of con¬ 
ception, a coarseness and vulgarity in all the 
proceedings of the Assembly, and of all their 
instructors. Their liberty is not liberal. 
Their science is presumptuous ignorance. 
Their humanity is savage and brutal.” To 
animadvert on this modest and courteous 
picture belongs not to the present subject: 
and impressions cannot be disputed, more 
especially when their grounds are not as¬ 
signed. All that is left to us to do, is to 
declare opposite impressions with a con¬ 
fidence authorised by his example. The 
proceedings of the National Assembly of 
France appear to me to contain models of 
more splendid eloquence, and examples of 
more profound political research, than have 
been exhibited by any public body in modern 
times. I cannot therefore augur, from these 
proceedings, the downfall of philosophy, or 
the extinction of eloquence. 
k Thus various are the aspects which the 
French Revolution, not only in its influence 
on literature, but in its general tenor and 
spirit, presents to minds occupied by various 
opinions. To the eye of Mr. Burke, it ex¬ 
hibits nothing but a scene of horror : in his 
mind it inspires no emotion but abhorrence 
of its leaders, commiseration for their vic¬ 
tims, and alarms at the influence of an event 
which menaces the subversion of the policy, 
the arts, and the manners of the civilised 


* Burke, p. 118. 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


5 38 

world. Minds who view it through another 
medium are filled by it with every sentiment 
of admiration and triumph, — of admiration 
due to splendid exertions of virtue, and of 
triumph inspired by widening prospects of 
happiness. 

Nor ought it to be denied by the candour 
of philosophy, that events so great are never 
so unmixed as not to present a double aspect 
to the acuteness and exaggeration of con¬ 
tending parties. The same ardour of passion 
which produces patriotic and legislative 
heroism becomes the source of ferocious 
retaliation, of visionary novelties, and of 
precipitate change. The attempt were hope¬ 
less to increase the fertility, without favour¬ 
ing the rank luxuriance of the soil. He 
that on such occasions expects unmixed 
good, ought to recollect, that the economy 
of nature has invariably determined the 
equal influence of high passions in giving 
birth to virtues and to crimes. The soil of 
Attica was observed to produce at once the 
most delicious fruits and the most virulent 
poisons. It was thus with the human mind; 
and to the frequency of convulsions in the 
ancient commonwealths, they cme those ex¬ 
amples of sanguinary tumult and virtuous he¬ 
roism, which distinguish their history from 
the monotonous tranquillity of modern states. 
The passions of a nation cannot be kindled 
to the degree which renders it capable of 
great achievements, Avithout involving the 
commission of violence and crime. The 
reforming ardour of a senate cannot be in- 
flamed sufficiently to combat and overcome 
abuses, without hazarding the evils which 
arise from legislative temerity. Such are 
the immutable laws, which are more properly 
to be regarded as libels on our nature than 
as charges against the French Revolution. 
The impartial voice of History ought, 
doubtless, to record the blemishes as well as 
the glories of that great event: and to con- 
trast the delineation of it which might have 
been given by the specious and temperate 
Toryism of Mr. Hume, with that which we 
have received from the repulsive and fanati¬ 
cal invectives of Mr. Burke, might still be ! 
amusing and instructive. Both these great , 


men would be averse to the Revolution ; but 
it Avould not be difficult to distinguish be¬ 
tween the undisguised fury of an eloquent 
advocate, and the well-dissembled partiality 
of a philosophical judge. The passion of 
the latter would only feel the excesses 
Avhich have dishonoured the Revolution: 
but the philosophy of the former would 
instruct him, that our sentiments, raised by 
such events so much above their ordinary 
level, become the source of guilt and heroism 
unknown before, — of sublime virtues and 
splendid crimes. 


SECTION IV. 

NEW CONSTITUTION OF FRANCE.* 

A dissertation approaching to complete¬ 
ness on the neAv Constitution of France 
would, in fact, be a vast system of political 
science. It would include a development of 
the principles that regulate every portion of 
government. So immense an attempt is 
little suited to our present limits. But some 
remarks on the prominent features of the 
French system are exacted by the nature of 
our vindication. They will consist chiefly 
of a defence of their grand theoretic prin¬ 
ciple, and their most important practical 
institution. 

The principle which has actuated the 
legislators of France has been, “that the 
object of all legitimate government is the 
assertion and protection of the natural rights 
of man.” They cannot indeed be absolved 
from some deviations f from it; — few, in¬ 
deed, compared with those of any other 
body of whom history has preserved any 


* I cannot help exhorting those who desire to 
have accurate notions on the subject of this sec¬ 
tion, to peruse and study the delineation of the 
French constitution Avhich AA'ith a correctness so 
admirable has been given by Mr. Christie. (Letters 
on the Revolution of France, London, 1791. Ed.) 

t I particularly allude to their colonial policy; 
but I think it candid to say, that I see in their 
full force the difficulties of that embarrassing 
business. 














A DEFENCE OF THE FBENCH DEVOLUTION. 


record; but too many for their own glory, 
and for the happiness of the human race. 
This principle, however, is the basis of their 
edifice, and if it be false, the structure must 
fall to the ground. Against this principle, 
therefore, Mr. Burke has, with great judg¬ 
ment, directed his attack. Appeals to natu¬ 
ral right are, according to him, inconsistent 
and preposterous. A complete abdication 
and surrender of all natural right is made 
by man in entering into society; and the 
only rights which he retains are created by 
the compact which holds together the society 
of which he is member. This doctrine he 
thus explicitly asserts :— “ The moment,” 
says he, “ you abate any thing from the full 
rights of men, each to govern himself, and 
suffer any artificial positive limitation on 
those rights, from that moment the whole 
organisation of society becomes a consider¬ 
ation of convenience.” “ How can any man 
claim under the conventions of civil society 
rights which do not so much as suppose its 
existence, — which are absolutely repugnant 
to it ? ” * To examine this doctrine, there¬ 
fore, is of fundamental importance. To this 
effect it is not necessary to enter into any 
elaborate research into the metaphysical 
principles of politics and ethics. A full 
discussion of the subject would indeed de¬ 
mand such an investigation f :— the origin 
of natural rights must have been illustrated, 
and even their existence proved against 
some theorists. But such an inquiry would 
have been inconsistent with the nature of a 
publication, the object of which is to enforce 
conviction on the people. We are besides 


* Burke, pp. 88—89. To the same purpose is 
his whole reasoning from p. 86. to p. 92. 

f It might, perhaps, not be difficult to prove, 
that far from a surrender, there is not even a dimi¬ 
nution of the natural rights of men by their en¬ 
trance into society. The existence of some union, 
with greater or less permanence and perfection of 
public force for public protection (the essence of 
government), might be demonstrated to be coeval 
and co-extensive with man. All theories, there¬ 
fore, which suppose the actual existence of any 
state antecedent to the social, might be convicted 
of futility and falsehood. 


589 

absolved from the necessity of it in a con¬ 
troversy with Mr. Burke, who himself re¬ 
cognises, in the most ample form, the 
existence of those natural rights. 

Granting their existence, the discussion is 
short. The only criterion by which we can 
estimate the portion of natural right surren¬ 
dered by man on entering into society is the 
object of the surrender. If more is claimed 
than that object exacts, what was an object 
becomes a pretext. Now the object for 
which a man resigns any portion of his 
natural sovereignty over his own actions is, 
that he may be protected from the abuse of 
the same dominion in other men. Nothing, 
therefore, can be more fallacious than to 
pretend, that we are precluded in the social 
state from any appeal to natural right.* It 
remains in its full integrity and vigour, if 
we except that portion of it which men have 
thus mutually agreed to sacrifice. Whatever, 
under pretence of that surrender, is assumed 


* “ Trouver une forme dissociation qui defende 
et protege de toute la force commune la personne et 
les biens de cbaque associe, et par laquelle chacun, 
s’unissant & tous, n’obeisse pourtant qui lui-meme 
et reste aussi fibre qu’auparavant ? ” Rousseau, 
Contrat Social, livre i. chap. vi. I am not intimi¬ 
dated from quoting Rousseau by the derision of 
Mr. Burke. Mr. Hume’s report of his literary 
secrets seems most unfaithful. The sensibility, 
the pride, the fervour of his character, are pledges 
of his sincerity; and had he even commenced with 
the fabrication of paradoxes, for attracting atten¬ 
tion, it would betray great ignorance of human 
nature to suppose, that in the ardour of contest, 
and the glory of success, he must not have become 
the dupe of his own illusions, and a convert to his 
own imposture. It is, indeed, not improbable, 
that when rallied on the eccentricity of his para¬ 
doxes, he might, in a moment of gay effusion, 
have spoken of them as a sport of fancy, and an 
experiment on the credulity of mankind. The 
Scottish philosopher, inaccessible to enthusiasm, 
and little susceptible of those depressions and ele¬ 
vations — those agonies and raptures, so familiar to 
the warm and wayward heart of Rousseau, neither 
knew the sport into which he could be relaxed by 
gaiety, nor the ardour into which he could be 
exalted by passion. Mr. Burke, whose tempera¬ 
ment is so different, might have experimentally 
known such variation, and learnt better to dis¬ 
criminate between effusion and deliberate opinion. 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


590 


beyond wliat that object rigorously pre¬ 
scribes, is an usurpation supported by 
sophistry, — a despotism varnished by illu¬ 
sion. It follows that the surrender of right 
must be equal in all the members of society, 
as the object is to all precisely the same. In 
effect, society, instead of destroying, realises 
and substantiates equality. In a state of 
nature, the equality of right is an important 
theory, which inequalities of strength and 
skill every moment violate. As neither na¬ 
tural equality nor the equality of the sum of 
right surrendered by every individual is 
contested, it cannot be denied that the rem¬ 
nant spared by the social compact must be 
equal also. Civil inequalities, or, more cor¬ 
rectly, civil distinction, must exist in the 
social body, because it must possess organs 
destined for different functions : but political 
inequality is equally inconsistent with the 
principles of natural right and the .object of 
civil institution.* 

Men, therefore, only retain a right to a 
share in their own government, because the 
exercise of the right by one man is not 
inconsistent with its possession by another. 
This doctrine is not more abstractedly evi¬ 
dent than it is practically important. The 
slightest deviation from it legitimatises every 
tyranny. If the only criterion of govern¬ 
ments be the supposed convention which 
forms them, all are equally legitimate; for 
the only interpreter of the convention is the 
usage of the government, which is thus pre¬ 
posterously made its own standard. Go¬ 
vernors must, indeed, abide by the maxims 
of the constitution they administer; but 
what that constitution is must be on this 
system immaterial. The King of France is 
not permitted to put out the eyes of the 
Princes of the Blood; nor the Soplii of 
Persia to have recourse to lettres de cachet. 


* “ But as to the share of power, authority, and 
direction which each individual ought to have in 
the management of a state, that I must deny to be 
among the direct original rights of man in civil 
society.” This is evidently denying the existence 
of what has been called political, in contradistinc¬ 
tion to civil liberty. 


They must tyrannise by precedent, and op¬ 
press in reverent imitation of the models 
consecrated by the usage of despotic prede¬ 
cessors. But if they adhere to these, there 
is no remedy for the oppressed, since an 
appeal to the rights of nature were treason 
against the principles of the social union. 
If, indeed, any offence against precedent, in 
the kind or degree of oppression, be com¬ 
mitted, this theory may (though most incon¬ 
sistently) permit resistance. But as long as 
the forms of any government are preserved, 
it possesses, in the view of justice (whatever 
be its nature) equal claims to obedience. 
This inference is irresistible; and it is thus 
evident, that the doctrines of Mr. Burke are 
doubly refuted by the fallacy of the logic 
which supports them, and the absurdity of 
the conclusions to which they lead. 

They are also virtually contradicted by 
the laws of all nations. 7 Were his opinions 
true, the language of laws should be per¬ 
missive , not restrictive. Had men sur¬ 
rendered all their rights into the hands of 
the magistrate, the object of laws should 
have been to announce the portion he was 
pleased to return them, not the part of 
which he is compelled to deprive them. 
The criminal code of all nations consists of 
prohibitions; and whatever is not prohibited 
by the law, men every where conceive them¬ 
selves entitled to do with impunity. They 
act on the principle which this language of 
law teaches them, that they retain rights 
which no power can impair or infringe, — 
which are not the boon of society, but the 
attribute of their nature. The rights of 
magistrates and public officers are truly the 
creatures of society: they, therefore, are 
guided not by what the law does not pro¬ 
hibit, but by wliat it authorises or enjoins. 
Were the rights of citizens equally created 
by social institution, the language of the 
civil code would be similar, and the obe¬ 
dience of subjects would have the same 
limits. 

This doctrine, thus false in its principles, 
absurd in its conclusions, and contradicted 
by the avowed sense of mankind, is, lastly, 
even abandoned by Mr. Burke himself. He 






A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 


is betrayed into a confession directly repug¬ 
nant to his general principle: — “ What¬ 
ever each man can do without trespassing 
on others, he has a right to do for himself; 
and he has a right to a fair portion of all 
that society, with all its combinations of 
skill and force, can do for him.” Either 
this right is universal, or it is not: — if it be 
universal, it cannot be the offspring of a 
convention; for conventions must be as 
various as forms of government, and there 
are many of them which do not recognise 
this right, nor place man in this condition 
of just equality. All governments, for ex¬ 
ample, which tolerate slavery, neglect this 
right; for a slave is neither entitled to the 
fruits of his own industry, nor to any por¬ 
tion of what the combined force and skill of 
society produce. If it be not universal, it 
is no right at all; and can only be called a 
privilege accorded by some governments, 
and withheld by others. I can discern no 
mode ’ of escaping from this dilemma, but 
the avowal that these civil claims are the 
remnant of those “ metaphysic rights ” which 
Mr. Burke holds in such abhorrence; but 
which it seems the more natural object of 
society to protect than destroy. 

But it may be urged, that- though all 
appeals to natural rights" be not precluded 
by the social cempact, and though their in¬ 
tegrity'and perfection in the civil state may 
theoretically be admitted, yet as men un¬ 
questionably may refrain from the exercise 
of their rights, if they think their exertion 
unwise, and as government is not a scientific 
subtlety, but a practical expedient for ge¬ 
neral good, all recourse to these elaborate 
abstractions is frivolous and futile; and 
that the grand question is not the source, 
but the tendency of government, — not a 
question of right, but a consideration of ex¬ 
pediency. Political forms, it may be added, 
are only the means -of ensuring a certain 
portion of public felicity: if the end be con¬ 
fessedly obtained, all discussion of the theo¬ 
retical aptitude of the means to produce it 
is nugatory and redundant. 

To this I answer, first, that such reason¬ 
ing proves too much, and that, taken in its 


proper extent, it impeaches the great system 
of morals, of which political principles form 
only a part. All morality is, no doubt, 
founded on a broad and general expediency; 
and the sentiment — 

“Ipsa utilitas justi prope mater et aequi,”* 

may be safely adopted, without the reserve 
dictated by the timid and inconstant phi¬ 
losophy of the poet. Justice is expediency, 
but it is expediency speaking by general 
maxims, into which reason has consecrated 
the experience of mankind. Every gene¬ 
ral principle of justice is demonstrably ex¬ 
pedient; and it is this utility alone that 
confers on it a moral obligation. But it 
would be fatal to the existence of morality, 
if the utility of every particular act were to 
be the subject of deliberation in the mind 
of every moral agent. Political principles 
are only moral ones adapted to the civil 
union of men. When I assert that a man 
has a right to life, liberty, &c., I only mean 
to enunciate a moral maxim founded on the 
general interest, which prohibits any attack 
on these possessions. In this primary and 
radical sense, all rights, natural as well as 
civil, arise from expediency. But the mo¬ 
ment the moral edifice is reared, its basis is 
hid from the eye for ever. The moment 
these maxims, which are founded on an 
utility that is paramount and perpetual, are 
embodied and consecrated, they cease to 
yield to partial and subordinate expediency. 
It then becomes the ‘perfection of virtue to 
consider, not whether an action be useful, 
but whether it be right. 

The same necessity for the substitution 
of general maxims exists in politics as in 
morals. Those precise and inflexible prin¬ 
ciples, which yield neither to the seductions 
of passion, nor to the suggestions of interest, 
ought to be the guide of public as well as 
private morals. “ Acting according to the 
natural rights of men,” is only another ex¬ 
pression for acting according to those general 
maxims of social morals which prescribe 
what is right and fit in human intercourse. 


* Horace, lib. ii. Sat. 3.— Ed. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


592 

We have proved that the social compact 
does not alter these maxims, or destroy 
these rights ; and it incontestably follows, 
from the same principles which guide all 
morality, that no expediency can justify 
their infraction. 

The inflexibility of general principles is, 
indeed, perhaps more necessary in political 
morals than in any other class of actions. 
If the consideration of expediency be ad¬ 
mitted, the question recurs, — Who are to 
judge of it? The appeal is never made to 
the many whose interest is at stake, but to 
the few , whose interest is linked to the per¬ 
petuity of oppression and abuse. Surely 
that judge ought to be bound down by the 
strictest rules, who is undeniably interested 
in the decision: and he would scarcely be 
esteemed a wise legislator, who should vest 
in the next heir to a lunatic a discretionary 
power to judge of his sanity. Far more 
necessary, then, is obedience to general 
principles, and maintenance of natural 
rights, in politics than in the morality of 
common life. The moment that the slightest 
infraction of these rights is permitted 
through motives of convenience, the bulwark 
of all upright politics is lost. If a small 
convenience will justify a little infraction, 
a greater will expiate a bolder violation: 
the Rubicon is past. Tyrants never seek in 
vain for sophists: pretences are multiplied 
without difficulty and without end. No¬ 
thing, therefore, but an inflexible adherence 
to the principles of general right can pre¬ 
serve the purity, consistency, and stability 
of a free state. 

If we have thus successfully vindicated 
the first theoretical principle of French 
legislation, the doctrine of an absolute sur¬ 
render of natural rights by civil and social 
man, has been shown to be deduced from 
inadequate premises, — to conduct to ab¬ 
surd conclusions, to sanctify the most atro¬ 
cious despotism, to outrage the avowed 
convictions of men, and, finally, to be aban¬ 
doned, as hopelessly untenable by its own 
author. The existence and perfection of 
these rights being proved, the first duty of 
lawgivers and magistrates is to assert and 


protect them. Most wisely and auspiciously 
then did France commence her regenerating 
labours with a solemn declaration of these 
sacred, inalienable, and imprescriptible 
rights, — a declaration which must be to 
the citizen the monitor of his duties, as well 
as the oracle of his rights, and by a per¬ 
petual recurrence to which the deviations 
of the magistrate will be checked, the 
tendency of power to abuse corrected, and 
every political proposition (being compared 
with the end of society) correctly and dis¬ 
passionately estimated. To the juvenile 
vigour of reason and freedom in the New 
World, — where the human mind was un¬ 
incumbered with that vast mass of usage 
and prejudice, which so many ages of 
ignorance had accumulated, to load and 
deform society in Europe, — France owed 
this, among other lessons. Perhaps the only 
expedient that can be devised by human 
wisdom to keep alive public vigilance against 
the usurpation of partial interests, is that 
of perpetually presenting the general right 
and the general interest to the public 
eye. Such a principle has been the Polar 
Star, by which the National Assembly has 
hitherto navigated the vessel of the state, 
amid so many tempests howling destruction 
around it. 

There remains a much more extensive and 
compb’cated inquiry, in the consideration of 
their political institutions. As it is impos¬ 
sible to examine all, we must limit our re¬ 
marks to the most important. To speak 
then generally of their Constitution, it is a 
preliminary remark, that the application of 
the word “ democracy” to it is fallacious and 
illusive. If that word, indeed, be taken in 
its etymological sense, as the “ power of the 
people,” it is a democracy; and so are all 
legitimate governments. But if it be taken 
in its historical sense, it is not so; for it does 
not resemble those governments which have 
been called democracies in ancient or modern 
times. In the ancient democracies there was 
neither representation nor division of powers: 
the rabble legislated, judged, and exercised 
every political authority. I do not mean to 
deny that in Athens, of which history has 












A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 593 


transmitted to us the most authentic monu¬ 
ments, there did exist some feeble control. 
But it has been well remarked, that a multi¬ 
tude, if it was composed of Newtons, must 
be a mob: their will must be equally unwise, 
unjust, and irresistible. The authority of a 
corrupt and tumultuous populace has indeed 
by the best writers of antiquity been re¬ 
garded rather as an ochlocracy than a demo¬ 
cracy, — as the despotism of the rabble, not 
the dominion of the people. It is a de¬ 
generate democracy: it is a febrile paroxysm 
of the social body which must speedily ter¬ 
minate in convalescence or dissolution. The 
new Constitution of France is almost directly 
the reverse of these forms. It vests the 
legislative authority in the representatives 
of the people, the executive in an hereditary 
First Magistrate, and the judicial in judges 
periodically elected, and unconnected either 
with the legislature or with the Executive 
Magistrate. To confound such a constitution 
with the democracies of antiquity, for the 
purpose of quoting historical and experi¬ 
mental evidence against it, is to recur to the 
most paltry and shallow arts of sophistry. 

In discussing it, the first question that 
arises regards the mode of constituting the 
legislature; the first division of which, re¬ 
lating to the right of suffrage, is of primary 
importance. Here I most cordially agree 
with Mr. Burke* in reprobating the impo¬ 
tent and preposterous qualification by which 
the Assembly has disfranchised every citizen 
who does not pay a direct contribution equi¬ 
valent to the price of three days’ labour. 
Nothing can be more evident than its in- 
efficacy for any purpose but the display of 
inconsistency, and the violation of justice. 
These remarks were made at the moment of 
the discussion; and the plan f was combated 
in the Assembly with all the force of reason 
and eloquence by the most conspicuous 
leaders of the popular party — MM. Mira- 
beau, Target, and Petion, more particularly 


* Burke, p. 257. 

f See the Proces Verbaux of the 27th and 29th 
of October, 1789, and the Journal de Paris, No. 
301., and Les Revolutions de Paris, No. 17. p. 73. 


distinguishing themselves by their opposition. 
But the more timid and prejudiced members 
of it shrunk from so bold an innovation in 
political systems as justice. They fluctuated 
between their principles and their preju¬ 
dices ; and the struggle terminated in an 
illusive compromise,—the constant resource 
of feeble and temporising characters. They 
were content that little practical evil should 
in fact be produced; while their views were 
not sufficiently enlarged to perceive, that the 
inviolability of principles is the palladium of 
virtue and of freedom. Such members do 
not, indeed, form the majority of their own 
party; but the aristocratic minority, anxious 
for whatever might dishonour or embarrass 
the Assembly, eagerly coalesced with them, 
and stained the infant Constitution with this 
absurd usurpation. 

An enlightened and respectable antagonist 
of Mr. Burke has attempted the defence of 
this measure. In a Letter to Earl Stanhope, 
it is contended, that the spirit of this regu¬ 
lation accords exactly with the principles of 
natural justice, because, even in an unsocial 
state, the pauper has a claim only on charity, 
and he who produces nothing has no right to 
share in the regulation of what is produced 
by the industry of others. But whatever be 
the justice of disfranchising the unproductive 
poor, the argument is, in point of fact, totally 
misapplied. Domestic servants are excluded 
by the decree, though they subsist as evi¬ 
dently on the produce of their own labour 
as any other class; and to them therefore 
the argument of our acute and ingenious 
writer is totally inapplicable.* But it is the 
consolation of the consistent friends of free¬ 
dom, that this abuse must be short-lived: 
the spirit of reason and liberty, which has 
achieved such mighty victories, cannot long 
be resisted by this puny foe. The number 


* It has been very justly remarked, that even 
with reference to taxation, all men have equal 
rights of election. For the man who is too poor to 
pay a direct contribution, still pays a tax in the 
increased price of his food and clothes. It is be¬ 
sides to be observed, that life and liberty are more 
sacred than property, and that the right of suffrage 
is the only shield that can guard them. 


QQ 









594 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


of primary electors is at present so great, 
and the importance of their single votes so 
proportionally little, that their interest in 
resisting the extension of the right of suffrage 
is insignificantly small. Thus much have I 
spoken of the usurpation of the rights of 
suffrage, with the ardour of anxious affec¬ 
tion, and with the freedom of liberal ad¬ 
miration. The moment is too serious for 
compliment; and I leave untouched to the 
partisans of despotism, their monopoly of 
blind and servile applause.* 

I must avow, with the same frankness, 
equal disapprobation of the admission of 
territory and contribution as elements en¬ 
tering into the proportion of representation.! 
The representation of land or money is a 
monstrous relic of ancient prejudice: men 
only can be represented; and population 
alone ought to regulate the number of re- 
presentatives which any district delegates. 

The next consideration that presents itself 
is, the nature of those bodies into which the 
citizens of France are to be organised for 
the performance of their political functions. 
In this important part of the subject, Mr. 
Burke has committed some fundamental 
errors: it is more amply, more dexterously, 
and more correctly treated by M. de Calonne; 
of whose work this discussion forms the most 
interesting part. These assemblies are of 
four kinds: —Municipal, Primary, Electoral, 
and Administrative. 

To the Municipalities belong the care of 


* “ He who freely magnifies what has been 
nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what 
might have been done better, gives you the best 
covenant of his fidelity. His highest praise is not 
flattery, and his plainest advice is praise.” Areo- 
pagitica. 

f Montesquieu, I think, mentions a federative 
republic in Lycia, where the proportion of repre¬ 
sentatives deputed by each state was in a ratio com¬ 
pounded of its population and its contribution. 
There might be some plausibility in this institution 
among confederated independent states: but it is 
grossly absurd in a commonwealth, which is vitally 
one. In such a state, the contribution of all be¬ 
ing proportioned to their capacity, it is relatively 
equal; and if it can confer any political claims, they 
must be derived from equal rights. 


preserving the police, and collecting the 
revenue within their jurisdiction. An accu¬ 
rate idea of their nature and object may be 
formed by supposing the country of England 
uniformly divided, and governed, like its 
cities and towns, by magistracies of popular 
election. 

The Primary Assemblies, the first elements 
of the commonwealth, are formed by all citi¬ 
zens, who pay a direct contribution, equal to 
the price of three days’ labour, which may 
be averaged at half-a-crown sterling. Their 
functions are purely electoral. They send 
representatives, in the proportion of one to 
every hundred adult citizens, to the As¬ 
sembly of the Department directly, and not 
through the medium of the District, as was 
originally proposed by the Constitutional 
Committee, and has been erroneously stated 
by Mr. Burke. They send, indeed, repre¬ 
sentatives to the Assembly of the District; 
but it is for the purpose of choosing the 
Administrators of such District, not the 
Electors of the Department. The Electoral 
Assemblies of the Departments elect the 
members of the legislature, the judges, the 
administrators, and the bishop of the De¬ 
partment. The Administrators are every¬ 
where the organs and instruments of the 
executive power. 

Against the arrangement of these Assem¬ 
blies, many subtle and specious objections 
are urged, both by Mr. Burke and the exiled 
Minister of France. The first and most 
formidable is, “ the supposed tendency of it 
to dismember France into a body of con¬ 
federated republics.” To this there are 
several unanswerable replies. But before I 
state them, it is necessary to make one dis¬ 
tinction : — these several bodies are, in a 
certain sense, independent, in what regards 
subordinate and interior regulation: but 
they are not independent in the sense which 
the objection supposes, — that of possessing 
a separate will from that of the nation, or 
influencing, but by their representatives, the 
general system of the state. Nay, it may 
be demonstrated, that the legislators of 
France have solicitously provided more 
elaborate precautions against this dismem- 








A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 595 

berment than have been adopted by any 
recorded government. 

The first circumstance which is adverse to 
it is the minuteness of the divided parts. 
They are too small to possess a separate 
force. As elements of the social order, as 
particles of a great political body, they are 
something; but, as insulated states, they 
would be impotent. Had France been 
separated into great masses, each might 
have been strong enough to claim a separate 
will; but, divided as she is, no body of 
citizens is conscious of sufficient strength to 
feel their sentiments of any importance, but 
as constituent parts of the general will. 
Survey the Primary, the Electoral, and the 
Administrative Assemblies, and nothing will 
be more evident than their importance in 
individuality. The Municipalities, surely, 
are not likely to arrogate independence. A 
48,000th part of the kingdom has not energy 
sufficient for separate existence ; nor can a 
hope arise in it of influencing, in a direct 
and dictatorial manner, the councils of a 
great state. Even the Electoral Assemblies 
of the Departments do not, as we shall 
afterwards show, possess force enough to 
become independent confederated republics. 

Another circumstance, powerfully hostile 
to this dismemberment, is the destruction of 
the ancient Provincial division of the king¬ 
dom. In no part of Mr. Burke’s work have 
his arguments been chosen with such in- 
felicity of selection as in what regards this 
subject. He has not only erred; but his 
error is the precise reverse of truth. He 
represents as the harbinger of discord, what 
is, in fact, the instrument of union. He 
mistakes the cement of the edifice for a 
source of instability and a principle of re¬ 
pulsion. France was, under the ancient 
government, an union of provinces, acquired 
at various times and on different conditions, 
and differing in constitution, laws, language, 
manners, privileges, jurisdiction, and revenue. 
It had the exterior of a simple monarchy, 
but it was in reality an aggregate of inde¬ 
pendent states. The monarch was in one 
place King of Navarre, in another Duke 
of Brittany, in a third Count of Provence, 

in a fourth Dauphin of Vienne. Under 
these various denominations he possessed, at 
least nominally, different degrees of power, 
and he certainly exercised it under different 
forms. The mass composed of these hete¬ 
rogeneous and discordant elements, was held 
together by the compressing force of des¬ 
potism. AVhen that compression was with¬ 
drawn, the provinces must have resumed 
their ancient independence, — perhaps in a 
form more absolute than as members of a 
federative republic. Every thing tended to 
inspire provincial and to extinguish national 
patriotism. The inhabitants of Brittany, or 
Guienne, felt themselves linked together by 
ancient habitudes, by congenial prejudices, 
by similar manners, by the relics of their 
constitution, and the common name of their 
country: but their character, as members of 
the French Empire, could only remind them 
of long and ignominious subjection to a 
tyranny, of which they had only felt the 
strength in exaction, and blessed the lenity 
in neglect. These causes must have formed 
the provinces into independent republics; 
and the destruction of their provincial ex¬ 
istence was indispensable to the prevention 
of this dismemberment. It is impossible to 
deny, that men united by no previous habi¬ 
tude (whatever may be said of the policy of 
the union in other respects) are less qualified 
for that union of will and force, which pro¬ 
duces an independent republic, than pro¬ 
vincials, who were attracted by every cir¬ 
cumstance towards local and partial interests, 
and from the common centre of the national 
system. Nothing could have been more 
inevitable than the independence of those 
great provinces, which had never been 
moulded into one empire; and we may 
boldly, pronounce, in direct opposition to 
Mr. Burke, that the new division of the 
kingdom was the only expedient that could 
have prevented its dismemberment into a 
confederacy of sovereign republics. 

The solicitous and elaborate division of 
powers, is another expedient of infallible 
operation, to preserve the unity of the body 
politic. The Municipalities are limited to 
minute and local administration; the Pri- 


Q Q 2 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


596 

mary Assemblies solely to election; the 
Assemblies of the District to objects of ad¬ 
ministration and control of a superior class ; 
and the Assemblies of the Departments 
possess functions purely electoral, exerting 
no authority legislative, administrative, or 
judicial. 

But whatever danger might be appre¬ 
hended of the assumption of power by these 
formidable Assemblies, they are biennially 
renewed; and their fugitive nature makes 
systematic usurpation hopeless. What 
power, indeed, can they possess of dictating 
to the National Assembly?* or what in¬ 
terest can the members of that Assembly 
have in obeying the mandates of those whose 
tenure of power is as fugitive and precarious 
as their own ? The provincial Administra¬ 
tors have that amount of independence 
which the constitution demands; while the 
judges, who are elected for six years, must 
feel themselves independent of constituents, 
whom three elections may so radically and 
completely change. These circumstances, 
then, — the minuteness of the divisions, the 
dissolution of Provincial ties, the elaborate 
distribution of powers, and the fugitive con¬ 
stitution of the Electoral Assemblies,—seem 
to form an insuperable barrier against the 
assumption of such powers by any of the 
bodies into which France is organised, as 
would tend to produce the federal form. 

The next objection to be considered is 
peculiar to Mr. Burke. The subordination 
of elections has been regarded by the ad¬ 
mirers of the French lawgivers as a master¬ 
piece of their legislative wisdom. It seemed 
as great an improvement on representative 
government, as representation itself was on 
pure democracy. No extent of territory is 
too great for a popular government thus 
organised; and as the Primary Assemblies 

* I do not mean that their voice will not be 
there respected: that would be to suppose the 
Legislature as insolently corrupt as that of a neigh¬ 
bouring nation. I only mean to assert, that they 
cannot possess such a power as will enable them to 
dictate instructions to their representatives as 
authoritatively as sovereigns do to their ambassa¬ 
dors : which is the idea of a confederated republic. 

L - 


may be divided to any degree of minuteness, 
the most perfect order is reconcilable with 
the widest diffusion of political right. De¬ 
mocracies were supposed by philosophers to 
be necessarily small, and therefore feeble, — 
to demand numerous assemblies, and to be 
therefore venal and tumultuous. Yet this 
great discovery, which gives force and order 
in so high a degree to popular governments, 
is condemned and derided by Mr. Burke. 
An immediate connexion between the re¬ 
presentative and the primary constituent, he 
considers as essential to the idea of repre¬ 
sentation. As the electors in the Primary 
Assemblies do not immediately elect their 
lawgivers, he regards their rights of suffrage 
as nominal and illusory.* 

It will in the first instance be remarked, 
from the statement which has already been 
given, that in stating three interposed elec¬ 
tions between the Primary Electors and the 
Legislature, Mr. Burke has committed a most 
important error, in point of fact. The ori¬ 
ginal plan of the Constitutional Committee 
was indeed agreeable to the statement of 
Mr. Burke : — The Primary Assemblies were 
to elect deputies to the District, —the Dis¬ 
trict to the Department, — and the Depart¬ 
ment to the National Assembly. But this 
plan was represented as tending to intro¬ 
duce a vicious complexity into the system, 
and, by making the channel through which 
the national will passes into its public acts 
too circuitous, to enfeeble its energy under 
pretence of breaking its violence; and it 
was accordingly successfully combated. The 
series of three elections was still preserved 
for the choice of Departmental Admini¬ 
strators; but the Electoral Assemblies in 
the Departments, who are the immediate 
constituents of the Legislature, are directly 
chosen by the Primary Assemblies, in the 
proportion of one elector to every hundred 
active citizens, f 


* Burke, pp. 270—272. 

f For a charge of such fundamental inaccuracy 
against Mr. Burke, the Public will most justly and 
naturally expect the highest evidence. See the 
Decret sur la nouvelle Division du Royaume, 










A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 


Bat, — to return to the general question, 
which is, perhaps, not much affected by 
these details,—I profess I see no reason 
why the right of election is not as susceptible 
of delegation as any other civil function, — 
why a citizen may not as well delegate the 
right of choosing lawgivers, as that of making 
laws. Such a gradation of elections, says 
Mr. Burke, excludes responsibility and sub¬ 
stantial election, since the primary electors 
neither can know nor bring to account the 
members of the Assembly. This argument 
has (considering the peculiar system of Mr. 
Burke) appeared to me to be the most 
singular and inconsistent that he has urged 
in his work. Representation itself must be 
confessed to be an infringement on the most 
perfect liberty; for the best organised system 
cannot preclude the possibility of a variance 
between the popular and the representative 
will. Responsibility, strictly speaking, it 
can rarely admit; for the secrets of political 
fraud are so impenetrable, and the line which 
separates corrupt decision from erroneous 
judgment so indiscernibly minute, that the 
cases where the deputies could be made 
properly responsible are too few to be named 
as exceptions. Their dismissal is the only 
punishment that can be inflicted; and all 
that the best constitution can attain is a 
high probability of unison between the con¬ 
stituent and his deputy. This seems attained 
in the arrangements of France. The Electors 
of the Departments are so numerous, and 
so popularly elected, that there is the highest 
probability of their being actuated in their 
elections, and re-elections, by the sentiments 
of the Primary Assemblies. They have too 

Art. 17., and the Procfes Verbal of the Assembly 
for the 22nd Dec 1789. If this evidence should de¬ 
mand any collateral aid, the authority of M. de 
Calonne (which it is remarkable that Mr. Burke 
should have overlooked) corroborates it most 
amply. “On ordonne que chacune de ces As¬ 
semblers (Primaires) nommera un electeur h rai¬ 
son de 100 citoyens actifs.” . . . “.Ces cinquantes 
mille electeurs (des Departements) choisis de deux 
ans en deux ans par les Assemblers Primaires,” 
p. 360. The Ex-Minister, indeed, is rarely to be de¬ 
tected in any departure from the solicitous accuracy 
of professional detail. 


597 

many points of contact with the general 
mass to have an insulated opinion, and 
too fugitive an existence to have a sepa¬ 
rate interest. This is true of those cases, 
where the merits or demerits of candidates 
may be supposed to have reached the Pri¬ 
mary Assemblies: but in those far more 
numerous cases, where they are too obscure 
to obtain that notice, but by the polluted 
medium of a popular canvass, this delega¬ 
tion of the franchise is still more evidently 
wise. The peasant, or artisan, who is a 
Primary Elector, knows intimately among 
his equals, or immediate superiors, many men 
who have information and honesty enough 
to choose a good representative, but few 
who have genius, leisure, and ambition for 
the situation themselves. Of Departmental 
Electors he may be a disinterested, deli¬ 
berate, and competent judge: but were he 
to be complimented, or rather mocked, with 
the direct right of electing legislators, he 
must, in the tumult, venality, and intoxica¬ 
tion of an election mob, give his suffrage 
without any possible just knowledge of 
the situation, character, and conduct of the 
candidates. So unfortunately false, indeed, 
seems the opinion of Mr. Burke, that this 
arrangement is the only one that substan¬ 
tially, and in good faith, provides for the 
exercise of deliberate discrimination in the 
constituent. 

This hierarchy of electors was, moreover, 
obtruded on France by necessity. Had they 
rejected it, they would have had only the 
alternative of tumultuous electoral assem¬ 
blies, or a tumultuous Legislature. If the 
primary electoral assemblies had been so 
divided as to avoid tumult, their deputies 
would have been so numerous as to have 
made the national assembly a mob. If the 
number of electoral assemblies had been re¬ 
duced to the number of deputies constituting 
the Legislature, each of them would have 
been too numerous. I cannot perceive that 
peculiar unfitness which is hinted at by Mr. 
Burke in the right of personal choice to be 
delegated.* It is in the practice of all states 


* Burke, p. 271. 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


598 


delegated to great officers, who are entrusted 
with the power of nominating their sub¬ 
ordinate agents. It is in the most ordinary 
affairs of common life delegated, when our 
ultimate representatives are too remote from 
us to be within the sphere of our observa¬ 
tion. It is remarkable that M. de Calonne, 
addressing his work to a people enlightened 
by the masterly discussions to which these 
subjects have given rise, has not, in all the 
fervour of his zeal to criminate the new 
institutions, hazarded this objection. This 
is not the only instance in which the ex- 
minister has shown more respect to the na¬ 
tion whom he addresses, than Mr. Burke 
has paid to the intellect and information of 
the English public.* 

Thus much of the elements of the legis¬ 
lative body. Concerning that body, thus 
constituted, various questions remain. Its 
unity or division will admit of much dis¬ 
pute. It will be deemed of the greatest 
moment by the zealous admirers of the Eng¬ 
lish constitution, to determine, whether any 
semblance of its legislative organisation could 
have been attained by France, if good, or 
ought to have been pursued by her, if at¬ 
tainable. Nothing has been asserted with 
more confidence by Mr. Burke than the 
facility with which the fragments of the long 
subverted liberty of France might have been 
formed into a British constitution: but of 
this general position he has neither explained 
the mode, nor defined the limitations. No- 


* Though it may, perhaps, be foreign to the 
purpose, I cannot help thinking one remark on this 
topic interesting. It will illustrate the difference 
of opinion between even the Aristocratic party in 
France and the rulers of England. M. de Calonne 
(p. 383.) rightly states it to be the unanimous in¬ 
struction of France to her representatives, to enact 
the equal admissibility of all citizens to public 
employ! England adheres to the Test Act! The 
arrangements of M. Neckar for elections to the 
States-General, and the scheme of MM. Mounier 
and Lally-Tollendal for the new constitution, in¬ 
cluded a representation of the people nearly exact. 
Yet the idea of it is regarded with horror in 
England! The highest Aristocrates of France 
approach more nearly to the creed of general 
liberty than the most popular politicians of England. 


thing is more favourable to the popularity 
of a work than these lofty generalities which 
are light enough to pass into vulgar currency, 
and to become the maxims of a popular 
creed. Proclaimed as they are by Mr. Burke, 
they gratify the pride and indolence of the 
people, who are thus taught to speak what 
gains applause, without any effort of in¬ 
tellect, and imposes silence, without any 
labour of confutation; but touched by de¬ 
finition, they become too simple and precise 
for eloquence, — too cold and abstract for 
popularity. It is necessary to inquire with 
more precision in what manner France could 
have assimilated the remains of her ancient 
constitution to that of the English Legis¬ 
lature. Three modes only seem conceiv¬ 
able : —the preservation of the three Orders 
distinct; the union of the Clergy and No¬ 
bility in one upper chamber; or some mode 
of selecting from these two Orders a body 
like the House of Lords. Unless the in¬ 
sinuations of Mr. Burke point to one or 
other of these schemes, I cannot divine their 
meaning. 

The first mode would neither have been 
congenial in spirit nor similar in form to the 
constitution of England :—convert the Con¬ 
vocation into an integrant and co-ordinate 
branch of our Legislature, and some faint 
semblance of structure might be discovered. 
But it would then be necessary to arm our 
Clergy with an immense mass of property, 
rendered still more formidable by the con¬ 
centration of great benefices in the hands of 
a few, and to bestow on this clerico-military 
aristocracy, in each of its shapes of Priest 
and Noble, a separate and independent 
voice. The Monarch would thus possess 
three negatives,—one avowed and disused, 
and two latent and in perpetual activity, 
— on the single voice which impotent and 
illusive formality had yielded to the Third 
Estate. 

Even under the reign of despotism the 
second plan was proposed by M. de Ca¬ 
lonne*,— that the Clergy and Nobility 


* See his Lettre au Roi, 9th February, 1789. 
See also Sur l’Etat de France, p. 167. It was also, 








A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 599 


should form an Upper House, to exercise 
conjointly with the King and the Commons 
the legislative authority. That such a con¬ 
stitution would have been diametrically op¬ 
posite in its spirit and principles to that of 
-' England, will be evident to those who reflect 
how different were the Nobility of each 
country. In England they are a small body, 
united to the mass by innumerable points of 
contact, receiving from it perpetually new 
infusions, and returning to it, undistin¬ 
guished and unprivileged, the majority of 
their children. In France they formed an 
immense caste, insulated by every barrier 
: that prejudice or policy could raise. The 
Nobles of England are a senate of two 
hundred: the Noblesse of France were a 
tribe of two hundred thousand. Nobility is 
in England only hereditary, so far as its pro¬ 
fessed object — the support of an hereditary 
senate — demands. Nobility in France was 
as widely inheritable as its real purpose — 
the maintenance of a privileged caste —pre-^ 
scribed. It was therefore necessarily de¬ 
scendible to all male children. The Noblesse 
of France were at once formidable from the 
immense property of their body, and de¬ 
pendent from the indigence of their patrician 
rabble of cadets, whom honour inspired with 
servility, and servility excluded from the 
path to independence. To this formidable 
property were added the revenues of the 
Church, monopolised by some of their chil¬ 
dren ; while others had no patrimony but 
their sword. If these last were generous, 
the habits of military service devoted them, 
from loyalty, — if they were prudent, the 
hope of military promotion devoted them, 
from interest, to the King. How immense 
therefore and irresistible would the Royal 
influence have been over electors, of whom 
the majority were the servants and creatures 


as we are informed by M. de Calonne, suggested 
in the Cahiers of the Nobility of Metz and Mont- 
argis. The proposition of such radical changes 
by the Nobility, is incontestable evidence of the 
general conviction that a total change was neces¬ 
sary, and is an unanswerable reply to Mr. Burke 
and M. de C&lonne. 


of the Crown ? What would be thought in 
England of a House of Lords, which, while 
it represented or contained the whole landed 
interest of the kingdom, should necessarily 
have a majority of its members septennially 
or triennially nominated by the King ? Yet 
such a one would still yield to the French 
Upper House of M. de Calonne: for the 
monied and commercial interests of Eng¬ 
land, which would continue to be represented 
by the Commons, are important and formid¬ 
able, while in France they are comparatively 
insignificant. The aristocracy could have 
been strong only against the people, — im¬ 
potent against the Crown. 

There remains only the selection of an 
Upper House from among the Nobility and 
Clergy: and to this there are insuperable 
objections. Had the right of thus forming 
a branch of the Legislature by a single act 
of prerogative been given to the King, it 
must have strengthened his influence to a 
degree terrible at any,— but fatal at this 
period. Had any mode of election by the 
provinces, or the Legislature, been adopted, 
or had any control on the nomination of the 
Crown been vested in them, the new dignity 
would have been sought with an activity of 
corruption and intrigue, of which, in such a 
national convulsion, it is impossible to esti¬ 
mate the danger. No general principle of 
selection, such as that of opulence or an¬ 
tiquity, would have remedied the evil; for 
the excluded and degraded would have felt 
that nobility was equally the patrimony of 
all. By the abolition of nobility, no one 
was degraded; for to “ degrade ” is to lower 
from a rank that continues to exist in 
society. 

So evident indeed was the impossibility of 
what Mr. Burke supposes to have been attain¬ 
able, that no party in the Assembly suggested 
the imitation of the English model. The 
system of his oracles in French politics, — 
MM. Lally and Mounier,—approached more 
near to the constitution of the American 
States. They proposed a Senate to be 
chosen for life by the King, from candidates 
offered to his choice by the provinces. This 
Senate was to enjoy an absolute negative on 







600 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


legislative acts, and to form tlie great na¬ 
tional court for the trial of public delin¬ 
quents. In elfect, such a body would have 
formed a far more vigorous aristocracy than 
the English Peerage. The latter body only 
preserves its dignity by a wise disuse of its 
power. But the Senate of M. Mounier would 
have been an aristocracy moderated and 
legalised, which, because it appeared to have 
less independence, would in fact have been 
emboldened to exert more. Deriving their 
rights equally with the Lower House from 
the people, and vested with a more dignified 
and extensive trust, they would neither have 
shrunk from the conflict with the Commons 
nor the King. The permanence of their 
authority must have given them a superiority 
over the former; — the speciousness, of their 
cause over the latter : and it seems probable, 
that they would have ended in subjugating 
both. Let those who suppose that this 
Senate would not have been infected by the 
“ corporation spirit,” consider how keenly 
the ancient judicatures of France had been 
actuated by it. 

As we quit the details of these systems, 
a, question arises for our consideration of a 
more general and more difficult nature, — 
Whether a simple representative legisla¬ 
ture, or a constitution of mutual control, be 
the best form of government ? * To examine 
-this question at length is inconsistent with 
the object and limits of the present publica¬ 
tion (which already grows insensibly beyond 
its intended size) ; but a few general prin¬ 
ciples may be hinted, on which the decision 
of the question chiefly depends. 

It will not be controverted, that the object 
of establishing a representative legislature is 
to collect the general will. That will is 
one : it cannot, therefore, without a solecism, 
be doubly represented. Any absolute "j* ne- 


* This question, translated into familiar lan¬ 
guage, may perhaps be thus expressed, — “ Whe¬ 
ther the vigilance of the master, or the squabbles 
of the servants, be the best security for faithful 
service ? ” 

f The suspensive veto vested in the French 
King is only an appeal to the people on the con- 


gative opposed to the national will, deci¬ 
sively spoken by its representatives, is null 
as an usurpation of the popular sovereignty. 
Thus far does the abstract principle of re¬ 
presentation condemn the division of the 
legislature. 

All political bodies, as well as all systems 
of law, foster the preponderance of partial 
interests. A controlling senate would be 
most peculiarly accessible to this contagious 
spirit: a representative body itself can only 
be preserved from it by those frequent elec¬ 
tions which break combinations, and infuse 
new portions of popular sentiments. Let us 
grant that a popular assembly may some¬ 
times be precipitated into unwise decision 
by the seductions of eloquence, or the rage 
of faction, and. that a controlling senate 
might remedy this evil: but let us recollect, 
that it is better the public interest should 
be occasionally mistaken than systematically 
opposed. 

It is perhaps susceptible of proof, that 
These governments of balance and control 
have never existed but in the vision of 
theorists. The fairest example will be that 
of England. If the two branches of the 
Legislature, which it is pretended control 
each other, are ruled by the same class of 
men, the control must be granted to be 
imaginary. The great proprietors, titled and 
untitled, possess the -whole force of both 
Houses of Parliament that is not imme¬ 
diately dependent on the Crown. The Peers 
have a great influence in the House of Com¬ 
mons. All political parties are formed by a 
confederacy of the members of both Houses. 
The Court party, acting equally in both, is 
supported by a part of the independent aris¬ 
tocracy ; — the Opposition by the remainder 
of the aristocracy, whether peers or com¬ 
moners. Here is every symptom of col¬ 
lusion,— no vestige of control. The only 
case, indeed, where control could arise, is 
where the interest of the Peerage is distinct 
from that of the other great proprietors. 
But their separate interests are so few and 
—____ 

duct of their representatives. The voice of the 
people clearly spoken, the negative ceases. 

















A DEFENCE OF TIIE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 601 


paltry, that the history of England will not 
afford one undisputed instance.* 

“ Through a diversity of members and 
interests,” if we may believe Mr. Burke, 
“general liberty had as many securities as 
there were separate views in the several 
orders.” If by “ general liberty” be under¬ 
stood the power of the collective body of 
these orders, the position is undeniable : but 
if it means, — what it ought to mean, — the 
liberty of mankind, nothing can be more 
false. The higher class in society,—whether 
their names be nobles, bishops, judges, or 
possessors of landed and commercial wealth, 

— has ever been united by common views, 
far more powerful than those petty repug¬ 
nances of interest to which this variety of 
description may give rise. Whatever may 
be the little conflicts of ecclesiastical with 
secular, or of commercial with landed opu¬ 
lence, they have the one common interest of 
preserving their elevated place in the social 
order. / There never was, and never will be,' 
in civilised society, but two grand interests, 

— that of the rich and that of the poor. 
The privileges of the several orders among 
the former will be guarded, and Mr. Burke 
will decide that general liberty is secure! 
It is thus that a Polish Palatine and the 
Assembly of Jamaica profanely appeal to 
the principles of freedom. It is thus that 
Antiquity, with all her pretended political 
philosophy, cannot boast one philosopher who 
questioned the justice of servitude, — nor 
with all her pretended public virtue, one 


* The rejection of the Peerage Bill of George 
the First is urged with great triumph by De 
Lolme. There, it seems, the Commons rejected the 
Bill, purely actuated by their fears, that the aris¬ 
tocracy would acquire a strength, through a limit¬ 
ation of the number of Peers, destructive of the 
balance of their respective powers. It is unfortu¬ 
nate that political theorists do not consult the 
history as well as the letter of legislative pro¬ 
ceedings. The rejection of that Bill was occa¬ 
sioned by the secession of Walpole. The debate 
was not guided by any general legislative prin¬ 
ciples. It was simply an experiment on the 
strength of the two parties contending for power, 
in a Parliament to which we owe the Septennial 
Act. 


philanthropist who deplored the misery of 
slaves. 

One circumstance more concerning the 
proposed Legislature remains to be noticed, 
— the exclusion of the King’s Ministers 
from it. This “ Self-denying Ordinance” I 
unequivocally disapprove. I regard all dis¬ 
franchisement as equally unjust in its prin¬ 
ciple, destructive in its example, and impotent 
in its purpose. Their presence would have 
been of great utility with a view to business, 
and perhaps, by giving publicity to their 
opinions, favourable on the whole to public 
liberty. The fair and open influence of a 
Government is never formidable. To ex¬ 
clude them from the Legislature, is to devote 
them to the purposes of the Crown, and 
thereby to enable them to use their indirect 
and secret influence with more impunity and 
success. The exclusion is equivalent to that 
of all men of superior talent from the Cabi¬ 
net : for no man of genius will accept an 
office which banishes him from the supreme 
assembly, which is the natural sphere of his 
powers. 

Of the plan of the Judicature, I have not 
yet presumed to form a decided opinion. It 
certainly approaches to an experiment, whe¬ 
ther a code of laws can be formed sufficiently 
simple and intelligible to supersede the ne¬ 
cessity of professional lawyers.* Of all the 
attempts of the Assembly, the complicated 
relations of civilised society seem to render 
this the most problematical. They have not, 
however, concluded this part of their la¬ 
bours : and the feebleness attributed to the 
elective judicatures of the Departments 
may be remedied by the dignity and force 
with which they will invest the two high 
national tribunals.f 

On the subject of the Executive Magis¬ 
tracy, the Assembly have been accused of 


* The sexennial election of the Judges is 
strongly and ably opposed by M. de Calonne, — 
chiefly on the principle, that the stability of judi¬ 
cial offices is the only inducement to men to de¬ 
vote their lives to legal study. 

t The Cour de Cassation and the Haute Cour 
Nationale. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


602 


violating their own principles by the assump¬ 
tion of executive powers; and their advo¬ 
cates have pleaded guilty to the charge. It 
has been forgotten that they had a double 
function to perform : they were not only to 
erect a new constitution, but they were to 
guard it from destruction. Had a super¬ 
stitious tenderness for a principle confined 
them to theoretical abstractions which the 
breath of power might destroy, they would 
indeed have merited the epithets of vision¬ 
aries and enthusiasts. We must not, as has 
been justly observed, mistake for the new 
political edifice what is only the scaffolding 
necessary to its erection. The powers of the 
First Magistrate are not to be estimated by 
the debility to which the convulsions of the 
moment have reduced them, but by the pro¬ 
visions of the future constitution. 

The portion of power with which the King 
of France is invested is certainly as much as 
pure theory would demand for an executive 
magistrate. An organ to collect the public 
will, and a hand to execute it, are the only 
necessary constituents of the social union: 
the popular representative forms the first,— 
the executive officer the second. To the 
point where this principle would have con¬ 
ducted them, the French have not ventured 
to proceed. It has been asserted by Mr. 
Burke, that the French King is to have no 
negative on the laws. This, however, is not 
true. The minority who opposed any species 
of negative in the Crown was only one hun¬ 
dred out of eight hundred members. The 
King possesses the power of withholding his 
assent to a proposed law for two successive 
Assemblies. This species of suspensive veto 
is with great speciousness and ingenuity con¬ 
tended by M. Neckar to be more efficient 
than the obsolete negative of the English 
princes.”' A mild and limited negative may, 
he remarked, be exercised without danger 
or odium; while a prerogative, like the ab¬ 
solute veto , must sink into impotence from 
its invidious magnitude. Is not that nega¬ 
tive really efficient, which is only to yield to 


* Rapport fait au Roi dans son Conseil, 11th 
Sept. 1789. 


the national voice, spoken after four years’ 
deliberation ? The most absolute veto must, 
if the people persist, prove eventually only 
suspensive.* * * * § “ The power of remonstrance,” 
says Mr. Burke, “ which was anciently vested 
in the Parliament of Paris, is now absurdly 
entrusted to the Executive Magistrate.” 
But the veto of the Parliament was directed 
against the legislative authority; whereas 
the proposed one of the King is an appeal 
to the people against their representatives: 
the latter is the only share in legislation, — 
whether it be nominally absolute, or nomi¬ 
nally limited, — that a free government can 
entrust to its Supreme Magistrate.f 

On the Prerogative of declaring War and 
Peace Mr. Burke j has shortly, and M. de 
Calonne § at great length, arraigned the sys¬ 
tem of the Assembly. In it war is to be de¬ 
clared by a decree of the Legislature, on the 
proposition of the King, who possesses exclu¬ 
sively the initiative. The difference between 
it and the theory of the English constitution 
is purely nominal. That theory supposes an 
independent House of Commons, a rigorous 
responsibility of the King’s Ministers, and 
an effective power of impeachment of them. 
Were these in any respect realised, it is per¬ 
fectly obvious, that a decision for war must 
in every case depend on the deliberation of 
the Legislature. No minister would hazard 
hostilities without the sanction of a body 
who held a sword suspended over his head ; 
and no power would remain to the Execu¬ 
tive Magistrate but the initiative. The 
forms indeed, in the majority of cases, aim 
at a semblance of the theory. A Royal 
Message announces impending hostilities, 
and is re-echoed by a Parliamentary Ad¬ 
dress of promised support. It is this address 


* The negative possessed by the King is pre¬ 
cisely double that of the Assembly. He may op¬ 
pose his will to that of his whole people for four 
years, — the term of the existence of two Assem¬ 
blies. The whole of this argument is in some 
measure ad hominem, for I myself am dubious about 
the utility of any species of veto, — absolute or 

suspensive. 

f Burke, p. 301. + Ibid. p. 295. 

§ Calonne, pp. 170—200. 












A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

« 


alone which emboldens and authorises the 
Cabinet to proceed. The Royal Message 
corresponds to the French initiative ; and if 
the purity of our practice bore any propor¬ 
tion to the speciousness of our theory, the 
address would be a “ decree ” of the Legis¬ 
lature, adopting the proposition of the King. 
No man, therefore, who is a sincere and en¬ 
lightened admirer of the English constitu¬ 
tion, as it ought, and is pretended to exist, 
can consistently reprobate an arrangement, 
which differs from it only in the most frivo¬ 
lous circumstances. In our practice, indeed, 
no trace of those discordant powers which 
are supposed in our theoretical constitution 
remains : there the most beautiful simplicity 
prevails. The same influence determines 
the executive and legislative power: the 
same Cabinet makes war in the name of the 
King, and sanctions it in the name of the 
Parliament. But France is destitute of the 
cement which unites these discordant mate¬ 
rials : — her exchequer is ruined. 

Granted, however, that this formidable 
prerogative is more curtailed than it is in 
our theory, the expediency of such limita¬ 
tion remains to be considered. The chief 
objections to it, are its tendency to favour 
the growth of foreign factions, and to dero¬ 
gate from the promptitude so necessary to 
military success. To both these objections 
there is one general answer: — they proceed 
on the supposition that France will retain 
her ancient political system. But if she 
adheres to her own declarations, war must 
become to her so rare an occurrence, that 
the objections become insignificant. Foreign 
Powers have no temptation to purchase 
factions in a state which does not interpose 
in foreign politics: and a wise nation will 
regard victorious war as not less fatally in¬ 
toxicating to the victors, than widely de¬ 
structive to the vanquished. France, after 
having renounced for ever the idea of con¬ 
quest, can indeed have no source of probable 
hostilities, but her colonies. Colonial pos¬ 
sessions have been so unanswerably demon¬ 
strated to be commercially useless, and 
politically ruinous, that the conviction of 
philosophers cannot fail of having, in due 


603 

time, its effect on the minds of enlightened 
Europe, and delivering the French empire 
from this cumbrous and destructive ap¬ 
pendage. 

But even were the exploded villany that 
has obtained the name of “ politics ” to be 
re-adopted in France, the objections would 
still be feeble. The first, which must be 
confessed to have a specious and formidable 
air, seems evidently to be founded on the 
history of Sweden and Poland, and on some 
facts in that of the Dutch Republic. It is 
a remarkable example of those loose and 
remote analogies by which sophists corrupt 
and abuse history. Peculiar circumstances 
in the situation of these states disposed them 
to be the seat of foreign faction. This did 
not arise from war being decided upon by 
public bodies; for if it had, a similar evil 
must have existed in ancient Rome and 
Carthage, in modern Venice and Switzer¬ 
land, in the Republican Parliament of Eng¬ 
land, and in the Congress of the United 
States of America. Holland, too, was per¬ 
fectly exempt from it, till the age of Charles 
II. and Louis XIV., when, divided between 
jealousy of the commerce of England and 
dread of the conquests of France, she threw 
herself into the arms of the House of 
Orange, and forced the partisans of freedom 
into a reliance on French support. The 
case of Sweden is with the utmost facility 
explicable. An indigent and martial people, 
whether it be governed by one or many 
despots, will ever be sold to enterprising and 
opulent ambition: and recent facts have 
proved, that a change in the government of 
Sweden has not changed the stipendiary 
spirit of its military system. Poland is an 
example still less relevant:—there a crowd 
of independent despots naturally league 
themselves variously with foreign Powers. 
Yet Russian force has done more than Rus¬ 
sian gold; and Poland has suffered still more 
from feebleness than venality. 

No analogy can be supposed to exist be¬ 
tween these cases and that of France. All 
the Powers of Europe could not expend 
money enough to form and maintain a faction 
in that country. Suppose it possible that 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


604 


its Legislature could once be corrupted; 
yet to purchase in succession a series of 
assemblies, Potosi itself would be unequal. 
All the states which have been quoted were 
poor, — therefore cheaply corrupted: their 
governments were aristocratic, and were 
therefore only to be once bought; the people 
were ignorant, and could therefore be sold 
by their governors with impunity. The re¬ 
verse of these circumstances will save France, 
as they have saved England, from this 
“worst of evils their wealth makes the 
attempt difficult; their discernment makes 
it hazardous; their short trust of power 
renders the object worthless, and its per¬ 
manence impossible. 

That subjecting such a decision to the 
deliberations of a popular assembly will, in 
a great measure, unnerve the vigour of hos¬ 
tilities, I am not disposed to deny. France 
must, however, when her constitution is 
cemented, be, in a defensive view, invin¬ 
cible : and if her government is unfitted for 
aggression, it is little wonder that the As¬ 
sembly should have made no provision for a 
case which their principles do not suppose. 

This is the last important arrangement 
respecting the executive power which Mr. 
Burke has treated; and its consideration 
conducts us to a subject of infinite delicacy 
and difficulty, which has afforded no small 
triumph to the enemies of the Revolution, 
the organisation of the army. To reconcile 
the existence of an army of a hundred and 
fifty thousand men, of a navy of a hundred 
ships of the line, and of a frontier guarded 
by a hundred fortresses, with the existence 
of a free government, is a tremendous prob¬ 
lem. History affords no example in which 
such a force has not recoiled on the state, 
and become the ready instrument of military 
usurpation : and if the state of France were 
not perfectly unexampled, the inference 
would be inevitable. An army, with the 
sentiments and habits which it is the system 
of modern Europe to inspire, is not only 
hostile to freedom, but incompatible with it. 
A body possessed of the whole force of a 
state, and systematically divested of every 
civic sentiment, is a monster that no rational 


polity can tolerate ; and every circumstance 
clearly shows it to be the object of French 
legislation to destroy it, — not as a body of 
armed citizens, but as an army. This is 
wisely and gradually to be effected: two 
grand operations conduct to it,— arming the 
people and unsoldiering the army. 

An army of four millions can never be 
coerced by one of a hundred and fifty thou¬ 
sand ; neither can they have a separate sen¬ 
timent from the body of the nation, for they 
are the same. Whence the horror of Mr. 
Burke at thus arming the nation, under the 
title of “ a municipal army,” has arisen, it is 
even difficult to conjecture. Has it ceased 
to be true, that the defence of a free state is 
only to be committed to its citizens ? Are 
the long opposition to a standing army in 
England, its tardy and jealous admission, 
and the perpetual clamour (at length illu¬ 
sively gratified) for a militia, to be exploded, 
as the gross and uncourtly sentiments of our 
unenlightened ancestors ? “ They must rule,” 
says Mr. Burke, “ by an army.” If that be 
the system of the Assembly, their policy is 
still more wretched than he has represented 
it: for they systematically strengthen the 
governed, while they enfeeble their engine 
of government. A military democracy, if it 
means a deliberative body of soldiers, is the 
most execrable of tyrannies; but if it be 
understood to denote a popular government, 
under which every citizen is disciplined and 
armed, it must then be pronounced to be 
the only free one which retains within itself 
the means of preservation. 

The professional soldiers, rendered harm¬ 
less by the strength of the municipal army, 
are in many other ways invited to throw off 
those abject and murderous habits which 
form the perfect modern soldier. In other 
states the soldiery are in general disfran¬ 
chised by their poverty : but in France a 
great part may enjoy the full rights of 
citizens. They are not then likely to sacri¬ 
fice their superior to their inferior capacity, 
nor to elevate their military importance by 
committing political suicide. The diffusion 
of political knowledge among them, which is 
ridiculed and reprobated by Mr. Burke, is 













A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 605 


the only remedy that can fortify them 
against the seduction of an aspiring com¬ 
mander. They have, indeed, gigantic 
strength, and they may crush their fellow- 
citizens, by dragging down the social edifice; 
but they must themselves be overwhelmed 
by its fall. The despotism of armies is the 
slavery of soldiers: an army cannot be 
strong enough to tyrannise, that is not itself 
cemented by the most absolute interior 
tyranny. The diffusion of these great truths 
will perpetuate, as they have produced, a 
revolution in the character of the French 
soldiery. Military services will be the duty 
of all citizens, and the trade of none.* If a 
separate body of citizens, as an army, is 
deemed necessary, it will probably be formed 
by rotation: a certain period of military 
service will be exacted from every citizen, 
and may, as in the ancient republics, be 
made a necessary qualification for the pur¬ 
suit of civil honours. “ Gallos quoque in 
bellis floruisse audivimus,” f may again be 
the sentiment of our children. The glory of 
heroism, and the splendour of conquest, 
have long enough been the patrimony of 
that great nation. It is time that it should 
seek a new glory, and a new splendour, 
under the shade of freedom, in cultivating 
the arts of peace, and extending the happi¬ 
ness of mankind. Happy would it be for us 
all, if the example of that “ manifesto of 
humanity” which has been adopted by the 
legislators of France, should make an ade¬ 
quate impression on surrounding nations. 

“ Tune genus humanum positis sibi consulat armis, 
Inque vicem gens omnis amet.” \ 


* Again I must encounter the derision of Mr. 
Burke, by quoting the ill-fated citizen of Geneva, 
whose life was embittered by the cold friendship of 
a philosopher, and whose memory is proscribed by 
the alarmed enthusiasm of an orator. I shall pre¬ 
sume to recommend to the perusal of every reader 
his tract entitled, “ Considerations sur le Gouveme- 
ment de Pologne,” &c.— more especially what 
regards the military system. 

f The expression of Tacitus (Agricola), quoted 
by Mr. Burke in the Speech on the Army Esti¬ 
mates. — Ed. 

$ Pharsalia, lib. i. 


SECTION V. 

ENGLISH ADMIRERS VINDICATED. 

It is thus that Mr. Burke has spoken of 
the men and measures of a foreign nation, 
where there was no patriotism to excuse his 
prepossession or his asperity, and no duty or 
feeling to preclude him from adopting the 
feelings of a disinterested posterity, and as¬ 
suming the dispassionate tone of a philoso¬ 
pher and a historian. What wonder then if 
he should wanton in all the eloquence and 
virulence of an advocate against fellow- 
citizens, to whom he attributes the flagitious 
purpose of stimulating England to the imi¬ 
tation of such enormities. The Revolution 
and Constitutional Societies, and Dr. Price, 
whom he regards as their oracle and guide, 
are the grand objects of his hostility. For 
them no contumely is too debasing, — no 
invective too intemperate, — no imputation 
too foul. Joy at the downfall of despotism 
is the indelible crime, for which no virtue 
can compensate, and no punishment can 
atone. An inconsistency, however, betrays 
itself not unfrequently in literary quarrels: 
— he affects to despise those whom he 
appears to dread. His anger exalts those 
whom his ridicule would vilify; and on 
those whom at one moment he derides as too 
contemptible for resentment, he at another 
confers a criminal eminence, as too auda¬ 
cious for contempt. Their voice is now the 
importunate chirp of the meagre shrivelled 
insects of the hour, — now the hollow mur¬ 
mur, ominous of convulsions and earth¬ 
quakes, that are to lay the fabric of society 
in ruins. To provoke against the doctrines 
and persons of these unfortunate Societies 
this storm of execration and derision, it was 
not sufficient that the French Revolution 
should be traduced; every record of English 
policy and law is to be distorted. 

The Revolution of 1688 is confessed to 
have established principles by those who 
lament that it has not reformed institutions. 
It has sanctified the theory, if it has not 
insured the practice of a free government. 
It declared, by a memorable precedent, the 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


606 

right of the people of England to revoke 
abused power, to frame the government, and 
bestow the crown. There was a time, in¬ 
deed, when some wretched followers of 
Filmer and Blackwood lifted their heads in 
opposition: but more than half a century 
had withdrawn them from public contempt, 
to the amnesty and oblivion which their 
innoxious stupidity had purchased. 

It was reserved for the latter end of the 
eighteenth century to construe these inno¬ 
cent and obvious inferences into libels on 
the constitution and the laws. Dr. Price 
has asserted (I presume without fear of con¬ 
tradiction) that the House of Hanover owes 
the crown of England to the choice of their 
people, and that the Revolution has es-/ 
tablished our right “ to choose our own 
governors, to cashier them for misconduct, 
and to frame a governmgnt for ourselves.” * 
The first proposition, says Mr. Burke, is 
either false or nugatory. If it imports that 
England is an elective monarchy, “ it is an 
unfounded, dangerous, illegal, and unconsti¬ 
tutional position.” “If it alludes to the 
election of his Majesty’s ancestors to the 
throne, it no more legalises the government 
of England than that of other nations, where 
the founders of dynasties have generally 
founded their claims on some sort of 
election.” The first member of this dilemma 
merits no reply. The people may certainly, 
as they have done, choose an hereditary 
rather than an elective monarchy : they may 
elect a race instead of an individual. It is 
vain to compare the pretended elections in 
which a council of barons, or an army of 
mercenaries, have imposed usurpers on en¬ 
slaved and benighted kingdoms, with the 
solemn, deliberate, national choice of 1688. 
It is, indeed, often expedient to sanction 
these deficient titles by subsequent acquies¬ 
cence in them. It is not among the projected 
innovations of France to revive the claims 
of any of the posterity of Pharamond and 


* A Discourse on the Love of our Country, de¬ 
livered on Nov. 4th, 1789, at the Meeting-house in 
Old Jewry, to the Society for commemorating the 
Revolution in Great Britain. London, 1789. 


Clovis, or to arraign the usurpations of 
Pepin or Hugh Capet. Public tranquillity 
thus demands a veil to be drawn over the 
successful crimes through which kings have 
so often “ waded to the throne.” But 
wherefore should we not exult, that the 
supreme magistracy of England is free from 
this blot, — that as a direct emanation from 
the sovereignty of the people, it is as legiti¬ 
mate in its origin as in its administration. 
Thus understood, the position of Dr. Price 
is neither false nor nugatory. It is not 
nugatory, for it honourably distinguishes the 
English monarchy among the governments 
of the world; and if it be false, the whole 
history of our Revolution must be a legend. 
The fact was shortly, that the Prince of 
Orange was elected King of England, in 
contempt of the claims, not only of the 
exiled monarch and his son, but of the Prin¬ 
cesses Mary and Anne, the undisputed pro¬ 
geny of James. The title of William III. 
was then clearly not by succession ; and the 
House of Commons ordered Dr. Burnet’s 
tract to be burnt by the hands of the hang¬ 
man, for maintaining that it was by con¬ 
quest. There remains only election: for 
these three claims to royalty are all that are 
known among men. It is futile to urge, 
that the Convention deviated only slightly 
from the order of succession. The deviation 
was indeed slight, but the principle was de¬ 
stroyed. The principle that justified the 
elevation of William III. and the preference 
of the posterity of Sophia of Hanover to 
those of Henrietta of Orleans, would equally, 
in point of right, have vindicated the election 
of Chancellor Jeffries or Colonel Kirke. 
The choice was, like every other choice, to 
be guided by views of policy and prudence; 
but it was a choice still. 

From these views arose that repugnance 
between the conduct and the language of 
the Revolutionists, of which Mr. Burke has 
availed himself. Their conduct was manly 
and systematic: their language was concili¬ 
ating and equivocal. They kept measures 
with a prejudice which they deemed neces¬ 
sary to the order of society. They imposed 
on the grossness of the popular understand- 








A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 607 


ing, by a sort of compromise between the 
constitution and the abdicated family. 
“They drew a politic well-wrought veil,” 
to use the expression of Mr. Burke, over 
the glorious scene which they had acted. 
They affected to preserve a semblance of 
succession, — to recur for the objects of 
their election to the posterity of Charles and 
James,—that respect and loyalty might 
with less violence to public sentiment attach 
to the new Sovereign. Had a Jacobite been 
permitted freedom of speech in the Parlia¬ 
ments of William III. he might thus have 
arraigned the Act of Settlement: — “ Is the 
language of your statutes to be at eternal 
war with truth? Not long ago you pro¬ 
faned the forms of devotion by a thanks¬ 
giving, which either means nothing, or in¬ 
sinuates a lie : you thanked Heaven for the 
preservation of a King and a Queen on the 
throne of their ancestors, — an expression 
which either alluded only to their descent, 
which was frivolous, or insinuated their 
hereditary right, which was false. With 
the same contempt for consistency and truth, 
we are this day called on to settle the crown 
of England on a princess of Germany, ‘ be¬ 
cause’ she is the granddaughter of James 
the First. If that be, as the phraseology 
insinuates, the true and sole reason of the 
choice, consistency demands that the words 
after ‘ excellent ’ should be omitted, and in 
their place be inserted ‘Victor Amadeus, 
Duke of Savoy, married to the daughter of 
the most excellent Princess Henrietta, late 
Duchess of Orleans, daughter of our late 
Sovereign Lord Charles I. of glorious me¬ 
mory.’ Do homage to royalty in your 
actions, or abj ure it in your words: avow the 
grounds of your conduct, and your manli¬ 
ness will be respected by those who detest 
your rebellion.” What reply Lord Somers, 
or Mr. Burke, could have devised to this 
philippic, I know not, unless they confessed 
that the authors of the Revolution had one 
language for novices and another for adepts. 
Whether this conduct was the fruit of cau¬ 
tion and consummate wisdom, or of a nar¬ 
row, arrogant, and dastardly policy, which 
regarded the human race as only to be 


governed by being duped, it is useless to 
inquire, and might be presumptuous to de¬ 
termine. But it certainly was not to be 
expected, that any controversy should have 
arisen by confounding their principles with 
their pretexts: with the latter the position 
of Dr. Price has no connexion; from the 
former, it is an infallible inference. 

The next doctrine of this obnoxious Ser¬ 
mon that provokes the indignation of Mr. 
Burke is, “ that the Revolution has esta¬ 
blished our right to cashier our governors 
for misconduct.” Here a plain man could 
have foreseen scarcely any diversity of 
opinion. To contend that the deposition of 
a king for the abuse of his powers did not 
establish a principle in favour of the like 
deposition, when the like abuse should again 
occur, is certainly one of the most arduous 
enterprises that ever the heroism of paradox 
encountered. He has, however, not ne¬ 
glected the means of retreat. “ No govern¬ 
ment,” he tells us, “ could stand a moment, 
if it could be blown down with any thing so 
loose and indefinite as opinion of miscon¬ 
duct.” One might suppose, from the dex¬ 
terous levity with which the word “ miscon¬ 
duct” is introduced, that the partisans of 
democracy had maintained the expediency 
of deposing a king for every frivolous and 
venial fault, — of revolting against him for 
the choice of his titled or untitled valets, — 
his footmen, or his Lords of the Bedcham¬ 
ber. It would have been candid in Mr. 
Burke not to have dissembled, what he must 
know, that by “misconduct” was meant 
that precise species of misconduct for which 
James II. was dethroned, — a conspiracy 
against the liberty of his country. 

Nothing can be more weak than to urge 
the constitutional irresponsibility of kings 
or parliaments. The law can never suppose 
them responsible, because their responsibi¬ 
lity supposes the dissolution of society, which 
is the annihilation of law. In the govern¬ 
ments which have hitherto existed, the 
power of the magistrate is the only article 
in the social compact: destroy it, and society 
is dissolved. It is because they cannot be 
legally and constitutionally, that they must be 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


608 

morally and rationally responsible. It is be¬ 
cause there are no remedies to be found with¬ 
in the pale of society, that we are to seek them; 
in nature, and throw our parchment chains 
in the face of our oppressors. No man can 
deduce a precedent of law from the Revolu¬ 
tion ; for law cannot exist in the dissolution 
of government: a precedent of reason and 
justice only can be established in it. And 
perhaps the friends of freedom merit the 
misrepresentation with which they have been 
opposed, for trusting their cause to such frail 
and frivolous auxiliaries, and for seeking in 
the profligate practices of men what is to 
be found in the sacred rights of nature. 
The system of lawyers is indeed widely dif¬ 
ferent. They can only appeal to usage, 
precedents, authorities, and statutes. They 
display their elaborate frivolity, and their 
perfidious friendship, in disgracing freedom 
with the fantastic honour of a pedigree. A 
pleader at the Old Bailey, who would at¬ 
tempt to aggravate the guilt of a robber or 
a murderer, by proving that King John or 
King Alfred punished robbery and murder, 
would only provoke derision. A man who 
should pretend that the reason why we had 
right to property is, because our ancestors 
enjoyed that right four hundred years ago, 
would be justly contemned. Yet so little is 
plain sense heard in the mysterious non¬ 
sense which is the cloak of political fraud, 
that the Cokes, the Blacks tones, and the 
Burkes, speak as if our right to freedom 
depended on its possession by our ancestors. 
In the common cases of morality we should 
blush at such an absurdity. No man would 
'j justify murder by its antiquity, or stigma- 
| tise benevolence for being new. The gene¬ 
alogist who should emblazon the one as 
coeval with Cain, or stigmatise the other as 
upstart with Howard, would be disclaimed 
even by the most frantic partisan of aris¬ 
tocracy. This Gothic transfer of genealogy 
to truth and justice is peculiar to politics. 
The existence of robbery in one age makes 
its vindication in the next; and the cham¬ 
pions of freedom have abandoned the strong¬ 
hold of right for precedent, which, when the 
most favourable, is as might be expected 


from the ages which furnish it, feeble, fluc¬ 
tuating, partial, and equivocal. It is not 
because we have been free, but because we 
have a right to be free, that we ought to 
demand freedom. Justice and liberty have 
neither birth nor race, youth nor age. It 
would be the same absurdity to assert, that 
we have a right to freedom, because the 
Englishmen of Alfred’s reign were free, as 
that three and three are six, because they 
were so in the camp of Genghis Khan. Let 
us hear no more of this ignoble and igno¬ 
minious pedigree of freedom. Let us hear 
no more of her Saxon, Danish, or Norman 
ancestors. Let the immortal daughter of 
Reason, of Justice, and of God, be no longer 
confounded with the spurious abortions that 
have usurped her name. 

“ But,” says Mr. Burke, “ we do not con¬ 
tend that right is created by antiquarian 
research. We are far from contending that 
possession legitimates tyranny, or that fact 
ought to be confounded with right. But 
(to strip his eulogies on English wisdom of 
their declamatory appendage) the impres¬ 
sion of antiquity endears and ennobles free¬ 
dom, and fortifies it by rendering it august 
and venerable in the popular mind.” The 
illusion is useful; the expediency of political 
imposture is the whole force of the argu¬ 
ment ; — a principle odious to the friends of 
freedom, as the grand bulwark of secular 
and spiritual despotism. To pronounce that 
men are only to be governed by delusion is 
to libel the human understanding, and to 
consecrate the frauds that have elevated 
despots and muftis, pontiffs and sultans, on 
the ruin of degraded and oppressed hu¬ 
manity. But the doctrine is as false as it is 
odious. Primary political truths are few 
and simple. It is easy to make them un¬ 
derstood, and to transfer to government the 
same enlightened self-interest that presides 
in the other concerns of life. It may be 
made to be respected, not because it is an¬ 
cient, or because it is sacred, — not because 
it has been established by barons, or ap¬ 
plauded by priests,—but because it is useful. 
Men may easily be instructed to maintain 
rights which it is their interest to maintain, 













A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 


and duties which it is their interest to per¬ 
form. This is the only principle of autho¬ 
rity that does not violate justice and insult 
humanity : it is also the only one which can 
possess stability. The various fashions of 
prejudice and factitious sentiment which 
have been the basis of governments, are 
short-lived things. The illusions of chivalry, 
and the illusions of superstition, which have 
given to them splendour or sanctity, are 
in their turn succeeded by new modes of 
opinion and new systems of manners. Rea¬ 
son alone and natural sentiment are the 
denizens of every nation and the contem¬ 
poraries of every age. A conviction of the 
utility of government affords the only stable 
and honourable security for obedience. 

Our ancestors at the Revolution, it is 
true, were far from feeling the full force of 
these sublime truths: nor was the public 
mind of Europe, in the seventeenth century, 
sufficiently enlightened and matured for the 
grand enterprises of legislation. The science 
which teaches the rights of man, and the 
eloquence that kindles the spirit of freedom, 
had for ages been buried with the other 
monuments of wisdom and the other relics 
of the genius of antiquity. The revival of 
letters first unlocked—but only to a few — 
the sacred fountain. The necessary labours 
of criticism and lexicography occupied the 
earlier scholars; and some time elapsed be¬ 
fore the spirit of antiquity was transfused 
into its admirers. The first man of that 
period who united elegant learning to ori¬ 
ginal and masculine thought was Buchanan *; 
and he too seems to have been the first 
scholar who caught from the ancients the 
noble flame of republican enthusiasm. This 
praise is merited by his neglected, though 


* It is not a little remarkable, that Buchanan 
puts into the mouth of his antagonist, Maitland, 
the same alarms for the downfall of literature that 
have been excited in the mind of Mr. Burke by 
the French Revolution. We can smile at such 
alarms on a retrospect of the literary history of 
Europe for the seventeenth or eighteen centuries; 
and should our controversies reach the enlightened 
scholars of a future age, they will probably, with 
the same reason, smile at the alarms of Mr. Burke. 


609 

incomparable tract, De Jure Regni, in which 
the principles of popular politics, and the 
maxims of a free government, are delivered 
with a precision, and enforced with an 
energy, which no former age had equalled, 
and no succeeding one has surpassed. The 
subsequent progress of the human mind was 
slow. The profound views of Harrington 
were derided as the ravings of a visionary; 
and who can wonder, that the frantic loyalty 
which depressed Paradise Lost, should in¬ 
volve in ignominy the eloquent Apology of 
Milton for the People of England against a 
feeble and venal pedant. Sidney, 

“ By ancient learning to th’ enlighten’d love 
Of ancient freedom warm’d,” * 
taught the principles which he was to seal with 
his blood; and Locke, whose praise is less that 
of being bold and original, than of being tem¬ 
perate, sound, lucid, and methodical, deserves 
the immortal honour of having systematised 
and rendered popular the doctrines of civil 
and religious liberty. In Ireland, Moly- 
neux, the friend of Locke, produced The 
Case of Ireland,—a production of which it 
is sufficient praise to say, that it was ordered 
to be burnt by a despotic parliament. In 
Scotland, Andrew Fletcher, the scholar of 
Algernon Sidney, maintained the cause of 
his deserted country with the force of an¬ 
cient eloquence, and the dignity of ancient 
virtue. Such is a rapid enumeration of 
those who had before, or near the Revolu¬ 
tion, contributed to the diffusion of political 
light. But their number was small, their 
writings were unpopular, their dogmas were 
proscribed. The habits of reading had only 
then begun to reach the great body of man¬ 
kind, whom the arrogance of rank and 
letters has ignominiously confounded under 
the denomination of the vulgar. 

Many causes, too, contributed to form a 
powerful Tory interest in England. The 
remn'ant of that Gothic sentiment, the ex¬ 
tinction of which Mr. Burke so pathetically 
deplores, which engrafted loyalty on a point 
of honour in military attachment, formed 
one part, which may be called the “ Toryism 


* Thomson’s Summer. 


R R 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


610 


of chivalry.” Doctrines of a divine right in 
kings, which are now too much forgotten 
even for successful ridicule, were then sup¬ 
ported and revered;—these maybe called 
the “Toryism of superstition.” A third 
species arose from the great transfer of pro¬ 
perty to an upstart commercial interest, 
which drove the ancient gentry of England, 
for protection against its inroads, behind the 
throne;—this maybe called the “Toryism 
of landed aristocracy.”* Religious pre¬ 
judices, outrages on natural sentiments, 
which any .artificial system is too feeble to 
withstand, and the stream of events which 
bore them along to extremities which no 
man could have foreseen, involved the Tories 
in the Revolution, and made it a truly na¬ 
tional act: but their repugnance to every 
shadow of innovation was invincible. 

Something the Whigs may be supposed to 
have conceded for the sake of conciliation; 
but few even of their leaders, it is probable, 
had grand and liberal views. What indeed 
could have been expected from the delegates 
of a nation, in which, a few years before, the 
University of Oxford, representing the na¬ 
tional learning and wisdom, had, in a solemn 
decree, offered their congratulations to Sir 
George Mackenzie (infamous for the abuse 
of brilliant accomplishments to the most 
servile and profligate purposes) for having 
confuted the abominable doctrines of Bu¬ 
chanan and Milton, and for having demon¬ 
strated the divine rights of kings to tyrannise 
and oppress mankind ! It must be evident, 
that a people \vhich could thus, by the organ 
of its most learned body, prostrate its reason 


* Principle is respectable, even in its mistakes; 
and these Tories of the last century were a party 
of principle. There were accordingly among them 
men of the most elevated and untainted honour. 
Who will refuse that praise to Clarendon and 
Southampton, to Ormonde and Montrose? But 
Toryism, as a party of principle, cannot now exist 
in England; for the principles on which we have 
seen it to be founded, exist no more. The Gothic 
sentiment is effaced; the superstition is exploded; 
and the landed and commercial interests are com¬ 
pletely intermixed. The Toryism of the present 
day can only arise from an abject spirit, or a cor¬ 
rupt heart. 


before such execrable absurdities, was too 
young for legislation. Hence the absurd de¬ 
bates in the Convention about the palliative 
phrases of “ abdicate,” “ desert,” &c., which 
were better cut short by the Parliament of 
Scotland, when they used the correct and 
manly expression, that James II. had “ for¬ 
feited the throne.” Hence we find the Re¬ 
volutionists perpetually belying their poli¬ 
tical conduct by their legal phraseology : 
hence their impotent and illusive reforms : 
hence their neglect of foresight * in not pro¬ 
viding bulwarks against the natural tendency 
of a disputed succession to accelerate most 
rapidly the progress of Royal influence, by 
rendering it necessary to strengthen so much 
the possessor of the crown against the pre¬ 
tender to it. 

But to elucidate the question more fully, 
“ let us listen to the genuine oracles of Re¬ 
volution policy ;”—not to the equivocal and 
palliative language of their statutes, but to 
the unrestrained effusion of sentiment in 
that memorable conference between the 
Lords and Commons, on Tuesday the 5th 
of February, 1688, which terminated in 
establishing the present government of Eng¬ 
land. The Tories, yielding to the torrent 
in the personal exclusion of James, resolved 
to embarrass the Whigs, by urging that the 
declaration of the abdication and vacancy of 
the throne, was a change of the government, 
pro Jiac vice , into an elective monarchy. 
The inference is irresistible : and it must be 
confessed, that though the Whigs were the 


* This progress of Royal influence from a dis¬ 
puted succession has, in fact, most fatally taken 
place. The Protestant succession was the sup¬ 
posed means of preserving our liberties; and to 
that means the end has been most deplorably sacri¬ 
ficed. The Whigs, the sincere though timid and 
partial friends of freedom, were forced to cling to 
the throne as the anchor of liberty. To preserve 
it from utter shipwreck, they were forced to yield 
something to its protectors;—hence a national 
debt, a septennial Parliament, and a standing army. 
The avowed reason of the two last was Jacobitism; 
—hence the unnatural coalition between Whiggism 
and Kings during the reigns of the two first 
princes of the House of Hanover, which the pupilage 
of Leicester House so totally broke. 












A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 611 

better citizens, the Tories were the more 
correct logicians. It is in this conference 
that we see the Whig leaders compelled to 
disclose so much of those principles, which 
tenderness for prejudice, and reverence for 
usage, had influenced them to dissemble. It 
is here that we shall discover sparks kindled 
in the collision of debate sufficient to en¬ 
lighten the “ politic gloom” in which they 
had enveloped their measures. 

If there be any names venerable among 
the constitutional lawyers of England, they 
are those of Lord Somers and Serjeant May¬ 
nard. They were both conspicuous managers 
for the Commons in this conference ; and the 
language of both will more than justify the 
inferences of Dr. Price, and the creed of the 
Revolution Society. My Lord Nottingham, 
who conducted the conference on the part 
of the Tories, in a manner most honourable 
to his dexterity and acuteness, demanded of 
the managers for the Commons :—“ Whether 
they mean the throne to be so vacant as to 
annul the succession in the hereditary line, 
and so all the heirs to be cut off? which we 
(the Lords) say, will make the Crown elec¬ 
tive.” Maynard, whose argument always 
breathed much of the old republican spirit, 
replied with force and plainness : — “It is 
not that the Commons do say the crown of 
England is always and perpetually elective ; 
but it is necessary there be a supply where 
there is a defect.” It is impossible to mis¬ 
take the import of these words. Nothing 
can be more evident, than that by the mode 
of denying “ that the crown was always and 
perpetually elective,” he confesses that it 
was for the then exigency elective. In pur¬ 
suance of his argument, he uses a comparison 
strongly illustrative of his belief in dogmas 
anathematised by Mr. Burke : — “If two of 
us make a mutual agreement to help and 
defend each other from any one that should 
assault us in a journey, and he that is with 
me turns upon me, and breaks my head, he 
hath undoubtedly abdicated my assistance, 
and revoked.” Sentiments of the kingly 
office, more irreverent and more correct, are 
not to be found in the most profane evan¬ 
gelist that disgraces the Democratic canon. 

o o 

It is not unworthy of incidental remark, that 
there were then persons who felt as great 
horror at novelties, which have since been 
universally received, as Mr. Burke now feels 
at the “ rights of men.” The Earl of Cla¬ 
rendon, in his strictures on the speech of 
Mr. Somers, said: — “I may say thus much 
in general, that this breaking the original 
contract is a language that has not long been 
used in this place, nor known in any of our 
law books, or public records. It is sprung 
up but as taken from some late authors, and 
those none of the best received!” This 
language one might have supposed to be 
that of Mr. Burke: it is not, however, his ; 
it is that of a Jacobite lord of the seven¬ 
teenth century. 

The Tories continued to perplex and in¬ 
timidate the Whigs with the idea of election. 
Maynard again replies, “ The word ‘ elective ’ 
is none of the Commons’ word. The pro¬ 
vision must be made, and if it be, that will 
not render the kingdom perpetually elective.” 

If it were necessary to multiply citations to 
prove that the Revolution was to all intents 
and purposes an election, we might hear 
Lord Nottingham, whose distinction is pecu¬ 
liarly applicable to the case before us. “ If,” 
says he, “ you do once make it elective, I do 
not say you are always bound to go to elec¬ 
tion ; but it is enough to make it so, if by 
that precedent there be a breach in the 
hereditary succession.” The reasoning of 
Sir Robert Howard, another of the managers 
for the Commons, is bold and explicit: — 

“ My Lords, you will do well to consider. 
Have you not yourselves limited the suc¬ 
cession, and cut off some that might have a 
line of right ? Have you not concurred with 
us in our vote, that it is inconsistent with 
our religion and our laws to have a Papist 
to reign over us ? Must we not then come 
to an election, if the next heir be a Papist ? ” 

— the precise fact which followed. But 
what tends the most strongly to illustrate 
that contradiction between the exoteric and 
esoteric doctrine, — the legal language, and 
the real principles, — which forms the basis 
of this whole argument, is the avowal of Sir 
Richard Temple, another of the managers 


R 11 2 













612 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


for the Commons : — “We are in as natural 
a capacity as any of our predecessors were 
to provide for a remedy in such exigencies 
as this.” Hence it followed infallibly, that 
their posterity to all generations would be 
in the same “ natural capacity,” to provide 
a remedy for such exigencies. 

But let us hear their statutes: — there 
“ the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and 
Commons, do, in the name of all the people 
of England, most humbly and faithfully 
submit themselves, their heirs and posterity 
for ever,” See. Here is the triumph of Mr. 
Burke; — a solemn abdication and renun¬ 
ciation of right to change the monarch or 
the constitution ! His triumph is increased 
by this statutory abolition of the rights of 
men being copied from a similar profession 
of eternal allegiance made by the Parliament 
of Elizabeth. It is difficult to conceive any 
thing more preposterous. In the very act of 
exercising a right which their ancestors had 
abdicated in their name, they abdicate the 
same right in the name of their posterity. 
To increase the ridicule of this legislative 
farce, they impose an irrevocable law on 
their posterity, in the precise words of that 
law irrevocably imposed on them by their 
ancestors, at the moment when they are vio¬ 
lating it. The Parliament of Elizabeth sub¬ 
mit themselves and their posterity for ever : 
the Convention of 1688 spurn the submission 
for themselves, but re-enact it for their pos¬ 
terity. And after such a glaring incon¬ 
sistency, this language of statutory adulation 
is seriously and triumphantly brought for¬ 
ward as “ the unerring oracles of Revolution 
policy.” 

Thus evidently has it appeared, from the 
conduct and language of the leaders of the 
Revolution, that it was a deposition and an 
election ; and that all language of a contrary 
tendency, which is to be found in their acts, 
arose from the remnant of their own preju¬ 
dice, or from concession to the prejudice of 
others, or from the superficial and presump¬ 
tuous policy of imposing august illusions on 
mankind. The same spirit regulated, — the 
same prejudices impeded their progress in 
every department. “ They acted,” says Mr. 


Burke, “ by their ancient States : ” — they 
did not. Were the Peers, and the Members 
of a dissolved House of Commons, with the 
Lord Mayor of London, &c. convoked by a 
summons from the Prince of Orange, the 
Parliament of England?—no: they were 
neither lawfully elected, nor lawfully assem¬ 
bled. But they affected a semblance of a 
Parliament in their Convention, and a sem¬ 
blance of hereditary right in their election. 
The subsequent Act of Parliament is nu¬ 
gatory ; for as that Legislature derived its 
whole existence and authority from the Con¬ 
vention, it could not return more than it 
had received, and could not, therefore, 
legalise the acts of the body which created 
it. If they were not previously legal, the 
Parliament itself was without legal authority, 
and could therefore give no legal sanction. 

It is, therefore, without any view to a 
prior, or allusion to a subsequent revolution, 
that Dr. Price, and the Revolution Society 
of London, think themselves entitled to con¬ 
clude, that abused power is revocable, and 
that corrupt governments ought to be re¬ 
formed. Of the first of these Revolutions, 
— that in 1648, — they may, perhaps, enter¬ 
tain different sentiments from Mr. Burke. 
They will confess that it was debased by the 
mixture of fanaticism ; they may lament 
that History has so often prostituted her 
ungenerous suffrage to success; and that the 
commonwealth was obscured and over¬ 
whelmed by the splendid profligacy of mili¬ 
tary usurpation: but they cannot arrogate 
to themselves the praise of having been the 
first to maintain, — nor can Mr. Burke sup¬ 
port his claim to have been the first to 
reprobate, — since that period, the audacious 
heresy of popular politics. 

The prototype of Mr. Burke is not a less 
notorious personage than the predecessor he 
has assigned to Dr. Price. History has pre¬ 
served fewer memorials of Hugh Peters than 
of Judge Jeffries. It was the fortune of 
that luminary and model of lawyers to sit in 
judgment on one of the fanatical apostles of 
democracy. In the present ignominious ob¬ 
scurity of the sect in England, it may be 
necessary to mention, that the name of this 






A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 613 

criminal was Algernon Sidney, wlio had, it 
is true, in his own time acquired some 
renown, — celebrated as the hero, and de¬ 
plored as the martyr of freedom. But the 
learned magistrate was above this “ epi¬ 
demical fanaticism:” he inveighed against 
his pestilential dogmas in a spirit that de¬ 
prives Mr. Burke’s invective against Dr. 
Price of all pretensions to originality. An 
unvarnished statement will so evince the 
harmony both of the culprits and the ac¬ 
cusers, that remark is superfluous: — 

“ And that the aforesaid Algernon “We have a 

Sidney did make, compose, and write, right to choose our 
or cause to be made, composed, and own governors, to 
written, a certain false, scandalous, cashier them for 
and seditious libel, in which is con- misconduct, and to 
tained the followingEnglish words • — frame a govern- 
‘ The Power originally in the people ment for our. 
is delegated to the Parliament. He selves.” — Dr. 
(meaning the King) is subject to the Price's Sermon. 
laws of God, as he is a man, and to 
the people that made him a king, in¬ 
asmuch as he is a king.' And in an¬ 
other place of the said libel he says, 

* We may therefore take away kings 
without breaking any yoke, or that is 
made a yoke, which ought not to be 
one; and the injury therefore is mak¬ 
ing or imposing, and there can be 
none in breaking it,’ &c.”— Indict¬ 
ment of Algernon Sidney, State Trials , 
vol. iii. p. 716. 

Thus we see the harmony of the culprits: 
the one is only a perspicuous and precise 
abridgment of the other. The harmony of 
the judges will not be found less remark¬ 
able : Mr. Burke, “ when he talks as if he 
had made a discovery, only follows a pre¬ 
cedent : ” — 

“ The King, it says, is re- “ The Revolution Society 
sponsible to them, and he chooses to assert, that a 
is only their trustee. He king is no more than the 
has misgoverned, and he first servant of the public, 
is to give it up, that they created by it, and respon- 
may be all kings them- sible to it.”—“The second 
selves. Gentlemen, I must claim of the Revolution 
tell you, I think I ought, Society is cashiering the 
more than ordinarily, to monarch for misconduct.” 
press this on you, because — “ The Revolution So- 
I know the misfortunes of ciety, the heroic band of 
the late unhappy rebellion ; fabricators of governments, 
and the bringing of the late electors of sovereigns.” — 
blessed King to the scaffold “ This sermon is in a strain 
was first begun by such which has never been heard 
kind of principles.” — in this kingdom in any of 
Jeffries' Charge. the pulpits which are tole¬ 

rated or encouraged in it 
since 1648.” — Mr. Burke's 
Reflections. 

Thus does Mr. Burke chant his political 
song in exact unison with the strains of the 
venerable magistrate : they indict the same 
crimes; they impute the same motives; they 
dread the same consequences. 

The Revolution Society felt, from the 
great event which they professedly com¬ 
memorated, new motives to exult in the 
emancipation of France. The Revolution of \ 
1688 deserves more the attention of a philo¬ 
sopher from its indirect influence on the 
progress of human opinion, than from its 
immediate effects on the government of 
England. In the first view, it is perhaps 
difficult to estimate the magnitude of its 
effects. It sanctified, as we have seen, the 
general principles of freedom. It gave the 
first example in civilised modern Europe of 
a government which reconciled a semblance 
of political, and a large portion of civil liberty, 
with stability and peace. But, above all, 
Europe owes to it the inestimable blessing 
of an asylum for freedom of thought. Hence 
England became the preceptress of the world 
in philosophy and freedom : hence arose the 
school of sages, who unshackled and eman¬ 
cipated the human mind; from among whom 
issued the Lockes, the Rousseaus, the Tur¬ 
gots, and the Franklins, — the immortal band 
of preceptors and benefactors of mankind. 
They silently operated a grand moral re¬ 
volution, which was in due time to amelio¬ 
rate the social order. They had tyrants to 
dethrone more formidable than kings, and 
from whom kings held their power. They 
wrested the sceptre from Superstition, and 
dragged Prejudice in triumph. They de¬ 
stroyed the arsenal whence Despotism had 
borrowed her thunders and her chains. 
These grand enterprises of philosophic he¬ 
roism must have preceded the reforms of 
civil government. The Colossus of tyranny 
was undermined, and a pebble overthrew it. 

With this progress of opinion arose the\ 
American Revolution; and from this last, 
most unquestionably, the delivery of France. 
Nothing, therefore, could be more natural, 
than that those who, without blind bigotry 
for the forms, had a rational reverence for 
the principles of our ancestors, should re- 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WOBKS. 


614 

joice in a Revolution, in which these prin¬ 
ciples, long suffered to repose in impotent 
abstraction in England, are called forth into 
energy, expanded, invigorated, and matured. 
If, as we have presumed to suppose, the 
Revolution of 1688 may have had no small 
share in accelerating the progress of light 
which has dissolved the prejudices that sup¬ 
ported despotism, they may be permitted, 
besides their exultation as friends of hu¬ 
manity, to indulge some pride as Englishmen. 

It must be confessed that our ancestors in 
1688 confined, in their practical regulations, 
their views solely to the urgent abuse. 
They punished the usurper without amelio¬ 
rating the government; and they proscribed 
usurpations without correcting their source. 
They were content to clear the turbid stream, 
instead of purifying the polluted fountain. 
They merit, however, veneration for their 
achievements, and the most ample amnesty 
for their defects; for the first were their 
own, and the last are imputable to the age 
in which they lived. The true admirers of 
the Revolution will pardon it for having 
spared useless establishments, only because 
they revere it for having established grand 
principles. But the case of Mr. Burke is 
different; he deifies its defects, and derides 
its principles: and were Lord Somers to 
listen to such misplaced eulogy, and tortured 
inference, he might justly say, “ You deny 
us the only praise we can claim; and the 
only merit you allow us is in the sacrifices 
we were compelled to make to prejudice 
and ignorance. Your glory is our shame.” 
Reverence for the principles, and pardon of 
the defects of civil changes, which arise in 
ages but partially enlightened, are the plain 
dictates of common sense. Admiration of 
Magna Charta does not infer any respect for 
villanage; reverence for Roman patriotism 
is not incompatible with detestation of 
slavery ; nor does veneration for the Revo¬ 
lutionists of 1688 impose any blindness to 
the gross, radical, and multiplied absurdities 
and corruptions in their political system. 
The true admirers of Revolution principles 
cannot venerate institutions as sage and 
effectual protections of freedom, which ex¬ 


perience has proved to be nerveless and 
illusive. 

“ The practical claim of impeachment,”— 
the vaunted responsibility of ministers,— is 
the most sorry juggle of political empiricism 
by which a people were ever attempted to 
be lulled into servitude. State prosecutions 
in free states have ever either languished 
in impotent and despised tediousness, or 
burst forth in a storm of popular indigna¬ 
tion, that has at once overwhelmed its object 
without discrimination of innocence or guilt. 
Nothing but this irresistible fervour can 
destroy the barriers within which powerful 
and opulent delinquents are fortified. If it 
is not with imminent hazard to equity and 
humanity gratified at the moment, it sub¬ 
sides. The natural influence of the culprit, 
and of the accomplices interested in his 
impunity, resumes its place. As these trials 
are necessarily long, and the facts which 
produce conviction, and the eloquence which 
rouses indignation, are effaced from the 
public mind by time, by ribaldry, and by 
sophistry, the shame of a corrupt decision is 
extenuated. Every source of obloquy or 
odium that can be attached to the obnoxious 
and invidious character of an accuser is ex¬ 
hausted by the profuse corruption of the 
delinquent. The tribunal of public opinion, 
which alone preserves the purity of others, 
is itself polluted; and a people wearied, 
disgusted, irritated, and corrupted, suffer 
the culprit to retire in impunity and splen¬ 
dour.* 

“ Damnatus inani 

Judicio. Quid enim salvis infamia nummis ? ”f 

Such has ever been the state of things, when 
the force of the Government has been suffi¬ 
cient to protect the accused from the first 
ebullition of popular impetuosity. The de¬ 
mocracies of antiquity presented a spectacle 
directly the reverse; but no history affords 

* Part of this description is purely historical. 
Heaven forbid that the sequel should” prove pro¬ 
phetic! When this subject [the late trial of 
Warren Hastings — Ed.] presents Mr. Burke to 
mind, I must say, “ Tabs cum sis, utinam noster 
esses.” 

f Juvenal, Sat. i. 








A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 615 


any example of a just medium. State trials \ 
will always either be impotent or oppressive, 

— a persecution or a farce. 

Thus vain is the security of impeach¬ 
ment: and equally absurd, surely, is our 
confidence in “ the control of parliaments,” 
in their present constitution, and with their 
remaining powers. To begin with the last: 

— they possess the nominal power of im¬ 
peachment. Not to mention its disuse in 
the case of any minister for more than 
seventy years, it is always too late to re¬ 
medy the evil, and probably always too 
weak to punish the criminal. They possess 
a pretended power of withholding supplies : 
but the situation of society has in truth 
wrested it from them. The supplies they 
must vote: for the army must have its pay, 
and the public creditors their interest. A 
power that cannot be exercised without 
provoking mutiny, and proclaiming bank¬ 
ruptcy, the blindest bigot cannot deny to 
be purely nominal. A practical substitute 
for these theoretical powers existed till our 
days in the negative exercised by the House 
of Commons on the choice of the Minister 
of the Crown. But the elevation of Mr. 
Pitt has established a precedent which has 
extirpated the last shadow of popular con¬ 
trol from the government of England : — 

“ Olim vera tides, Sulla Marioque receptis, 
Libertatis obit: Pompeio rebus adempto, 
Nunc et ficta perit.” * 

In truth, the force and the privileges of 
Parliament are almost indifferent to the 
people; for it is not the guardian of their 
rights, nor the organ of their voice. We 
are said to be “ unequally represented.” 
This is one of those contradictory phrases 
that form the political jargon of half-en¬ 
lightened periods. Unequal freedom is a 
contradiction in terms. The law is the 
deliberate reason of all guiding their oc¬ 
casional will. Representation is an ex- N 
pedient for peacefully, systematically, and 
unequivocally collecting this universal voice: 
so thought and so spoke the Edmund Burke 


* Pharsalia, lib. ix. 


of better times. “ To follow, not to force 
the public inclination, to give a direction, 
a form, a technical dress, and a specific 
sanction to the general sense of the com¬ 
munity, is the true end of legislature: ” * 
there spoke the correspondent of Franklin f, 
the champion of America, the enlightened 
advocate of humanity and freedom! If 
these principles be true, and they are so 
true that it seems almost puerile to repeat 
them, who can without indignation hear the 
House of Commons of England called a 
popular representative body ? A more in¬ 
solent and preposterous abuse of language 
is not to be found in the vocabulary of 
tyrants. The criterion that distinguishes 
laws from dictates, freedom from servitude, 
rightful government from usurpation, — a 
law being an expression of the general will, 
— is wanting. This is the grievance which 
the admirers of the Revolution of 1688 de¬ 
sire to remedy according to its principles. 
This is that perennial source of corruption 
which has increased, is increasing, and ought 
to be diminished. If the general interest is 
not the object of our government, it is — it 
must be because the general will does not 
govern. 

We are boldly challenged to produce our 
proofs; our complaints are asserted to be 
chimerical; and the excellence of our go¬ 
vernment is inferred from its beneficial 
effects. Most unfortunately for us, most 
unfortunately for our country, these proofs 
are too ready and too numerous. We find 
them in that “ monumental debt,” the be¬ 
quest of wasteful and profligate wars, which 
already wrings from the peasant something 
of his hard-earned pittance,—which already 
has punished the industry of the useful and 
upright manufacturer, by robbing him of 
the asylum of his house, and the judgment 
of his peers j, — to which the madness of 

* Burke’s “ Two Letters to Gentlemen in the 
City of Bristol ” (1778), p. 52. 

f Mr. Burke has had the honour of being tra¬ 
duced for corresponding, during the American 
war, with this great man, because he was a rebel! 

J Alluding to the stringent provisions of the 
“ Tobacco Act.” — Ed. 














616 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

political Quixotism adds a million for every 
farthing that the pomp of ministerial em¬ 
piricism pays, — and which menaces our 
children with convulsions and calamities, of 
which no age has seen the parallel. We 
find them in the black and bloody roll of 
persecuting statutes that are still suffered to 
stain our code; — a list so execrable, that 
were no monument to be preserved of what 
England was in the eighteenth century but 
her Statute Book, she might be deemed to 
have been then still plunged in the deepest 
gloom of superstitious barbarism. We find 
them in the ignominious exclusion of great 
bodies of our fellow-citizens from political 
trusts, by tests which reward falsehood and 
punish probity, — which profane the rights 
of the religion they pretend to guard, and 
usurp the dominion of the God they profess 
to revere. We find them in the growing 
corruption of those who administer the go¬ 
vernment, — in the venality of a House of 
Commons, which has become only a cum¬ 
brous and expensive chamber for register¬ 
ing ministerial edicts, — in the increase of 
a nobility degraded by the profusion and 
prostitution of honours, which the most 
zealous partisans of democracy would have 
spared them. We find them, above all, in 
the rapid progress which has been made in 
silencing the great organ of public opinion, 
— that Press, which is the true control 
over the Ministers and Parliaments, who 
might else, with impunity, trample on the 
impotent formalities that form the pretended 
bulwark of our freedom. The mutual con¬ 
trol, the well-poised balance of the several 
members of our Legislature, are the visions 
of theoretical, or the pretext of practical 
politicians. It is a government, not of 
check, but of conspiracy, — a conspiracy 
which can only be repressed by the energy 
of popular opinion. 

These are no visionary ills, — no chime¬ 
rical apprehensions : they are the sad and 
sober reflections of as honest and enlightened 
men as any in the kingdom. Nor are they 
alleviated by the torpid and listless security 
into which the people seem to be lulled. 
* l Summum otium forense non quiescentis 

sed senescentis civitatis.” It is in this fatal 
temper that men become sufficiently de¬ 
based and embruted to sink into placid and 
polluted servitude. It is then that it may 
most truly be said, that the mind of a coun¬ 
try is slain. The admirers of Revolution 
principles naturally call on every aggrieved 
and enlightened citizen to consider the 
source of his oppression. If penal statutes 
hang over our Catholic brethren *, — if 
Test Acts outrage our Protestant fellow- 
citizens, — if the remains of feudal tyranny 
are still suffered to exist in Scotland, — if 
the press is fettered, — if our right to trial 
by jury is abridged, — if our manufacturers 
are proscribed and hunted down by excise, 
— the reason of all these oppressions is the 
same : — no branch of the Legislature re¬ 
presents the people. Men are oppressed 
because they have no share in their own 
government. Let all these classes of op¬ 
pressed citizens melt their local and partial 
grievances into one great mass. Let them 
cease to be suppliants for their rights, or to 
sue for them like mendicants, as a pre¬ 
carious boon from the arrogant pity of 
usurpers. Until the Legislature speaks 
their voice it will oppress them. Let them 
unite to procure such a Reform in the re¬ 
presentation of the people as will make the 
House of Commons their representative. If, 
dismissing all petty views of obtaining their 
own particular ends, they unite for this 

* No body of men in any state that pretends to 
freedom have ever been so insolently oppressed as 
the Catholic majority of Ireland. Their cause has 
been lately pleaded by an eloquent advocate, whose 
virtues might have been supposed to have in¬ 
fluenced my praise, as the partial dictate of friend¬ 
ship, had not his genius extorted it as a strict tri¬ 
bute to justice. I perceive that he retains much 
of that admiration which we cherished in com¬ 
mon, by Tiis classical quotation respecting Mr. 
Burke: — 

“ Uni quippe vacat, studiisque odiisqne carenti, 
Humanum lugere genus.” 

Pharsalia, lib. ii. 

See “ The Constitutional Interests of Ireland with 
respect to the Popery Laws” (Dublin, 1791), 
part iv. 







A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 


great object, they must succeed. The co¬ 
operating efforts of so many bodies of citi¬ 
zens must awaken the nation; and its voice 
will be spoken in a tone that virtuous go¬ 
vernors will obey, and tyrannical ones must 
dread. 

This tranquil and legal Reform is the 
ultimate object of those whom Mr. Burke 
has so foully branded. In effect, this would 
be amply sufficient. The powers of the 
King and the Lords have never been for¬ 
midable in England, but from discords be¬ 
tween the House of Commons and its pre¬ 
tended constituents. Were that House 
really to become the vehicle of the popular 
voice, the privileges of other bodies, in 
opposition to the sense of the people and 
their representatives, would be but as dust 
in the balance. From this radical improve¬ 
ment all subaltern reform would naturally 
and peaceably arise. We dream of no more; 
and in claiming this, instead of meriting the 
imputation of being apostles of sedition, we 
conceive ourselves entitled to be considered 
as the most sincere friends of tranquil and 
stable government. We desire to avert 
revolution by reform,— subversion by cor¬ 
rection. * * We admonish our governors to 
reform, while they retain the force to reform 
with dignity and security; and we conjure 
them not to await the moment, which will 
infallibly arrive, when they shall be obliged 
to supplicate that people, whom they oppress 
and despise, for the slenderest pittance of 
their present powers. 

The grievances of England do not now, 
we confess, justify a change by violence: 
but they are in a rapid progress to that fatal 
state, in which they will both justify and 
produce it. It is because we sincerely love 
tranquil freedom j*, that we earnestly depre- 


* Let the governors of all states compare the 
convulsion which the obstinacy of the Government 
provoked in France, with the peaceful and digni¬ 
fied reform which its wisdom effected in Poland. 
The moment is important, the dilemma inevit¬ 
able, the alternative awful, the lesson most in¬ 
structive. 

| “ Manus hsec inimica tyrannis 

Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem.” 


617 

cate the arrival of the moment when virtue 
and honour shall compel us to seek her with 
our swords. Are not they the true friends 
to authority who desire, that whatever is 
granted by it “ should issue as a gift of her 
bounty and beneficence, rather than as 
claims recovered against a struggling liti¬ 
gant ? Or, at least, that if her beneficence 
obtained no credit in her concessions, they 
should appear the salutary provisions of wis¬ 
dom and foresight, not as things wrung with 
blood by the cruel gripe of a rigid neces¬ 
sity.”* We desire that the political light 
which is to break in on England should be 
“ through well-contrived and well-disposed 
windows, not through flaws and breaches, — 
through the yawning chasms of our ruin.” f 

Such was the language of Mr. Burke in 
cases nearly parallel to the present. But of 
those who now presume to give similar 
counsels, his alarm and abhorrence are ex¬ 
treme. They deem the “ present times ” 
favourable “ to all exertions in the cause of 
liberty.” They naturally must: their hopes 
in that great cause are from the determined 
and according voices of enlightened men. 
The shock that has destroyed the despotism 
of France has widely dispersed the clouds 
that intercepted reason from the political 
and moral world: and we cannot suppose, 
that England is the only spot that has not 
been reached by this “flood of light” that 
has burst upon the human race. We might 
suppose, too, that Englishmen would be 
shamed out of their torpor by the great ex¬ 
ertions of nations whom we had long deemed 
buried in hopeless servitude. 

But nothing can be more absurd than to 
assert, that all who admire wish to imitate 
the French Revolution. In one view, there 
is room for diversity of opinion among the 
warmest and wisest friends of freedom,— 
as to the amount of democracy infused into 
the new government. In another, and a 
more important one, it is to be recollected, 


[The lines inserted by Algernon Sidney in the 
Album of the University of Copenhagen. — Ed.] 

* Burke, Speech at Bristol, 
t Ibid. 








618 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


that the conduct of nations is apt to vary 
with the circumstances in which they are 
placed. Blind admirers of Revolutions take 
them for implicit models. Thus Mr. Burke 
admires that of 1688 : but we, who conceive 
that we pay the purest homage to the authors 
of that Revolution, not in contending for 
what they then did, but for what they now 
would do, can feel no inconsistency in look¬ 
ing on France, not to model our conduct, 
but to invigorate the spirit of freedom. We 
permit ourselves to imagine how Lord 
Somers, in the light and knowledge of the 
eighteenth century,—how the patriots of 
France, in the tranquillity and opulence of 
England, would have acted. We are not 
bound to copy the conduct to which the last 
were driven by a bankrupt exchequer and a 
dissolved government, nor to maintain the 
establishments, which were spared by the 
first in a prejudiced and benighted age. 
Exact imitation is not necessary to rever¬ 
ence. We venerate the principles which 
presided in both events; and we adapt to 
political admiration a maxim which has long 
been received in polite letters, — that the 
only manly and liberal imitation is to speak 
as a great man would have spoken, had he 
lived in our times, and had been placed in 
our circumstances. 

But let us hear the charge of Mr. Burke. 

“ Is our monarchy to be annihilated, with all 
the laws, all the tribunals, all the ancient 
corporations of the kingdom ? Is every 
land-mark of the kingdom to be done away 
in favour of a geometrical and arithmetical 
constitution ? Is the House of Lords to be 
useless ? Is episcopacy to be abolished ?”— 
and, in a word, is France to be imitated? 
Yes! if our governors imitate her policy, 
the state must follow her catastrophe. Man 
is every where man: imprisoned grievance 
will at length have vent; and the storm of 
popular passion will find a feeble obstacle in 
the solemn imbecility of human institutions. 
But who are the true friends of order, the 
prerogative of the monarch, the splendour of 
the hierarchy, and the dignity of the peer¬ 
age?— those most certainly who inculcate, 
that to withhold Reform is to stimulate con- j 


vulsion,— those who admonish all to whom 
honour, and rank, and dignity, and wealth 
are dear, that they can only in the end pre¬ 
serve them by conceding, while the moment 
of concession remains, — those who aim at 
draining away the fountains that feed the 
torrent, instead of opposing puny barriers to 
its course. “ The beginnings of confusion 
in England are at present feeble enough; 
but with you we have seen an infancy still 
more feeble growing by moments into a 
strength to heap mountains upon mountains, 
and to wage war with Heaven itself. When¬ 
ever our neighbour’s house is on fire, it can¬ 
not be amiss for the engines to play a little 
upon our own.” This language, taken in its 
most natural sense, is exactly what the 
friends of Reform in England would adopt. 
Every gloomy tint that is added to the hor¬ 
rors of the French Revolution by the tragic 
pencil of Mr. Burke, is a new argument in 
support of their claims; and those only are 
the real enemies of the Nobility, the Priest¬ 
hood, and other bodies of men that suffer in 
such convulsions, who stimulate them to un¬ 
equal and desperate conflicts. Such are the 
sentiments of those who can admire without 
servilely copying recent changes, and can 
venerate the principles without supersti- 
tiously defending the corrupt reliques of old 
revolutions. 

“ Grand, swelling sentiments of liberty,” 
says Mr. Burke, “ I am sure I do not de¬ 
spise. Old as I am, I still read the fine 
raptures of Lucan and Corneille with plea¬ 
sure.” Long may that virtuous and vene¬ 
rable age enjoy such pleasures ! But why 
should he be indignant that “ the glowing 
sentiment and the lofty speculation should 
have passed from the schools and the closet 
to the senate,” and no longer only serving 

“ To point a moral or adorn a tale,” * 

should be brought home to the business and 
the bosoms of men? The sublime genius, 
whom Mr. Burke admires, and who sung the 
obsequies of Roman freedom, has one senti¬ 
ment, which the friends of liberty in Eng- 


* Vanity of Human Wishes. — Ed. 















A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 619 


land, if they are like him condemned to look 
abroad for a free government, must adopt:— 

“ Redituraque nunquam 
Libertas ultra Tigrim Rhenumque recessit, 

Et toties nobis jugulo quaesita negatur.” * 


SECTION VI. 

SPECULATIONS ON THE PROBABLE CONSE¬ 
QUENCES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN 
EUROPE. 

There is perhaps only one opinion about 
the French Revolution in which its friends 
and its enemies agree :— they both conceive 
that its influence will not be confined to 
France; they both predict that it will pro¬ 
duce important changes in the general state 
of Europe. This is the theme of the exult¬ 
ation of its admirers; this is the source of 
the alarms of its detractors. It were indeed 
difficult to suppose that a Revolution so un¬ 
paralleled should take place in the most 
renowned of the European nations, without 
spreading its influence throughout the 
Christian commonwealth; connected as it is 
by the multiplied relations of politics, by the 
common interest of commerce, by the wide 
intercourse of curiosity and of literature, by 
similar arts, and by congenial manners. The 
channels by which the prevailing sentiments 
of France may enter into the other nations 
of Europe, are so obvious and so numerous, 
that it would be unnecessary and tedious to 
detail them; but I may remark, as among 
the most conspicuous, a central situation, a 
predominating language, and an authority 
almost legislative in the ceremonial of the' 
private intercourse of life. These and many 
other causes must facilitate the diffusion of 
French politics among neighbouring nations: 
but it will be justly remarked, that their 
effect must in a great measure depend on 
the stability of the Revolution. The sup¬ 
pression of an honourable revolt would 
strengthen all the governments of Europe : 


* Pharsalia, lib. vii. 


the view of a splendid Revolution would be 
the signal of insurrection to their subjects. 
Any reasonings on the influence of the 
French Revolution may therefore be sup¬ 
posed to be premature until its permanence 
be ascertained. Of that permanence my 
conviction is firm: but I am sensible that in 
the field of political prediction, where vete¬ 
ran sagacity * has so often been deceived, it 
becomes me to harbour with distrust, and to 
propose with diffidence, a conviction influ¬ 
enced by partial enthusiasm, and perhaps 
produced by the inexperienced ardour of 
youth. 

The moment at which I write (August 
25th, 1791) is peculiarly critical. The in¬ 
vasion of France is now spoken of as imme¬ 
diate by the exiles and their partisans; and 
a confederacy of despots f is announced 
with new confidence. Notwithstanding these 
threats, I retain my doubts whether the 
jarring interests of the European Courts 
will permit this alliance to have much energy 
or cordiality; and whether the cautious pru¬ 
dence of despots will send their military 
slaves to a school of freedom in France. 
But if there be doubts about the likelihood 
of the enterprise being undertaken, there 
can be few about the probability of its 
event. History celebrates many conquests 
of obscure tribes, whose valour was ani¬ 
mated by enthusiasm; but she records no 
example where a foreign force has subju¬ 
gated a powerful and gallant people, go- 


* Witness the memorable example of Harring¬ 
ton, who published a demonstration of the impos¬ 
sibility of re-establishing monarchy in England 
six months before the restoration of Charles II. 
Religious prophecies have usually the inestimable 
convenience of relating to a distant futurity. 

j- The malignant hostility displayed against 
French freedom by a perfidious Prince, who occu¬ 
pies and dishonours the throne of Gustavus Yasa, 
cannot excite our wonder, though it may provoke 
our indignation. The pensioner of French des¬ 
potism could not rejoice in its destruction; nor 
could a monarch, whose boasted talents have 
hitherto been confined to perjury and usurpation, 
fail to be wounded by the establishment of free¬ 
dom : for freedom demands genius, not intrigue, — 
wisdom, not cunning. 










C20 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


verned by the most imperious passion that 
can sway the human breast.* Whatever 
wonders fanaticism has performed, may be 
again effected by a passion as ardent, though 
not so transitory, because it is sanctioned by 
virtue and reason. To animate patriotism, 

— to silence tumult, — to banish division, 

— would be the only effects of an invasion 
in the present state of France. A people 
abandoned to its own inconstancy, have 
often courted the yoke which they had 
thrown off: but to oppose foreign hostility to 
the enthusiasm of a nation, can only have 
the effect of adding to it ardour, and con¬ 
stancy, and force. These and similar views 
must offer themselves to the European Ca¬ 
binets ; but perhaps they perceive themselves 
to be placed in so peculiar a situation, that 
exertion and inactivity are equally perilous. 
If they fail in the attempt to crush the 
infant liberty of France, the ineffectual 
effort will recoil on their own govern¬ 
ments : if they tamely suffer a school f of 


* May I be permitted to state how the ances¬ 
tors of a nation now stigmatised for servility, felt 
this powerful sentiment? The Scottish Nobles, 
contending for their liberty under Robert Bruce, 
thus spoke to the Pope: — “ Non pugnamus propter 
divitias, honores, aut dignitates, sed propter liber- 
tatem tantummodo, quam nemo bonus nisi simul 
cum vita amittit! ” Nor was this sentiment con¬ 
fined to the Magnates; for the same letter declares 
the assent of the Commons:—“ Totaque Communi- 
tas Regni Scotias! ” Reflecting on the various for¬ 
tunes of my country, I cannot exclude from my 
mind the comparison between its present repu¬ 
tation and our ancient character, — “terrarum et 
libertatis extremos: ” nor can I forget the honour¬ 
able reproach against the Scottish name in the 
character of Buchanan by Thuanus (Hist. lib. 
lxxvi. cap. 11.), “Libertate genti innata in re- 
gium fastigium acerbior.” This melancholy re¬ 
trospect is however relieved by the hope that a 
gallant and enlightened people will not be slow in 
renewing the era for such reproaches. 

f The most important materials for the philo¬ 
sophy of history are collected from remarks on the 
coincidence of the situations and sentiments of 
distant periods; and it may be curious as well as 
instructive, to present to the reader the topics by 
which the Calonnes of Charles I. were instructed, 
to awaken the jealousy and solicit the aid of the 
European courts: — “A dangerous combination of 


freedom to be founded in the centre of 
Europe, they must foresee the hosts of dis¬ 
ciples that are to issue from it for the sub¬ 
version of their despotism. 

They cannot be blind to a species of dan¬ 
ger which the history of Europe reveals to 
them in legible characters. They see, in¬ 
deed, that the negotiations, the wars, and 
the revolutions of vulgar policy, pass away 
without leaving behind them any vestige of 
their transitory and ignominious operation : 
but they must remark also, that besides 
this monotonous villany, there are cases 
in which Europe, actuated by a common 
passion, has appeared as one nation. The ' 
religious passion animated and guided the 
spirit of chivalry : — hence arose the Cru¬ 
sades. “ A nerve was touched of exquisite 
feeling; and the sensation vibrated to the 
heart of Europe.” * In the same manner 
the Reformation gave rise to religious wars, 
the duration of which exceeded a century 
and a half. Both examples prove the ex¬ 
istence of that sympathy, by the means of 
which a great passion, taking its rise in any 
considerable state of Europe, must circulate 
through the whole Christian commonwealth. 
Illusion is, however, transient, while truth 
is immortal. The epidemical fanaticism of 
former times was short-lived, for it could 
only flourish in the eclipse of reason: but 
the virtuous enthusiasm of liberty, though it 
be like that fanaticism contagious, is not like 
it transitory. 

But there are other circumstances which 
entitle us to expect, that the example of 
France will have a mighty influence on the 
subjects of despotic governments. The 
Gothic governments of Europe have lived 
their time. “ Man, and for ever! ” is the 
sage exclamation of Mr. Hume, f Limits 


his Majesty’s subjects have laid a design to dissolve 
the monarchy and frame of government, becoming 
a dangerous precedent to all the monarchies of 
Christendom, if attended with success in their 
design.” Charles I.’s Instructions to his Minister 
in Denmark, Ludlow’s Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 257. 

* Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. lvii. 
f Philosophical Works, &c. vol. iii. p. 579 .—Ed. 









A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 621 


are no less rigorously prescribed by Nature 
to tbe age of governments than to that ef 
individuals. The Heroic governments of 
Greece yielded to a body of legislative re¬ 
publics : these were in their turn swallowed 
up by the conquests of Rome. That great 
empire itself, under the same forms, passed 
through various modes of government. The 
first usurpers concealed it under a repub¬ 
lican disguise : their successors threw off the 
mask, and avowed a military despotism: it 
expired in the ostentatious feebleness of an 
Asiatic monarchy.* It was overthrown by 
savages, whose rude institutions and bar¬ 
barous manners have, until our days, in¬ 
fluenced Europe with a permanence refused 
to wiser and milder laws. But, unless his¬ 
torical analogy be altogether delusive, the 
decease of the Gothic governments cannot 
be distant. Their maturity is long past: 
and symptoms of their decrepitude are 
rapidly accumulating. Whether they are 
to be succeeded by more beneficial or more 
injurious forms may be doubted; but that 
they are about to perish, we are authorised 
to suppose, from the usual age to which 
the governments recorded in history have 
arrived. 

There are also other presumptions fur¬ 
nished by historical analogy, which favour 
the supposition that legislative governments 
are about to succeed to the rude usurpations 
of Gothic Europe. The commonwealths 
which in the sixth and seventh centuries be¬ 
fore the Christian era were erected on the 
ruins of the heroic monarchies of Greece, 
are perhaps the only genuine example of 
governments truly legislative recorded in 
history. A close inspection will, perhaps, 
discover some coincidence between the cir¬ 
cumstances which formed them and those 
which now influence the state of Europe. 
The Phoenician and Egyptian colonies were 

f 

* See this progress stated in the concise philo¬ 
sophy of Montesquieu, and illustrated by the co¬ 
pious eloquence of Gibbon. The republican dis¬ 
guise extends from Augustus to Severus; the 
military despotism from Severus to Diocletian; 
the Asiatic Sultanship from Diocletian to the final 
extinction of the Roman name. 


not like our colonies in America, populous 
enough to subdue or extirpate the native 
savages of Greece: they were, however, 
sufficiently so to instruct and civilise them. 
From that alone could their power be de¬ 
rived : to that therefore were their efforts 
directed. Imparting the arts and the know¬ 
ledge of polished nations to rude tribes, they 
attracted, by avowed superiority of know¬ 
ledge, a submission necessary to the effect of 
their legislation, — a submission which im¬ 
postors acquire through superstition, and 
conquerors derive from force. An age of 
legislation supposes great inequality of 
knowledge between the legislators and those 
who receive their institutions. The Asiatic 
colonists, who first scattered the seeds of 
refinement, possessed this superiority over 
the Pelasgic hordes ; and the legislators who 
in subsequent periods organised the Gre¬ 
cian commonwealths, acquired from their 
travels in the polished states of the East, 
that reputation of superior knowledge, which 
enabled them to dictate laws to their fellow- 
citizens. Let us then compare Egypt and 
Phoenicia with the enlightened part of Eu¬ 
rope, — separated as widely from the gene¬ 
ral mass by the moral difference of instruc¬ 
tion, as these countries were from Greece 
by the physical obstacles which impeded 
a rude navigation,—and we must discern, 
that philosophers become legislators are colo¬ 
nists from an enlightened country reforming 
the institutions of rude tribes. The pre¬ 
sent moment indeed resembles with wonder¬ 
ful exactness the legislative age of Greece. 
The multitude have attained sufficient know¬ 
ledge to value the superiority of enlightened 
men; and they retain a sufficient conscious¬ 
ness of ignorance to preclude rebellion 
against their dictates. Philosophers have 
meanwhile long remained a distinct nation 
in the midst of an unenlightened multitude. 
It is only now that the conquests of the press 
are enlarging the dominion of reason; as 
the vessels of Cadmus and Cecrops spread 
the arts and the wisdom of the East among 
the Pelasgic barbarians. 

These general causes, — the unity of the 
European commonwealth, the decrepitude 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


622 


on which its fortuitous governments are 
verging, and the similarity between our age 
and the only recorded period when the 
ascendant of philosophy dictated laws, — 
entitle us to hope that freedom and reason 
will be rapidly propagated from their source 
in France. And there are not wanting 
symptoms which justify the speculation. 
The first symptoms which indicate the ap¬ 
proach of a contagious disease are the pre¬ 
cautions adopted against it: the first marks 
of the probable progress of French principles 
are the alarms betrayed by despots. The 
Courts of Europe seem to look on France, 
and to exclaim in their despair, — 

“ Hinc populum late regem, belloque superbum, 
Venturum excidio Libya}.” 

/ The King of Spain already seems to 
tremble for his throne, though it be erected 
on so firm a basis of general ignorance and 
triumphant priestcraft. By expelling fo¬ 
reigners, and by subjecting the entrance of 
travellers to such multiplied restraints, he 
seeks the preservation of his despotism in a 
vain attempt to convert his kingdom into a 
Bastile, and to banish his subjects from the 
European commonwealth. The Chinese 
government has indeed thus maintained its 
permanency; but it is insulated by Nature 
more effectually than by policy. Let the 
Court of Madrid recall her ambassadors, 
shut up her ports, abandon her commerce, 
sever every tie that unites her to Europe : 
the effect of such shallow policy must be 
that of all ineffectual rigour (and all rigour 
short of extirpation is here ineffectual), to 
awaken reflection, — to stimulate inquiry, 
— to aggravate discontent, — and to pro¬ 
voke convulsion. “There are no longer 
Pyrenees,” said Louis XIV., on the acces¬ 
sion of his grandson to the Spanish throne : 
“ There are no longer Pyrenees,” exclaim 
the alarmed statesmen of Aranjuez, — “ to 
protect our despotism from being consumed 
by the sun of liberty.” The alarm of the 
Pope for the little remnant of his authority 
naturally increases with the probability of 
the diffusion of French principles. Even 
the mild and temperate aristocracies of 


Switzerland seem to apprehend the arrival 
of that period, when men will not be con¬ 
tent to owe the benefits of government to 
the fortuitous character of their governors, 
but to its own intrinsic excellence. Even 
the unsuccessful struggle of Liege, and the 
theocratic insurrection of Brabant, have 
left behind them traces of a patriotic party, 
whom a more favourable moment may call 
into more successful action. The despotic 
Court of the Hague is betraying alarm that 
the Dutch republic may yet revive, on the 
destruction of a government odious and in¬ 
tolerable to an immense majority of the 
people. Every where then are those alarms 
discernible, which are the most evident 
symptoms of the approaching downfall of the 
European despotisms. 

But the impression produced by the 
French Revolution in England, — in an en¬ 
lightened country, which had long boasted of 
its freedom, — merits more particular re¬ 
mark. Before the publication of Mr. Burke, 
the public were not recovered from that 
astonishment into which they had been 
plunged by unexampled events, and the 
general opinion could not have been col¬ 
lected with precision. But that perform¬ 
ance has divided the nation into marked 
parties. It has produced a controversy, 
which may be regarded as the trial of the 
French Revolution before the enlightened 
and independent tribunal of the English 
public. What its decision has been I shall 
not presume to decide; for it does not be¬ 
come an advocate to announce the decision 
of the judge. But this I may be permitted 
to remark, that the conduct of our enemies 
has not resembled the usual triumph of those 
who have been victorious in the war of rea¬ 
son. Instead of the triumphant calmness 
that is ever inspired by conscious supe¬ 
riority, they have betrayed the bitterness of 
defeat, and the ferocity of resentment, 
which are peculiar to the black revenge of 
detected imposture. Priestcraft and Tory¬ 
ism have been supported only by literary 
advocates of the most miserable description : 
but they have been ably aided by auxiliaries 
of another kind. Of the two great classes 












A DEFENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 


of enemies to political reform, — the inter¬ 
ested and the prejudiced, — the activity of 
the first usually supplies what may be want¬ 
ing in the talents of the last. Judges have 
forgotten the dignity of their function, — 
priests the mildness of their religion; the 
Bench, which should have spoken with the 
serene temper of justice ; the Pulpit, whence 
only should have issued the healing sounds 
of charity, have been prostituted to party 
purposes, and polluted with invectives 
against freedom. The churches have re¬ 
sounded with language at which Laud would 
have shuddered, and Sacheverell would have 
blushed: the most profane comparisons 
between our duty to the Divinity and to 
kings, have been unblushingly pronounced : 
flattery of the Ministers has been mixed with 
the solemnities of religion, by the servants, 
and in the temple of God. These profligate 
proceedings have not been limited to a 
single spot: they have been general over 
England. In many churches the French 
Revolution has been expressly named: in a 
majority it was the constant theme of invec¬ 
tive for many weeks before its intended 
celebration. Yet these are the peaceful 
pastors, who so sincerely and meekly depre¬ 
cate political sermons.* 

Nor was this sufficient. The grossness of 
the popular mind, on which political invec¬ 
tive made but a faint impression, was to be 
roused in.to action by religious fanaticism,— 
the most intractable and domineering of all 
destructive passions. A clamour which had 
for half a century lain dormant has been 
revived:—the Church was in danger! The 
spirit of persecution against an unpopular 


* These are no vague accusations. A sermon 
was preached in a parish church in Middlesex on 
the anniversary of the Restoration, in which eter¬ 
nal punishment was denounced against political 
disaffection! Persons for whose discernment and 
veracity I can be responsible, were among the in¬ 
dignant auditors of this infernal homily. 


623 

sect has been artfully excited; and the 
friends of freedom, whom it might be odious 
and dangerous professedly to attack, are to 
be overwhelmed as Dissenters. That the 
majority of the advocates for the French 
Revolution are not Dissenters is, indeed, 
sufficiently known to their enemies. They 
are well known to be philosophers and friends 
of humanity, superior to the creed of any 
sect, and indifferent to the dogmas of any 
popular faith. But it has suited the purpose 
of their profligate adversaries to confound 
them with the Dissenters, and to animate 
against them the fury of prejudices which 
those very adversaries despised. 

The diffusion of these invectives has pro¬ 
duced those obvious and inevitable effects, 
which it may require something more than 
candour to suppose not foreseen and desired. 
A banditti, which had been previously sti¬ 
mulated, as it has since been excused and 
panegyrised by incendiary libellers, have 
wreaked their vengeance on a philosopher*, 
illustrious by his talents and his writings, 
venerable for the spotless purity of his life, 
and amiable for the unoffending simplicity 
of his manners. The excesses of this mob 
of churchmen and loyalists are to be poorly 
expiated by the few misguided victims who 
are sacrificed to the vengeance of the law. 

We are, however, only concerned with 
these facts, as they are evidence from our 
enemies of the probable progress of freedom. 
The probability of that progress they all 
conspire to prove. The briefs of the Pope, 
and the pamphlets of Mr. Burke, the edicts 
of the Spanish Court, and the mandates of 
the Spanish inquisition, the Birmingham 
rioters, and the Oxford graduates, equally 
render to Liberty the involuntary homage 
of their alarm. 


* Alluding to the destruction of Dr. Priestley’s 
house in the neighbourhood of Birmingham by the 
mob, on the 14th of July, 1791. — Ed. 















REASONS 

AGAINST 

THE FRENCH WAR OF 1793.* 


At the commencement of the year 1793 the 
whole body of the supporters of the. war 
seemed unanimous ; yet even then was per¬ 
ceptible the germ of a difference which time 
and events have since unfolded. The Mi¬ 
nister had early and frequent recourse to the 
high principles of Mr. Burke, in order to 
adorn his orations,—to assail his antagonists 
in debate, — to blacken the character of the 
enemy, — and to arouse the national spirit 
against them. Amid the fluctuating fortune 
of the war, he seemed in the moment of 
victory to deliver opinions scarcely distin¬ 
guishable from those of Mr. Burke, and to 
recede from them by imperceptible degrees, 
as success abandoned the arms of the Allies. 
When the armies of the French republic 
were everywhere triumphant, and the pecu¬ 
niary embarrassments of Great Britain began 
to be severely felt, he at length dismissed 
altogether the consideration of the internal 
state of France, and professed to view the 
war as merely defensive against aggressions 
committed on Great Britain and her allies. 

That the war was not just on such prin¬ 
ciples, perhaps a very short argument will 
be sufficient to demonstrate. War is just 
only to those by whom it is unavoidable; 
and every appeal to arms is unrighteous*, 
except that of a nation which has no other 
resource for the maintenance of its security 
or the assertion of its honour. Injury and 
insult do not of themselves make it lawful 
for a nation to seek redress by war, because 
they do not make it necessary: another 
means of redress is still in her power, and it 
is still her duty to employ it. It is not 


* From the Monthlv Review, vol. xl. p. 435. 
— Ed. 


either injury or insult; but injury for which 
reparation has been asked and denied, or 
insult for which satisfaction has been de¬ 
manded and refused, that places her in a 
state in which, having in vain employed 
every other means of vindicating her rights, 
she may justly assert them by arms. Any 
commonwealth, therefore, which shuts up 
the channel of negotiation while disputes 
are depending, is the author of the war 
which may follow. As a perfect equality 
prevails in the society and intercourse of 
nations, no state is bound to degrade herself 
by submitting to unavowed and clandestine 
negotiation; but every government has a 
perfect right to be admitted to that open, 
avowed, authorised, honourable negotiation 
which in the practice of nations is employed 
for the pacific adjustment of their contested 
claims. To refuse authorised negotiation is 
to refuse the only negotiation to which a 
government is forced to submit: it is, 
therefore, in effect to refuse negotiation 
altogether; and it follows, as a necessary 
consequence, that they who refuse such au¬ 
thorised negotiation are responsible for a 
war which that refusal makes on their part 
unjust. 

i^-Tliese principles apply with irresistible 
force to the conduct of the English Govern¬ 
ment in the commencement of the present 
war. They complained, perhaps justly, of 
the opening of the Scheldt, — of the Decree 
of Fraternity, — of the countenance shown 
to disaffected Englishmen : but they refused 
that authorised intercourse with the French 
Government through its ambassador, M. 
Chauvelin, which might have amicably ter¬ 
minated these disputes. It is no answer 
that they were ready to carry on a clan- 







REASONS AGAINST THE FRENCH WAR OF 1793. 625 


destine correspondence with that government 
through Noel and Maret, or any other of its 
secret agents. That government was not 
obliged to submit to such an intercourse; 
and the British Government put itself in the 
wrong by refusing an intercourse of another 
sort. 

No difficulties arising from a refusal to 
negotiate embarrass the system of Mr. Burke. 
It is founded on the principle that the nature 
of the French Government is a just ground of 
war for its destruction, and regards the par¬ 
ticular acts of that government no farther 
than as they are proofs of its irreconcileable 
hostility to all other states and communities. 

We are not disposed to deny that so 
mighty a change in the frame of government 
and the state of society, of one of the great¬ 
est nations of the civilised world, as was 
effected by the Revolution in France,— 
attended by such extravagant opinions, and 
producing such violent passions, — was of a 
nature to be dangerous to the several go¬ 
vernments and to the quiet of the various 
communities, which compose the great com¬ 
monwealth of Europe. To affirm the con¬ 
trary would be in effect to maintain that man 
is -not the creature of sympathy and imitation, 
—that he is not always disposed, in a greater 
or less degree, to catch the feelings, to im¬ 
bibe the opinions, and to copy the conduct 
of his fellow-men. Most of the revolutions 
which have laid ancient systems in ruins, 
and changed the whole face of society, have 
sprung from these powerful and active prin¬ 
ciples of human nature. The remote effect 
of these revolutions has been sometimes 
beneficial and sometimes pernicious: but the 
evil which accompanied them has ever been 
great and terrible; their future tendency 
was necessarily ambiguous and contingent; 
and their ultimate consequences were always 
dependent on circumstances much beyond 
the control of the agents. With these 
opinions, the only question that can be at 
issue between Mr. Burke and ourselves is, 
whether a war was a just, effectual, and safe 
mode of averting the danger with which the 
French Revolution might threaten the es¬ 
tablished governments of Europe; —just in 


its principle, — effectual for its proposed end, 
— and safe from the danger of collateral evil. 
On all the three branches of this compre¬ 
hensive question we are obliged to dissent 
very widely from the opinions of Mr. Burke. 

We are not required to affirm universally 
that there never are cases in which the state 
of the internal government of a foreign nation 
may become a just ground of war; and 
we know too well the danger of universal 
affirmations to extend our line of posts far¬ 
ther than is absolutely necessary for our own 
defence. We are not convinced of the fact 
that the French Government in the year 1791 
(when the Royal confederacy originated) 
was of such a nature as to be incapable of 
being so ripened and mitigated by a wise 
moderation in the surrounding Powers, that 
it might not become perfectly safe and in¬ 
offensive to the neighbouring states. Till 
this fact be proved, the whole reasoning of 
Mr. Burke appears to us inconclusive. , 
Whatever may be done by prudence and 
forbearance is not to be attempted by war. 
Whoever, therefore, proposes war as the 
means of attaining any public good, or of 
averting any public evil, must first prove 
that his object is unattainable by any other 
means. And peculiarly heavy is the burden 
of proof on the man who, in such cases as 
the present, is the author of violent counsels, 
—which, even when they are most specious 
in promise, are hard and difficult in trial, as 
well as most uncertain in their issue,—which 
usually preclude any subsequent recurrence 
to milder and more moderate expedients, — 
and from which a safe retreat is often diffi¬ 
cult, and an honourable retreat is generally 
impossible. 

Great and evident indeed must be the 
necessity which can justify a war that in its 
nature must impair, and in its effects may 
subvert, the sacred principle of national 
independence,—-the great master-principle 
of public morality, from which all the rules 
of the law of nations flow, and which they 
are all framed only to defend, — of which 
the balance of power itself (for which so 
many wars, in our opinion just, have been 
carried on) is only a safeguard and an out- 

s s 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


626 


work, — and of which the higher respect 
and the more exact observance have so 
happily distinguished our western parts of 
Europe, in these later times, above all other 
ages and countries of the world. Under the 
guard of this venerable principle, our Eu¬ 
ropean societies, with the most different forms 
of government and the greatest inequalities 
of strength, have subsisted and flourished in 
almost equal security,—the character of man 
has been exhibited in all that variety and 
vigour which are necessary for the expansion 
and display both of his powers and his vir¬ 
tues, — the spring and spirit and noble pride 
and generous emulation, which arise from a 
division of territory among a number of in¬ 
dependent states, have been combined with 
a large measure of that tranquil security 
which has been found so rarely reconcile- 
able with such a division, — the opinion of 
enlightened Europe has furnished a mild, 
but not altogether ineffectual, control over 
the excesses of despotism itself, — and the 
victims of tyranny have at least found a safe 
and hospitable asylum in foreign countries 
from the rage of their native oppressors. It 
has alike exempted us from the lethargic 
quiet of extensive empire,—from the scourge 
of wide and rapid conquest, — and from the 
pest of frequent domestic revolutions. 

This excellent principle, like every other 
rule which governs the moral conduct of men, 
maybe productive of occasional evil. It must 
be owned that the absolute independence of 
states, and their supreme exclusive jurisdic¬ 
tion over all acts done within their own ter¬ 
ritory, secure an impunity to the most atro¬ 
cious crimes either of usurpers or of lawful 
governments degenerated into tyrannies. 
There is no tribunal competent to punish 
such crimes, because it is not for the interest 
of mankind to vest in any tribunal an autho¬ 
rity adequate to their punishment; and it is 
better that these crimes should be unpun¬ 
ished, than that nations should not be inde¬ 
pendent. To admit such an authority would 
only be to supply fresh incitements to am¬ 
bition and rapine, — to multiply the grounds 
of war,—to sharpen the rage of national 
animosity,—to destroy the confidence of 


independence and internal quiet, — and to 
furnish new pretexts for invasion, for con¬ 
quest, and for partition. When the Roman 
general Flaminius was accomplishing the 
conquest of Greece, under pretence of en¬ 
franchising the Grecian republics, he partly 
covered his ambitious designs under colour 
of punishing the atrocious crimes of the 
Lacedaemonian tyrant Nabis* When Catha¬ 
rine II. and her accomplices perpetrated the 
greatest crime which any modern government 
has ever committed against another nation, it 
was easy for them to pretend that the par¬ 
tition of Poland was necessary for the extir¬ 
pation of Jacobinism in the north of Europe. 

We are therefore of opinion that the war 
proposed by Mr. Burke is unjust, both be¬ 
cause it has not been proved that no other 
means than war could have preserved us 
from the danger; and because war was an 
expedient, which it was impossible to employ 
for such a purpose, without shaking the au¬ 
thority of that great tutelary principle, 
under the shade of which the nations of Eu¬ 
rope have so long flourished in security. 
There is no case of fact made out to which 
the principles of the law of vicinage are to 
apply. If the fact had been proved, we 
might confess the justice of the war ; though 
even in that case its wisdom and policy 
would still remain to be considered. 

The first question to be discussed in the 
examination of every measure of policy is, 
whether it is likely to be effectual for its 
proposed ends. That the war against France 
was inadequate to the attainment of its ob¬ 
ject, is a truth which is now demonstrated 
by fatal experience ; but which, in our 
opinion, at the time of its commencement, 
was very evident to men of sagacity and 
foresight. The nature of the means to be 
employed was of itself sufficient to prove 
their inadequacy. The first condition es¬ 
sential to the success of the war was, that 
the confederacy of ambitious princes who 
were to carry it on, should become perfectly 


* Livy, lib. xxxiv. cap. 24. The whole narra¬ 
tive is extremely curious, and not without resem¬ 
blance and application to later events. 







REASONS AGAINST THE FRENCH WAR OF 1793. 627 


wise, moderate, and disinterested, — that 
they should bury in oblivion past animo¬ 
sities and all mutual jealousies — that they 
should sacrifice every view of ambition and 
every opportunity of aggrandisement to the 
great object of securing Europe from general 
confusion by re-establishing the ancient mo¬ 
narchy of France. No man has proved this 
more unanswerably than Mr. Burke himself. 
This moderation and this disinterestedness 
were not only necessary for the union of 
the Allies, but for the disunion of France. 

But we will venture to affirm, that the 
supposition of a disinterested confederacy 
of ambitious princes is as extravagant a chi¬ 
mera as any that can be laid to the charge of 
the wildest visionaries of democracy. The 
universal peace of the Abbe St. Pierre was 
plausible and reasonable, when compared 
with this supposition. The universal re¬ 
public of Anacharsis Cloots himself was not 
much more irreconcileable with the uniform 
experience and sober judgment of mankind. 
We are far from confounding two writers,— 
one of whom was a benevolent visionary 
and the other a sanguinary madman,—who 
had nothing in common but the wildness of 
their predictions and the extravagance of 
their hopes. The Abbe St. Pierre had the 
simplicity to mistake an ingenious raillery of 
the Cardinal Fleuri for a deliberate adoption 
of his reveries. That minister had told him 
“ that he had forgotten an indispensable 
preliminary—that of sending a body of 
missionaries to turn the hearts and minds 
of the princes of Europe.” Mr. Burke, with 
all his knowledge of human nature, and with 
all his experience of public affairs, has for¬ 
gotten a circumstance as important as that 
which was overlooked by the simple and 
recluse speculator. He has forgotten that 
he must have made ambition disinterested, 

— power moderate,—the selfish generous, 

— and the short-sighted wise, before he 
could hope for success in the contest which 
he recommended.* To say that if the au¬ 


* Perhaps something more of flexibility of 
character and accommodation of temper, — a mind 
more broken down to the practice of the world, — 


thors of the partition of Poland could be 
made perfectly wise and honest, they might 
prevail over the French democracy, is very 
little more than the most chimerical pro¬ 
jector has to offer for his wildest scheme. 
Such an answer only gives us this new and 
important information, that impracticable 
projects will be realised when insurmount¬ 
able obstacles are overcome. Who are you 
that presume to frame laws for men without 
taking human passions into account, — to 
regulate the actions of mankind without 
regarding the source and principle of those 
actions ? A chemist who in his experiments 
should forget the power of steam or of elec¬ 
tricity, would have no right to be surprised 
that his apparatus should be shivered to 
pieces, and his laboratory covered with the 
fragments. 

It must be owned, indeed, that no one 
could have ventured to predict the extent 
and extravagance of that monstrous and 
almost incredible infatuation which has dis¬ 
tracted the strength and palsied the arms of 
the Allied Powers : but it was easy to fore¬ 
see, and it was in fact predicted, that a 
sufficient degree of that infatuation must 
prevail to defeat the attainment of their 
professed object. We cannot help express¬ 
ing our surprise, that the immense difference 
in this respect between the present confeder¬ 
acy and the Grand Alliance of King Wil¬ 
liam III. did not present itself to the great 
understanding of Mr. Burke. This is a war 
to avert the danger of the French Revolu¬ 
tion, in which it is indispensably necessary 


would have fitted Mr. Burke better for the execu¬ 
tion of that art which is the sole instrument of 
political -wisdom, and without which the highest 
political wisdom is but barren speculation — we 
mean the art of guiding and managing mankind. 
How can he have forgotten that these vulgar poli¬ 
ticians were the only tools with which he had to 
work in reducing his schemes to practice? These 
“creatures of the desk and creatures of favour” 
unfortunately govern Europe. The ends of gene¬ 
rosity were to be compassed alone through the 
agency of the selfish; and the objects of prospec¬ 
tive wisdom were to be attained by the exertions 
of the short-sighted. Monthly Review (N. S.), 
vol. xix. p. 317. — Ed. 


S S 2 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


628 


to avoid all appearance of a design to ag¬ 
grandise the Allies at the expense of France. 
The other was one designed to limit the 
exorbitant power of Louis, which was chiefly 
to be effected by diminishing his over-grown 
dominions. The members of that confeder¬ 
acy gratified their own ambition by the same 
means which provided for the general safety. 
In that contest, every conquest promoted 
the general object: — in this, every con¬ 
quest retards and tends to defeat it. No 
romantic moderation — no chimerical dis¬ 
interestedness— no sacrifice of private ag¬ 
grandisement to the cause of Europe, was 
required in that confederacy. Yet, with 
that great advantage, it is almost the only 
one recorded in history, which was success¬ 
ful. Still it required, to build it up and 
hold it together, all the exalted genius, all 
the comprehensive wisdom, all the disinter¬ 
ested moderation, and all the unshaken per¬ 
severance of William*—other talents than 
those of petty intrigue and pompous de¬ 
clamation. The bitterest enemies of our 
present ministers could scarcely imagine so 
cruel a satire upon them, as any comparison 
between their talents and policy, and those 
of the great monarch. The disapprobation 
of the conduct of the British Cabinet must 
have risen to an extraordinary degree of 


* “ If there be any man in the present age who 
deserves the honour of being compared with this 
great prince, it is George Washington. The merit 
of both is more solid than dazzling. The same 
plain sense, the same simplicity of character, the 
same love of their country, the same unaffected 
heroism distinguish both these illustrious men; 
and both were so highly favoured by Providence 
as to be made its chosen instruments for redeeming 
nations from bondage. As William had to con¬ 
tend with greater captains, and to struggle with 
more complicated political difficulties, we are able 
more decisively to ascertain his martial prowess, 
and his civil prudence. It has been the fortune of 
Washington to give a more signal proof of his dis¬ 
interestedness, as he was placed in a situation in 
which he could without blame resign the supreme 
administration of that commonwealth which his 
valour had guarded in infancy against foreign 
force, and which his wisdom has since guided 
through still more formidable domestic perils.” 
Monthly Review, vol. xi. p. 308 .—Ed. 


warmth in the mind of Mr. Burke, before he 
could have prevailed on himself to bring 
into view the policy of other and better 
times, and to awaken recollections of past 
wisdom and glory, which must tend so much 
to embitter our indignation at the present 
mismanagement of public affairs. In a 
word, the success of the war required it to 
be felt by Frenchmen to be a war directed 
against the Revolution, and not against 
France; while the ambition of the Allies 
necessarily made it a war against France, 
and not against the Revolution. Mr. Burke, 
M. de Calonne, M. Mallet du Pan, and all 
the other distinguished writers who have 
appeared on behalf of the French Royalists 
— a name which no man should pronounce 
without pity, and no Englishman ought to 
utter without shame — have acknowledged, 
lamented, and condemned the wretched 
policy of the confederates. We have still 
to impeach their sagacity, for not having 
originally foreseen what a brittle instrument 
such a confederacy must prove; we have 
still to reproach them, for not having from 
the first perceived, that to embark the safety 
of Europe on the success of such an alli¬ 
ance, was a most ambiguous policy, — only 
to be reluctantly embraced, after every 
other expedient was exhausted, in a case of 
the most imminent danger, and it* circum¬ 
stances of the most imperious necessity. 

These reflections naturally lead us to the 
consideration of the safety of the war, or of 
the collateral evil with which it was preg¬ 
nant in either alternative, of its failure or 
success; and we do not hesitate to affirm, 
that, in our humble opinion, its success was 
dangerous to the independence of nations, 
and its failure hostile to the stability of go¬ 
vernments. The choice between two such 
dreadful evils is embarrassing and cruel: 
yet, with the warmest zeal for the tran¬ 
quillity of every people,—with the strongest 
wishes that can arise from personal habits 
and character for quiet and repose,—with 
all our heartfelt and deeply-rooted detesta¬ 
tion for the crimes, calamities, and horrors 
of civil confusion, we cannot prevail on our¬ 
selves to imagine that a greater evil could 








REASONS AGAINST THE FRENCH WAR OF 1793. 629 


befall the human race than the partition of 
Europe among the spoilers of Poland. All 
the wild freaks of popular licentiousness,— 
all the fantastic transformations of govern¬ 
ment,—all the frantic cruelty of anarchical 
tyranny, almost vanish before the terrible 
idea of gathering the whole civilised world 
under the iron yoke of military despotism. 
It is — at least, it was — an instinct of the 
English character, to feel more alarm and 
horror at despotism than at any other of 
those evils which afflict human society; and 
we own our minds to be still under the in¬ 
fluence of this old and perhaps exploded 
national prejudice. It is a prejudice, how¬ 
ever, which appears to us founded on the 
most sublime and profound philosophy; and 
it has been implanted in the minds of Eng¬ 
lishmen by their long experience of the 
mildest and freest government with which 
the bounty of Divine Providence has been 
pleased for so many centuries to favour so 
considerable a portion of the human race. 
It has been nourished by the blood of our 
forefathers; it is embodied in our most 
venerable institutions; it is the spirit of our 
sacred laws; it is the animating principle of 
the English character; it is the very life 
and soul of the British constitution; it is 
the distinguishing nobility of the meanest 
Englishman; it is that proud privilege which 
exalts him, in his own respect, above the 
most illustrious slave that drags his gilded 
chain in the court of a tyrant. It has given 
vigour and lustre to our warlike enterprises, 
justice and humanity to our laws, and cha¬ 
racter and energy to our national genius 
and literature. Of such a prejudice we are 
not ashamed: and we have no desire to 
outlive its extinction in the minds of our 
countrymen: — 

“-tunc omne Latinum 

Fabula nomen erit.” * 

To return from what may be thought a 
digression, but which is inspired by feelings 
that we hope at least a few of our readers 
may still be old-fashioned enough to pardon 


* Pharsalia, lib. vii. 


us for indulging,—we proceed to make some 
remarks on the dangers with which the 
failure of this war threatened Europe. It 
is a memorable example of the intoxication 
of men, and of their governors, that at the 
commencement of this war, the bare idea of 
the possibility of its failure would have been 
rejected with indignation and scorn: yet it 
became statesmen to consider this event as 
at least possible; and, in that alternative, 
what were the consequences which the 
European governments had to apprehend? 
With their counsels baffled, their armies 
defeated, their treasuries exhausted, their 
subjects groaning under the weight of taxes, 
their military strength broken, and their 
reputation for military superiority destroyed, 
—they have to contend, in their own states, 
against the progress of opinions, which their 
own unfortunate policy has surrounded with 
the dazzling lustre of hero-ism, and with all 
the attractions and fascinations of victory. 
Disgraced in a conflict with democracy 
abroad, with what vigour and effect can 
they repress it at home ? If they had for¬ 
borne from entering on the war, the repu¬ 
tation of their power would at least have 
been whole and entire: the awful question, 
whether the French Revolution, or the 
established governments of Europe, are the 
Strongest, would at least have remained un¬ 
decided; and the people of all countries 
would not have witnessed the dangerous 
examples of their sovereigns humbled be¬ 
fore the leaders of the new sect. Mr. Burke 
tells us that the war has at least procured a 
respite for Europe; but he has forgotten to 
inform us that there are respites which 
aggravate the severity of the punishment, 
and that there are violent struggles which 
provoke a fate that might otherwise be 
avoided. 

We purposely forbear to enlarge on this 
subject, because the display of those evils 
which, at the commencement of the war, 
were likely to arise from its failure, is now 
become, unfortunately, the melancholy pic¬ 
ture of the actual situation of Europe. This 
is a theme more adapted for meditation 
than discourse. It is as sincere wellwishers 











630 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

to the stability and tranquil improvement 
of established governments,—as zealous and 
ardent friends to that admirable constitution 
of government, and happy order of society, 
which prevail in our native land, that we 
originally deprecated, and still condemn, a 
war which has brought these invaluable 
blessings into the most imminent peril. All 
the benevolence and patriotism of the human 
heart cannot, in our opinion, breathe a 
prayer more auspicious for Englishmen to 
the Supreme Ruler of the world, than that 
they may enjoy to the latest generations the 
blessings of that constitution which has been 
bequeathed to them by their forefathers. 
We desire its improvement, indeed — we 
ardently desire its improvement—as a means 
of its preservation; but, above all things, 
we desire its preservation. 

We cannot close a subject, on which we 
are serious even to melancholy, without 
offering the slender but unbiassed tribute 
of our admiration and thanks to that illus¬ 
trious statesman,—the friend of ‘what we 
must call the better days of Mr. Burke, — 

whose great talents have been devoted to 
the cause of liberty and of mankind, — who, 
of all men, most ardently loves, because he 
most thoroughly understands, the British 
constitution,—who has made a noble and 
memorable, though unavailing, struggle to 
preserve us from the evils and dangers of 
the present war, — who is requited for the 
calumnies of his enemies, the desertion of his 
friends, and the ingratitude of his country, 
by the approbation of his own conscience, 
and by a well-grounded expectation of the 
gratitude and reverence of posterity. We 
never can reflect on the event of this great 
man’s counsel without calling to mind that 
beautiful passage of Cicero, in which he 
deplores the death of his illustrious rival 
Hortensius: “ Si fuit tempus ullum cum 
extorquere arma posset e manibus iratorum 
civium boni civis auctoritas et oratio, turn 
profecto fuit, cum patrocinium pacis exclu- 
sum est aut errore hominum aut timore.” * 

* Dc Claris Oratoribus. 

ON 

THE STATE OE FRANCE IN 1815.* 

To appreciate the effects of the French Re¬ 
volution on the people of France, is an 
undertaking for which no man now alive has 
sufficient materials, or sufficient impartiality, 
even if he had sufficient ability. It is a task 
from which Tacitus and Machiavel would 
have shrunk; and to which the little pam¬ 
phleteers, who speak on it with dogmatism, 

prove themselves so unequal by their pre¬ 
sumption, that men of sense do not wait for 
the additional proof which is always amply 
furnished by their performances. The French 
Revolution was a destruction of great abuses, 
executed with much violence, injustice, and 
inhumanity. The destruction of abuse is, in 
itself, and for so much, a good: injustice and 
inhumanity would cease to be vices, if they 
were not productive of great mischief to 
society. This is a most perplexing account 
to balance. 

As applied, for instance, to the cultivators 

* From the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxiv. p.518. 
These remarks were written during the Hundred 
Days, the author having spent part of the pre¬ 
ceding winter in Paris. — Ed. 











ON THE STATE OF FRANCE IN 1815. 


631 


71 


and cultivation of France, there seems no 
reason to doubt the unanimous testimony of 
all travellers and observers, that agriculture 
has advanced, and that the condition of the 
agricultural population has been sensibly 
improved. M. de la Place calculates agri¬ 
cultural produce to have increased one-fifth 
during the last twenty-five years. M. Cuvier, 
an unprejudiced and dispassionate man, 
rather friendly than adverse to much of 
what the Revolution destroyed, and who, in 
his frequent journeys through France, sur¬ 
veyed the country with the eyes of a na¬ 
turalist and a politician, bears the most 
decisive testimony to the same general 
result. M. de Candolle, a very able and 
enlightened Genevese, who is Professor of 
Botany at Montpellier, is preparing for the 
press the fruit of several years devoted to 
the survey of French cultivation, in which 
we are promised the detailed proofs of its 
progress. The apprehensions lately enter¬ 
tained by the landed interest of England, 
and countenanced by no less an authority 
than that of Mr. Malthus, that France, as a 
permanent exporter of corn, would supply 
our market, and drive our inferior lands out 
of cultivation, — though we consider them as 
extremely unreasonable, — must be allowed 
to be of some weight in this question. No 
such dread of the rivalship of French corn- 
growers was ever felt or affected in this j 
country in former times. Lastly, the evi- J 
dence of Mr. Birkbeck, an independent 
thinker, a shrewd observer, and an expe¬ 
rienced farmer, though his journey was J 
rapid, and though he perhaps wished to find 
benefits resulting from the Revolution, must 
be allowed to be of high value. 

But whatever may have been the benefits 
conferred by the Revolution on the culti¬ 
vators, supposing them to have been more , 
questionable than they appear to have been, ' 
it is at all events obvious, that the division 
of the confiscated lands among the peasantry J 
must have given that body an interest and a 
pride in the maintenance of the order or j 
disorder which that revolution had pro- j 
duced. All confiscation is unjust. The ( 
French confiscation, being the most exten- j 


sive, is the most abominable example of that 
species of legal robbery. But we speak only 
of its political effects on the temper of the 
peasantry. These effects are by no means 
confined to those who had become proprie¬ 
tors. The promotion of many inspired all 
with pride: the whole class was raised in 
self-importance by the proprietary dignity 
acquired by numerous individuals. Nor 
must it be supposed that the apprehensions 
of such a rabble of ignorant owners, who had 
acquired their ownerships by means of which 
their own conscience would distrust the fair¬ 
ness, were to be proportioned to the reason¬ 
able probabilities of danger. The alarms 
of a multitude for objects very valuable to 
them, are always extravagantly beyond the 
degree of the risk, especially when they are 
strengthened by any sense, however faint 
and indistinct, of injustice, which, by the 
immutable laws of human nature, stamps 
every possession which suggests it with a 
mark of insecurity. It is a panic fear; — 
one of those fears which are so rapidly 
spread and so violently exaggerated by 
sympathy, that the lively fancy of the an¬ 
cients represented them as inflicted by a 
superior power. 

Exemption from manorial rights and 
feudal services was not merely, nor perhaps 
principally, considered by the French farmers 
as a relief from oppression. They were con¬ 
nected with the exulting recollections of 
deliverance from a yoke, — of a triumph 
over superiors, — aided even by the remem¬ 
brance of the licentiousness with which they 
had exercised their saturnalian privileges in 
the first moments of their short and ambi¬ 
guous liberty. They recollected these dis¬ 
tinctions as an emancipation of their caste. 
The interest, the pride, the resentment, and 
the fear, had a great tendency to make the 
maintenance of these changes a point of 
honour among the whole peasantry of France. 
On this subject, perhaps, they were likely 
to acquire that jealousy and susceptibility 
which the dispersed population of the coun¬ 
try rarely exhibit, unless when their religion, 
or their national pride, or their ancient 
usages, are violently attacked. The only 

















632 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


security for these objects would appear to 
them, to be a government arising, like their 
own property and privileges, out of the 
Revolution. 

We are far from commending these senti¬ 
ments, and still farther from confounding 
them with the spirit of liberty. If the forms 
of a free constitution could have been pre¬ 
served under a counter-revolutionary go¬ 
vernment, perhaps these hostile dispositions 
of the peasants and new proprietors against 
such a government, might have been gra¬ 
dually mitigated and subdued into being one 
of the auxiliaries of freedom. But, in the 
present state of France, there are unhappily 
no elements of such combinations. There is 
no such class as landed gentry, — no great 
proprietors resident on their estates, — con¬ 
sequently, no leaders of this dispersed popu¬ 
lation, to give them permanent influence on 
the public counsels, to animate their general 
sluggishness, or to restrain their occasional 
violence. In such a state they must, in 
general, be inert; — in particular matters, 
which touch their own prejudices and sup¬ 
posed interest, unreasonable and irresistible. 
The extreme subdivision of landed property 
might, under some circumstances, be favour¬ 
able to a democratical government. Under 
a limited monarchy it is destructive of 
liberty, because it annihilates the strongest 
bulwarks against the power of the crown. 
Having no body of great proprietors, it 
delivers the monarch from all regular and 
constant restraint, and from every appre¬ 
hension but that of an inconstant and often 
servile populace. And, melancholy as the 
conclusion is, it 6eems too probable that the 
present state of property and prejudice 
among the larger part of the people of 
France, rather disposes them towards a 
despotism deriving its sole title from the 
Revolution, and interested in maintaining 
the system of society which it has estab¬ 
lished, and armed with that tyrannical power 
which may be necessary for its maintenance. 

Observations of a somewhat similar nature 
are applicable to other classes of the French 
population. Many of the tradesmen and 
merchants, as well as of the numerous bodies 


of commissaries and contractors grown rich 
by war, had become landed proprietors. 
These classes in general had participated in 
the early movements of the Revolution. 
They had indeed generally shrunk from its 
horrors; but they had associated their pride, 
their quiet, almost their moral character, 
with its success, by extensive purchases of | 
confiscated land. These feelings were not 
to be satisfied by any assurances, however 
solemn and repeated, or however sincere, 
that the sales of national property were 
to be inviolable. The necessity of such 
assurance continually reminded them of the 
odiousness of their acquisitions, and of the 
light in which the acquirers were considered 
by the government. Their property was to 
be spared as an evil, incorrigible from its 
magnitude. What they must have desired, 
was a government from whom no such 
assurances could have been necessary. 

The middle classes in cities were precisely 
those who had been formerly humbled, mor¬ 
tified, and exasperated by the privileges of 
the nobility, — for whom the Revolution 
was a triumph over those who, in the daily 
intercourse of life, treated them with con¬ 
stant disdain, — and whom that Revolution 
raised to the vacant place of these deposed 
chiefs. The vanity of that numerous, in¬ 
telligent, and active part of the community 
—merchants, bankers, manufacturers, trades¬ 
men, lawyers, attorneys, physicians, sur¬ 
geons, artists, actors, men of letters — had 
been humbled by the monarchy, and had 
triumphed in the Revolution: they rushed 
into the stations which the gentry — emi¬ 
grant, beggared, or proscribed — could no 
longer fill: the whole government fell into 
their hands. 

Buonaparte’s nobility was an institution 
framed to secure the triumph of all these 
vanities, and to provide against the possi¬ 
bility of a second humiliation. It was a 
body composed of a Revolutionary aristo¬ 
cracy, with some of the ancient nobility, — 
either rewarded for their services to the 
Revolution, by its highest dignities, or com¬ 
pelled to lend lustre to it, by accepting in it 
secondary ranks, with titles inferior to their 













ON THE STATE OF FRANCE IN 1815. 


own, — and with many lawyers, men of 
letters, merchants, physicians, &c., who often 
receive inferior marks of honour in England, 
but whom the ancient system of the French 
monarchy had rigorously excluded from 
such distinctions. The military principle 
predominated, not only from the nature of 
the government, but because military dis¬ 
tinction was the purest that was earned 
during the Revolution. The Legion of 
Honour spread the same principle through 
the whole army, which probably contained 
six-and-thirty thousand out of the forty 
thousand who composed the order. The 
whole of these institutions was an array of 
new against old vanities, — of that of the 
former roturiers against that of the former 
nobility. The new knights and nobles were 
daily reminded by their badges, or titles, of 
their interest to resist the re-establishment 
of a system which would have perpetuated 
their humiliation. The real operation of 
these causes was visible during the short 
reign of Louis XVIII. Military men, in¬ 
deed, had the courage to display their 
decorations, and to avow their titles; but 
most civilians were ashamed, or afraid, to 
use their new names of dignity; they were 
conveyed, if at all, in a subdued voice, almost 
in a whisper; they were considered as ex¬ 
tremely unfashionable and vulgar. Talley¬ 
rand renounced his title of Prince of Bene- 
ventum; and Massena’s resumption of his 
dignity of Prince was regarded as an act of 
audacity, if not of intentional defiance. 

From these middle classes were chosen 
another body, who were necessarily attached 
to the Revolutionary government, — the 
immense body of civil officers who were 
placed in all the countries directly or indi¬ 
rectly subject to France, — in Italy, in Ger¬ 
many, in Poland, in Holland, in the Nether¬ 
lands,— for the purposes of administration 
of finance, and of late to enforce the vain 
prohibition of commerce with England. 
These were all thrown back on France by 
the peace. They had no hope of employ¬ 
ment : their gratitude, their resentment, 
and their expectations bound them to the 
fortune of Napoleon. 


633 

The number of persons in France inter¬ 
ested, directly or indirectly, in the sale of 
confiscated property—by original purchase, 
by some part in the successive transfers, by 
mortgage, or by expectancy — has been 
computed to be ten millions. This must be 
a great exaggeration: but one half of that 
number would be more than sufficient to 
give colour to the general sentiment. Though 
the lands of the Church and the Crown were 
never regarded in the same invidious light 
with those of private owners, yet the whole 
mass of confiscation was held together by its 
Revolutionary origin: the possessors of the 
most odious part were considered as the out¬ 
posts and advanced guards of the rest. The 
purchasers of small lots were peasants ; those 
of considerable estates were the better classes 
of the inhabitants of cities. Yet, in spite of 
the powerful causes which attached these 
last to the Revolution, it is certain, that 
among the class called “ La bonne bour¬ 
geoisie ” are to be found the greatest num¬ 
ber of those who approved the restoration of 
the Bourbons as the means of security and 
quiet. They were weary of revolution, and 
they dreaded confusion : but they are inert 
and timid, and almost as little qualified to 
defend a throne as they are disposed to 
overthrow it. Unfortunately, their voice, 
of great weight in the administration of 
regular governments, is scarcely heard in 
convulsions. They are destined to stoop 
to the bold; — too often, though with vain 
sorrow and indignation, to crouch under the 
yoke of the guilty and the desperate. 

The populace of great towns (a most im¬ 
portant constituent part of a free community, 
when the union of liberal institutions, with 
a vigorous authority, provides both a vent 
for their sentiments, and a curb on their 
violence) have, throughout the French Re¬ 
volution, showed at once all the varieties 
and excesses of plebeian passions, and all the 
peculiarities of the French national cha¬ 
racter in their most exaggerated state. The 
love of show, or of change, — the rage for 
liberty or slavery, for war or for peace, soon 
wearing itself out into disgust and weariness, 
— the idolatrous worship of demagogues, 















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


G34 


soon abandoned, and at last cruelly perse¬ 
cuted, — the envy of wealth, or the servile 
homage paid to it, — all these, in every age, 
in every place, from Athens to Paris, have 
characterised a populace not educated by 
habits of reverence for the laws, or bound 
by ties of character and palpable interest to 
the other classes of a free commonwealth. 
When the Parisian mob were restrained by 
a strong government, and compelled to re¬ 
nounce their democratic orgies, they became 
proud of conquest, — proud of the splendour 
of their despotism, — proud of the magnifi¬ 
cence of its exhibitions and its monuments. 
Men may be so brutalised as to be proud of 
their chains. That sort of interest in public 
concerns, which the poor, in their intervals 
of idleness, and especially when they are 
met together, feel perhaps more strongly 
than other classes more constantly occupied 
with prudential cares, overflowed into new 
channels. They applauded a general or a 
tyrant, as they had applauded Robespierre, 
and worshipped Marat. They applauded 
the triumphal entry of a foreign army within 
their walls as a grand show; and they 
huzzaed the victorious sovereigns, as they 
would have celebrated the triumph of a 
French general. The return of the Bour¬ 
bons was a novelty, and a sight, which, as 
such, might amuse them for a day; but the 
establishment of a pacific and frugal govern¬ 
ment, with an infirm monarch and a gloomy 
court, without sights or donatives, and the 
cessation of the gigantic works constructed 
to adorn Paris, were sure enough to alienate 
the Parisian populace. There was neither 
vigour to overawe them, — nor brilliancy 
to intoxicate them, — nor foreign enterprise 
to divert their attention. 

Among the separate parties into which 
every people is divided, the Protestants are 
to be regarded as a body of no small im¬ 
portance in France. Their numbers were 
rated at between two and three millions; 
but their importance was not to be estimated 
by their numerical strength. Their identity 
of interest,—their habits of concert,—their 
common wrongs and resentments, — gave 
them far more strength than a much larger 


number of a secure, lazy, and dispirited 
majority. It was, generally speaking, impos¬ 
sible that French Protestants should wish 
well to the family of Louis XIV., peculiarly 
supported as it was by the Catholic party. 
The lenity with which they had long been 
treated, was ascribed more to the liberality 
of the age than that of the Government. 
Till the year 1788, even their marriages and 
their inheritances had depended more upon 
the connivance of the tribunals than upon 
the sanction of the law. The petty vexations 
and ineffectual persecution of systematic ex¬ 
clusion from public offices, and the conse¬ 
quent degradation of their body in public 
opinion, long survived the detestable but 
effectual persecution which had been carried 
on by missionary dragoons, and which had 
benevolently left them the choice to be 
hypocrites, or exiles, or galley-slaves. The 
Revolution first gave them a secure and 
effective equality with the Catholics, and a 
real admission into civil office. It is to be 
feared that they may have sometimes exulted 
over the sufferings of the Catholic Church, 
and thereby contracted some part of the 
depravity of their ancient persecutors. But 
it cannot be doubted that they were gene¬ 
rally attached to the Revolution, and to 
governments founded on it. 

The same observations may be applied, 
without repetition, to other sects of Dis¬ 
sidents. Of all the lessons of history, there 
is none more evident in itself, and more 
uniformly neglected by governments, than 
that persecutions, disabilities, exclusions, — 
all systematic wrong to great bodies of 
citizens, — are sooner or later punished; 
though the punishment often falls on indi¬ 
viduals, who are not only innocent, but who 
may have had the merit of labouring to 
repair the wrong. 

The voluntary associations which have 
led or influenced the people during the Re¬ 
volution, are a very material object in a 
review like the present. The very nu¬ 
merous body who, as Jacobins or Terrorists, 
had participated in the atrocities of 1793 
and 1794, had, in the exercise of tyranny, 
sufficiently unlearned the' crude notions of 













ON THE STATE OF FRANCE IN 1815. 635 


liberty with which they had set out. But 
they all required a government established 
on Revolutionary foundations. They all 
took refuge under Buonaparte’s authority. 
The more base accepted clandestine pen¬ 
sions or insignificant places : Barrere wrote 
slavish paragraphs at Paris; Tallien was 
provided for by an obscure or a nominal 
consulship in Spain. Fouche, who con¬ 
ducted this part of the system, thought the 
removal of an active Jacobin to a province 
cheaply purchased by five hundred a year. 
Fouche himself, one of the most atrocious 
of the Terrorists, had been gradually formed 
into a good administrator under a civilised 
despotism, — regardless indeed of forms, 
but paying considerable respect to the sub¬ 
stance, and especially to the appearance of 
justice,—never shrinking from what was 
necessary to crush a formidable enemy, but 
carefully avoiding wanton cruelty and un¬ 
necessary evil. His administration, during 
the earlier and better part of Napoleon’s 
government, had so much repaired the 
faults of his former life, that the appoint¬ 
ment of Savary to the police was one of the 
most alarming acts of the internal policy 
during the violent period which followed 
the invasion of Spain. 

At the head of this sort of persons, not 
indeed in guilt, but in the conspicuous 
nature of the act in which they had par¬ 
ticipated, were the Regicides. The execu¬ 
tion of Louis XYI. being both unjust and 
illegal, was unquestionably an atrocious 
murder: but it would argue great bigotry 
and ignorance of human nature, not to be 
aware, that many who took a share in it 
must have viewed it in a directly opposite 
light. Mr. Hume himself, with all his pas¬ 
sion for monarchy, admits that Cromwell 
probably considered his share in the death 
of Charles I. as one of his most distinguished 
merits. Some of those who voted for the 
death of Louis XVI. have proved that they 
acted only from erroneous judgment, by 
the decisive evidence of a virtuous life. 
One of them perished in Guiana, the victim 
of an attempt to restore the Royal Family. 
But though among the hundreds who voted 


for the death of that unfortunate Prince, 
there might be seen every shade of morality, 
from the blackest depravity to the very 
confines of purity — at least in sentiment, it 
was impossible that any of them could be 
contemplated without horror by the brothers 
and daughter of the murdered Monarch. 
Nor would it be less vain to expect that 
the objects of this hatred should fail to sup¬ 
port those Revolutionary authorities, which 
secured them from punishment, — which 
covered them from contempt by station and 
opulence, — and which compelled the mon- 
archs of Europe to receive them into their 
palaces as ambassadors. They might be — 
the far greater part of them certainly had 
become — indifferent to liberty, — perhaps 
partial to that exercise of unlimited power 
to which they had been accustomed under 
what they called a “ free ” government: but 
they could not be indifferent in their dislike 
of a government, under which their very 
best condition was that of pardoned cri¬ 
minals, whose criminality was the more 
odious on account of the sad necessity 
which made it pardoned. All the Terrorists, 
and almost all the Regicides, had accord¬ 
ingly accepted emoluments and honours 
from Napoleon, and were eager to support 
his authority as a Revolutionary despotism, 
strong enough to protect them from general 
unpopularity, and to ensure them against 
the vengeance or the humiliating mercy of 
a Bourbon government. 

Another party of Revolutionists had com¬ 
mitted great errors in the beginning, which 
co-operated with the alternate obstinacy 
and feebleness of the Counter-revolutionists, 
to produce all the evils which we feel and 
fear, and which can only be excused by their 
own inexperience in legislation, and by the 
prevalence of erroneous opinions, at that 
period, throughout the most enlightened 
part of Europe. These were the best leaders 
of the Constituent Assembly, who never 
relinquished the cause of liberty, nor dis¬ 
graced it by submissions to tyranny, or par¬ 
ticipation in guilt. 

The best representative of this small class, 
is M. de La Fayette, a man of the purest 














MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


C36 


honour in private life, who has devoted him¬ 
self to the defence of liberty from his earliest 
youth. He may have committed some mis¬ 
takes in opinion; but his heart has always 
been worthy of the friend of Washington 
and of Fox. In due time the world will 
see how victoriously he refutes the charges 
against him of misconduct towards the 
Royal Family, when the palace of Versailles 
was attacked by the mob, and when the 
King escaped to Varennes. Having hazard¬ 
ed his life to preserve Louis XVI., he was 
imprisoned in various dungeons, by Powers, 
who at the same time released Regicides. 
His wife fell a victim to her conjugal he¬ 
roism. His liberty was obtained by Buona¬ 
parte, who paid court to him during the 
short period of apparent liberality and 
moderation which opened his political ca¬ 
reer. M. de La Fayette repaid him, by 
faithful counsel; and when he saw his rapid 
strides towards arbitrary power, he termi¬ 
nated all correspondence with him, by a 
letter, which breathes the calm dignity of 
constant and intrepid virtue. In the choice 
of evils, he considered the prejudices of the 
Court and the Nobility as more capable 
of being reconciled with liberty, than the 
power of an army. After a long absence 
from courts, he appeared at the levee of 
Monsieur, on his entry into Paris; and was 
received with a slight, — not justified by his 
character, nor by his rank — more impor¬ 
tant than character in the estimate of pa¬ 
laces. He returned to his retirement, far 
from courts or conspiracies, with a repu¬ 
tation for purity and firmness, which, if it 
had been less rare among French leaders, 
would have secured the liberty of that 
great nation, and placed her fame on better 
foundations than those of mere military 
genius and success. 

This party, whose principles are decisively 
favourable to a limited monarchy, and in¬ 
deed to the general outlines of the insti¬ 
tutions of Great Britain, had some strength 
among the reasoners of the capital, but re¬ 
presented no interest and no opinion in the 
country at large. .Whatever popularity 
they latterly appeared to possess, arose but 


too probably from the momentary concur¬ 
rence, in opposition to the Court, of those 
who were really their most irreconcileable 
enemies, — the discontented Revolutionists 
and concealed Napoleonists. During the 
late short pause of restriction on the press, 
they availed themselves of the half-liberty 
of publication which then existed, to employ 
the only arms in which they were formi¬ 
dable,— those of argument and eloquence. 
The pamphlets of M. Benjamin Constant 
were by far the most distinguished of those 
which they produced; and he may be con¬ 
sidered as the literary representative of a 
party, which their enemies, as well as their 
friends, called the “ Liberal,” who were 
hostile to Buonaparte and to military power, 
friendly to the general principles of the 
constitution established by Louis XVIII., 
though disapproving some of its parts, and 
seriously distrusting the spirit in which it 
was executed, and the maxims prevalent 
at Court. M. Constant, who had been ex¬ 
pelled from the Tribunal , and in effect 
exiled from France, by Buonaparte, began 
an attack on him before the Allies had 
crossed the Rhine, and continued it till 
after his march from Lyons. He is un¬ 
questionably the first political writer of the 
Continent, and apparently the ablest man in 
France. His first Essay, that on Conquest, 
is a most ingenious development of the 
principle, that a system of war and conquest, 
suitable to the condition of barbarians, is so 
much at variance with the habits and pur¬ 
suits of civilised, commercial, and luxurious 
nations, that it cannot be long-lived in such 
an age as ours. If the position be limited 
to those rapid and extensive conquests 
which tend towards universal monarchy, 
and if the tendency in human affairs to resist 
them be stated only as of great force, and 
almost sure within no long time of checking 
their progress, the doctrine of M. Constant 
will be generally acknowledged to be true. 
With the comprehensive views, and the 
brilliant poignancy of Montesquieu, he 
unites some of the defects of that great 
writer. Like him, his mind is too system¬ 
atical for the irregular variety of human 








ON THE STATE OF FRANCE IN 1815. 


affairs; and lie sacrifices too many of those 
exceptions and limitations, which political 
reasonings require, to the pointed sentences 
which compose his nervous and brilliant 
style. His answer to the Abbe Montes¬ 
quieu’s foolish plan of restricting the press, 
is a model of polemical politics, uniting 
English solidity and strength with French 
urbanity. His tract on Ministerial Re¬ 
sponsibility, with some errors (though sur¬ 
prisingly few) on English details, is an 
admirable discussion of one of the most 
important institutions of a free government, 
and, though founded on English practice, 
would convey instruction to most of those 
who have best studied the English con¬ 
stitution. We have said thus much of these 
masterly productions, because we consider 
them as the only specimens of the Parisian 
press, during its semi-emancipation, which 
deserve the attention of political philo¬ 
sophers, and of the friends of true liberty, 
in all countries. In times of more calm, we 
should have thought a fuller account of 
their contents, and a free discussion of their 
faults, due to the eminent abilities of the 
author. At present we mention them, chiefly 
because they exhibit, pretty fairly, the opi¬ 
nions of the liberal party in that country. 

But, not to dwell longer on this little 
fraternity (who are too enlightened and con¬ 
scientious to be of importance in the shocks 
of faction, and of whom we have spoken 
more from esteem for their character, than 
from an opinion of their political influence), 
it will be already apparent to our readers, 
that many of the most numerous and guid¬ 
ing classes in the newly arranged commu¬ 
nity of France, were bound, by strong ties 
of interest and pride, to a Revolutionary 
government, however little they might be 
qualified or sincerely disposed for a free 
constitution,—which they struggled to con¬ 
found with the former; that these dispo¬ 
sitions among the civil classes formed one 
great source of danger to the administration 
of the Bourbons; and that they now con¬ 
stitute a material part of the strength of 
Napoleon. To them he appeals in his Pro¬ 
clamations, when he speaks of “a new 


637 

dynasty founded on the same bases with the 
new interests and new institutions which 
owe their rise to the Revolution.” To them 
he appeals, though more covertly, in his 
professions of zeal for the dignity of the 
people, and of hostility to feudal nobility, 
and monarchy by Divine right. 

It is natural to inquire how the conscrip¬ 
tion and the prodigious expenditure of 
human life in the campaigns of Spain and 
Russia, were not of themselves sufficient to 
make the government of Napoleon detested 
by the great majority of the French people. 
But it is a very melancholy truth, that the 
body of a people may be gradually so habit¬ 
uated to war, that their habits and expect¬ 
ations are at last so adapted to its demand 
for men, and its waste of life, that they be¬ 
come almost insensible to its evils, and re¬ 
quire long discipline to re-inspire them with 
a relish for the blessings of peace, and a 
capacity for the virtues of industry. The 
complaint is least when the evil is greatest: 
— it is as difficult to teach such a people 
the value of peace, as it would be to reclaim 
a drunkard, or to subject a robber to patient 
labour. 

A conscription is, under pretence of 
equality, the most unequal of all laws; 
because it assumes that military service is 
equally easy to all classes and ranks of men. 
Accordingly, it always produces pecuniary 
commutation in the sedentary and educated 
classes. To them in many of the towns of 
France it was an oppressive and grievous tax. 
But to the majority of the people, always 
accustomed to military service, the life of a 
soldier became perhaps more agreeable than 
any other. Families even considered it as a 
means of provision for their children ; each 
parent labouring to persuade himself that his 
children would be among those who should 
have the fortune to survive. Long and con¬ 
stant wars created a regular demand for 
men, to which the principle of population 
adapted itself. An army which had con¬ 
quered and plundered Europe, and in which 
a private soldier might reasonably enough 
hope to be a marshal or a prince, had more 
allurements, and not more repulsive qualities, 














638 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


than many of those odious, disgusting, un¬ 
wholesome, or perilous occupations, which in 
the common course of society are always 
amply supplied. The habit of war unfor¬ 
tunately perpetuates itself: and this moral 
effect is a far greater evil than the mere de¬ 
struction of life. Whatever may be the 
justness of these speculations, certain it is, 
that the travellers who lately visited France, 
neither found the conscription so unpopular, 
nor the decay of male population so per¬ 
ceptible, as plausible and confident state¬ 
ments had led them to expect. 

It is probable that among the majority of 
the French (excluding the army), the re¬ 
stored Bourbons gained less popularity by 
abolishing the conscription, than they lost by 
the cession of all the conquests of France. 
This fact affords a most important warning 
of the tremendous dangers to which civilised 
nations expose their character by long war. 
To say that liberty cannot survive it, is say¬ 
ing little : — liberty is one of the luxuries 
which only a few nations seem destined to 
enjoy; — and they only for a short period. 
It is not only fatal to the refinements and 
ornaments of civilised life : — its long con¬ 
tinuance must inevitably destroy even that 
degree (moderate as it is) of order and se¬ 
curity which prevails even in the pure mon¬ 
archies of Europe, and distinguishes them 
above all other societies ancient or modern. 
It is vain to inveigh against the people of 
France for delighting in war, for exulting in 
conquest, and for being exasperated and 
mortified by renouncing those vast acqui¬ 
sitions. These deplorable consequences arise 
from an excess of the noblest and most 
necessary principles in the character of a 
nation, acted upon by habits of arms, and 
“ cursed with every granted prayer,” during 
years of victory and conquest. No nation 
could endure such a trial. Doubtless those 
nations who have the most liberty, the most 
intelligence, the most virtue,—who possess 
in the highest degree all the constituents of 
the most perfect civilisation, will resist it the 
longest. But, let us not deceive ourselves, 
— long war render's all these blessings im¬ 
possible : it dissolves all the civil and pacific 


virtues ; it leaves no calm for the cultivation 
of reason; and by substituting attachment 
to leaders, instead of reverence for laws, it 
destroys liberty, the parent of intelligence 
and of virtue. 

The French Revolution has strongly con¬ 
firmed the lesson taught by the history of all 
ages, that while political divisions excite the 
activity of genius, and teach honour in en¬ 
mity, as well as fidelity in attachment, the 
excess of civil confusion and convulsion pro¬ 
duces diametrically opposite effects, — sub¬ 
jects society to force, instead of mind, — 
renders its distinctions the prey of boldness 
and atrocity, instead of being the prize of 
talent,—and concentrates the thoughts and 
feelings of every individual upon himself,— 
his own sufferings and fears. Whatever be¬ 
ginnings of such an unhappy state may be 
observed in France,—whatever tendency 
it may have had to dispose the people to 
a light transfer of allegiance, and an un¬ 
distinguishing profession of attachment, — 
it is more useful to consider them as the 
results of these general causes, than as vices 
peculiar to that great nation. 

To this we must add, before we conclude 
our cursory survey, that frequent changes of 
government, however arising, promote a dis¬ 
position to acquiesce in change. No people 
can long preserve the enthusiasm, which first 
impels them to take an active part in change. 
Its frequency at last teaches them patiently 
to bear it. They become indifferent to go¬ 
vernments and sovereigns. They are spec¬ 
tators of revolutions, instead of actors in 
them. They are a prey to be fought for 
by the hardy and bold, and are generally 
disposed of by an army. In this state of 
things, revolutions become bloodless, not 
from the humanity, but from the indifference 
of a people. Perhaps it may be true, though 
it will appear paradoxical to many, that such 
revolutions as those of England and Ame¬ 
rica, conducted with such a regard for mo¬ 
deration and humanity, and even with such 
respect for established authorities and insti¬ 
tutions, independently of their necessity for 
the preservation of liberty, may even have a 
tendency to strengthen, instead of weaken- 







ON THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE. 639 

ing, the frame of the commonwealth. The 
example of reverence for justice, — of cau¬ 
tion in touching ancient institutions,—of 
not innovating, beyond the necessities of the 
case, even in a season of violence and anger, 

may impress on the minds of men those con¬ 
servative principles of society, more deeply 
and strongly, than the most uninterrupted 
observation of them in the ordinary course 
of quiet and regular government. 

ON THE 

RIGHT OF PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE.* 

What mode of representation is most likely 
to secure the liberty, and consequently the 
happiness, of a community circumstanced 
like the people of Great Britain ? On the 
elementary part of this great question, it 
will be sufficient to remind the reader of a 
few undisputed truths. The object of go¬ 
vernment, is security against wrong. Most 
civilised governments tolerably secure their 
subjects against wrong from each other. 
But to secure them, by laws, against wrong 
from the government itself, is a problem of 
a far more difficult sort, which few nations 
have attempted to solve, — and of which it 
is not so much as pretended that, since the 
beginning of history, more than one or two 
great states have approached the solution. 
It will be universally acknowledged, that 
this approximation has never been effected 
by any other means than that of a legislative 
assembly, chosen by some considerable por¬ 
tion of the people. 

The direct object of a popular representation 
is, that one, at least, of the bodies exercising 
the legislative power being dependent on the 
people by election, should have the strongest 
inducement to guard their interests, and to 
maintain their rights. For this purpose, it 
is not sufficient, that it should have the same 
general interests with the people; for every 
government has, in truth, the same interests 

with its subjects. It is necessary that the 
more direct and palpable interest, arising 
from election, should be superadded. In 
every legislative senate, the modes of ap¬ 
pointment ought to be such as to secure the 
nomination of members the best qualified, 
and the most disposed, to make laws con¬ 
ducive to the well-being of the whole com¬ 
munity. In a representative assembly this 
condition, though absolutely necessary, is 
not of itself sufficient. 

To understand the principles of its com¬ 
position thoroughly, we must divide the 
people into classes, and examine the variety 
of local and professional interests of which 
the whole is composed. Each of these 
classes must be represented by persons who 
will guard its peculiar interest, whether that 
interest arises from inhabiting the same dis¬ 
trict, or pursuing the same occupation,— 
such as traffic, or husbandry, or the useful 
or ornamental arts. The fidelity and zeal 
of such representatives, are to be secured by 
every provision which, to a sense of com¬ 
mon interest, can superadd a fellow-feeling 
with their constituents. Nor is this all: in 
a great state, even that part of the public 
interest which is common to all classes, is 
composed of a great variety of branches. 

A statesman should indeed have a compre¬ 
hensive view of the whole : but no one man 
can be skilled in all the particulars. The 
same education, and the same pursuits, which 
qualify men to understand and regulate 

* From the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxi. p. 174. 
— Ed. 











640 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


some branches, disqualify them for others. 
The representative assembly must therefore 
contain some members peculiarly qualified 
for discussions of the constitution and the 
laws, — others for those of foreign policy,— 
some for those of the respective interests of 
agriculture, commerce, and manufactures,— 
some for those of military affairs by sea and 
land, — and some also who are conversant 
with the colonies and distant possessions of 
a great empire. It would be a mistake to 
suppose that the place of such represent¬ 
atives could be supplied by witnesses ex¬ 
amined on each particular subject. Both 
are not more than sufficient; — skilful wit¬ 
nesses occasionally, for the most minute 
information, — skilful representatives con¬ 
tinually, to discover and conduct evidence, 
and to enforce and illustrate the matters 
belonging to their department with the 
weight of those who speak on a footing of 
equality. 

It is obvious, that as long as this compo¬ 
sition is insured, it is for the present purpose 
a matter of secondary importance whether 
it be effected by direct or indirect means. 
To be a faithful representative, it is neces¬ 
sary that such an assembly should be nume¬ 
rous,— that it should learn, from experience, 
the movements that agitate multitudes, — 
and that it should be susceptible, in no small 
degree, of the action of those causes which 
sway the thoughts and feelings of assemblies 
of the people. For the same reason, among 
others, it is expedient that its proceedings 
should be public, and the reasonings on 
which they are founded, submitted to the 
judgment of mankind. These democratical 
elements are indeed to be tempered and 
restrained by such contrivances as may 
be necessary to maintain the order and in¬ 
dependence of deliberation: but, without 
them, no assembly, however elected, can 
truly represent a people. 

Among the objects of representation, two 
may, in an especial manner, deserve observ¬ 
ation:—the qualifications for making good 
laws, and those for resisting oppression. 

Now, the capacity of an assembly to make 
good laws, evidently depends on the quantity 


of skill and information of every kind which 
it possesses. But it seems to be advan¬ 
tageous that it should contain a large pro¬ 
portion of one body of a more neutral and 
inactive character, — not indeed to propose 
much, but to mediate or arbitrate in the 
differences between the more busy classes, 
from whom important propositions are to be 
expected. The suggestions of every man 
relating to his province, have doubtless a 
peculiar value: but most men imbibe pre¬ 
judices with their knowledge; and, in the 
struggle of various classes for their conflict- 
ing interests, the best chance for an approach 
to right decision, lies in an appeal to the 
largest body of well-educated men, of lei¬ 
sure, large property, temperate character, 
and -who are impartial on more subjects than 
any other class of men. An ascendancy, 
therefore, of landed proprietors must be 
considered, on the whole, as a beneficial cir¬ 
cumstance in a representative body. 

For resistance to oppression, it is pecu¬ 
liarly necessary that the lower, and, in some 
places, the lowest classes, should possess the 
right of suffrage. Their rights would other¬ 
wise be less protected than those of any 
other class; for some individuals of every 
other class, would generally find admittance 
into the legislature; or, at least, there is 
no other class which is not connected with 
some of its members. But in the unedu¬ 
cated classes, none can either sit in a repre¬ 
sentative assembly, or be connected on an 
equal footing with its members. The right 
of suffrage, therefore, is the only means 
by which they can make their voice heard in 
its deliberations. They also often send to 
a representative assembly, members whose 
character is an important element in its 
composition,— men of popular talents, prin¬ 
ciples, and feelings, — quick in suspecting 
oppression, — bold in resisting it, — not 
thinking favourably of the powerful, — 
listening, almost with credulity to the com¬ 
plaints of the humble and the feeble, — and 
impelled by ambition, where they are not 
prompted by generosity, to be the cham¬ 
pions of the defenceless. 

In all political institutions, it is a for- 







ON THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE. 641 


tunate circumstance when legal power is 
bestowed on those who already possess a 
natural influence and ascendant over their 
fellow-citizens. Wherever, indeed, the cir¬ 
cumstances of society, and the appointments 
of law, are in this respect completely at 
variance, submission can hardly be main¬ 
tained without the odious and precarious 
means of force and fear. But in a repre¬ 
sentative assembly, which exercises directly 
no power, and of which the members are too 
numerous to derive much individual conse¬ 
quence from their stations, the security and 
importance of the body, more than in any 
other case, depend on the natural influence 
of those who compose it. In this respect, 
talent and skill, besides their direct utility, 
have a secondary value of no small import¬ 
ance. Together with the other circum¬ 
stances which command respect or attach¬ 
ment among men, — with popularity, with 
fame, with property, with liberal educa¬ 
tion and condition,—they form a body of 
strength, which no law could give or take 
away. As far as an assembly is deprived of 
any of these natural principles of authority, 
so far it is weakened both for the purpose 
of resisting the usurpations of government 
and of maintaining the order of society. 

An elective system tends also, in other 
material respects, to secure that free govern¬ 
ment, of which it is the most essential mem¬ 
ber. As it calls some of almost every class 
of men to share in legislative power, and 
many of all classes to exercise the highest 
franchises, it engages the pride, the honour, 
and the private interest as well as the gene¬ 
rosity, of every part of the community, in 
defence of the constitution. Every noble 
sentiment, every reasonable consideration, 
every petty vanity, and every contemptible 
folly, are made to contribute towards its 
security. The performance of some of its 
functions becomes part of the ordinary habits 
of bodies of men numerous enough to spread 
their feelings over great part of a nation. 

Popular representation thus, in various 
ways, tends to make governments good, and 
to make good governments secure : — these 
are its primary advantages. But free, that 


is just, governments, tend to make men 
more intelligent, more honest, more brave, 
more generous. Liberty is the parent of 
genius, — the nurse of reason, — the inspirer 
of that valour which makes nations secure 
and powerful,—the incentive to that activity 
and enterprise to which they owe wealth and 
splendour, — the school of those principles 
of humanity and justice which bestow an 
unspeakably greater happiness, than any of 
the outward advantages of which they are 
the chief sources, and the sole guardians. 

These effects of free government on the 
character of a people may, in one sense, be 
called indirect and secondary ; but they are 
not the less to be considered as among its 
greatest blessings : and it is scarcely neces¬ 
sary to observe, how much they tend to 
enlarge and secure the liberty from which 
they spring. But their effect will perhaps be 
better shown by a more particular view of the 
influence of popular elections on the charac¬ 
ter of the different classes of the community. 

To begin with the higher classes : — the 
English nobility, who are blended with the 
gentry by imperceptible shades, are the most 
opulent and powerful order of men in 
Europe. They are comparatively a small 
body, who unite great legal privileges with 
ample possessions, and names both of re¬ 
cent renown and historical glory. They 
have attained almost all the objects of human 
pursuit. They are surrounded by every 
circumstance which might seem likely to fill 
them with arrogance, — to teach them to 
scorn their inferiors, and which might natu¬ 
rally be supposed to extinguish enterprise, 
and to lull every power of the understand¬ 
ing to sleep. What has preserved their 
character ? What makes them capable of 
serving or adorning their country as ora¬ 
tors and poets, men of letters and men of 
business, in as great a proportion as in any 
equal number of the best educated classes of 
their countrymen ? Surely only one solu¬ 
tion can be given of these phenomena, pe¬ 
culiar to our own country.* Where all the 


* To be quite correct, we must remind the reader, 
that we speak of the character of the whole body, 

T T 















642 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


ordinary incentives to action are withdrawn, 
a free constitution excites it, by presenting 
political power as a new object of pursuit. 
By rendering that power in a great degree 
dependent on popular favour, it compels the 
highest to treat their fellow-creatures with 
decency and courtesy, and disposes the best 
of them to feel, that inferiors in station may 
be superiors in worth, as they are equals in 
right. Hence chiefly arises that useful pre¬ 
ference for country life, which distinguishes 
the English gentry from that of other na¬ 
tions. In despotic countries they flock to 
the court, where all their hopes are fixed; 
but here, as they have much to hope from 
the people, they must cultivate the esteem, 
and even court the favour of their own na¬ 
tural dependants. They are quickened in 
the pursuit of ambition, by the rivalship of 
that enterprising talent, which is stimulated 
by more urgent motives. These dispositions 
and manners have become, in some measure, 
independent of the causes which originally 
produced them, and extend to many on 
whom these causes could have little operation. 
In a great body, we must allow for every 
variety of form and degree. It is sufficient 
that a system of extensively popular repre¬ 
sentation has, in a course of time, produced 
this general character, and that the English 
democracy is the true preservative of the 
talents and virtues of the aristocracy. 

The effects of the elective franchise upon 
the humbler classes are, if possible, still 
more obvious and important. By it the 
peasant is taught to “ venerate himself as a 
man ” — to employ his thoughts, at least 
occasionally, upon high matters,—to medi¬ 
tate on the same subjects with the wise and 
the great, — to enlarge his feelings beyond 
the circle of his narrow concerns,’— to sym¬ 
pathise, however irregularly, with great 


composed as it is of a small number. In a body 
like the French noblesse, amounting perhaps to a 
hundred thousand, many of whom were acted upon 
by the strongest stimulants of necessity, and, in a 
country of such diffused intelligence as France, it 
would have been a miracle if many had not risen 
to eminence in the state, and in letters, as well as 
in their natural profession of arms. 


bodies of his fellow-creatures, and some¬ 
times to do acts which he may regard as 
contributing directly to the welfare of his 
country. Much of this good tendency is 
doubtless counteracted by other circum¬ 
stances. The outward form is often ridi¬ 
culous or odious. The judgments of the 
multitude are never exact, and their feelings 
often grossly misapplied: but, after all pos¬ 
sible deductions, great benefits must remain. 
The important object is, that they should 
think and feel, — that they should con¬ 
template extensive consequences as capable 
of arising from their own actions, and thus 
gradually become conscious of the moral 
dignity of their nature. 

Among the very lowest classes, where the 
disorders of elections are the most offensive, 
the moral importance of the elective fran¬ 
chise is, in some respects, the greatest. As 
individuals, they feel themselves of no con¬ 
sequence ; — hence, in part, arises their love 
of numerous assemblies, — the only scenes 
in which the poor feel their importance. 
Brought together for elections, their tu¬ 
multuary disposition, which is little else 
than a desire to display their short-lived 
consequence, is gratified at the expense of 
inconsiderable evils. It is useful that the 
pride of the highest should be made oc¬ 
casionally to bend before them, — that the 
greatest objects of ambition should be 
partly at their disposal; it teaches them to 
feel that they also are men. It is to the 
exercise of this franchise, by some bodies of 
our lowest classes, that we are to ascribe 
that sense of equality, — that jealousy of 
right, — that grave independence, and calm 
pride, which has-been observed by foreigners 
as marking the deportment of Englishmen. 

By thus laying open some of the particu¬ 
lar modes in which representation produces 
its advantages to the whole community, and 
to its separate classes, we hope that we have 
contributed somewhat to the right decision 
of the practical question which now pre¬ 
sents itself to our view. Systems of elec¬ 
tion may be of very various kinds. The 
right of suffrage may be limited, or univer¬ 
sal ; it may be secretly, or openly exercised; 







ON THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE. 643 


the representatives may be directly, or in¬ 
directly chosen by the people ; and where a 
qualification is necessary, it may be uni¬ 
form, or it may vary in different, places. A 
variety of rights of suffrage is the principle 
of the English representation. In the reign 
of Edward the First, as much as at the 
present moment, the members for counties 
were chosen by freeholders, and those for 
cities and towns by freemen, burgage ten¬ 
ants, householders or freeholders. Now, 
we prefer this general principle of our re¬ 
presentation to any uniform right of suf¬ 
frage ; though we think that, in the present 
state of things, there are many particulars 
which, according to that principle, ought to 
be amended. 

Our reasons for this preference are shortly 
these: — every uniform system which seri¬ 
ously differs from universal suffrage, must 
be founded on such a qualification as to 
take away the elective franchise from those 
portions of the inferior classes who now 
enjoy it. Even the condition of paying 
direct taxes would disfranchise many. After 
what we have already said, on the general 
subject of representation, it is needless for 
us to add, that we should consider such a 
disfranchisement as a most pernicious mu¬ 
tilation of the representative .system. It has 
already been seen how much, in our opinion, 
the proper composition of the House of 
Commons, the justice of the government, 
and the morality of the people depend upon 
the elections which would be thus sacrificed. 

This tendency of an uniform qualification 
is visible in the new French system. The 
qualification for the electors, is the annual 
payment of direct taxes to the amount of 
about 12 1. When the wealth of the two 
countries is compared, it will be apparent 
that, in this country, such a system would 
be thought a mere aristocracy. In France, 
the result is a body of one hundred thousand 
electors *; and in the situation and temper 
of the French nation, such a scheme of re¬ 
presentation may be eligible. But we men¬ 


* The population of France is now [1818, Ed.] 
estimated at twenty-nine millions and a half. 


tion it only as an example, that every 
uniform qualification, which is not altogether 
illusory, must incline towards independent 
property, as being the only ground on which 
it can rest. The reform of Cromwell had 
the same aristocratical character, though in 
a far less degree. It nearly excluded what 
is called the “populace;” and, for that 
reason, is commended by the most saga¬ 
cious* of our Tory writers. An uniform 
qualification, in short, must be so high as 
to exclude true popular election, or so low, 
as to be liable to most of the objections 
which we shall presently offer against uni¬ 
versal suffrage. It seems difficult to con¬ 
ceive how it could be so adjusted, as not 
either to impair the spirit of liberty, or to ex¬ 
pose the quiet of society to continual hazard. 

Our next objection to uniformity is, that 
it exposes the difference between the pro¬ 
prietors and the indigent, in a way offensive 
and degrading to the feelings of the latter. 
The difference itself is indeed real, and 
cannot be removed: but, in our present 
system, it is disguised under a great variety 
of usages; it is far from uniformly regu¬ 
lating the franchise; and, even where it 
does, this invidious distinction is not held 
out in its naked form. It is something, 
also, that the system of various rights does 
not constantly thrust forward that qualifica¬ 
tion of property which, in its undisguised 
state, may be thought to teach the people 
too exclusive a regard for wealth. 

This variety, by giving a very great 
weight to property in some elections, enables 
us safely to allow an almost unbounded 
scope to popular feeling in others. While 
some have fallen under the influence of a 
few great proprietors, others border on 
universal suffrage. All the intermediate 
varieties, and all their possible combinations, 
find their place. Let the reader seriously 
reflect how all the sorts of men, who are 
necessary component parts of a good House 
of Commons, could on any other scheme 
find their way to it. We have already 
sufficiently animadverted on the mischief of 


* Clarendon, Hume, &c. 




TT 2 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


644 


excluding popular leaders. Would there be 
no mischief in excluding those important 
classes of men, whose character unfits them 
for success in a canvass, or whose fortune 
may be unequal to the expense of a contest? 
A representative assembly, elected by a low 
uniform qualification, would fluctuate be¬ 
tween country gentlemen and demagogues: 
— elected on a high qualification, it would 
probably exhibit an unequal contest between 
landholders and courtiers. All other in¬ 
terests would, on either system, be unpro¬ 
tected : no other class would contribute its 
contingent of skill and knowledge to aid the 
deliberations of the legislature. 

The founders of new commonwealths must, 
we confess, act upon some uniform principle. 
A builder can seldom imitate, with success, 
all the fantastic but picturesque and comfort¬ 
able irregularities of an old mansion, which 
through a course of ages has been repaired, 
enlarged, and altered, according to the plea¬ 
sure of various owners. This is one of the 
many disadvantages attendant on the law¬ 
givers of infant states. Something, perhaps, 
by great skill and caution, they might do; 
but _ their wisdom is most shown, after 
guarding the great principles of liberty, by 
leaving time to do the rest. 

Though we are satisfied, by the above and 
by many other considerations, that we ought 
not to exchange our diversified elections 
for any general qualification, we certainly 
consider universal suffrage as beyond calcu¬ 
lation more mischievous than any other 
uniform right. The reasons which make it 
important to liberty, that the elective fran¬ 
chise should be exercised by large bodies of 
the lower classes, do not in the least degree 
require that it should be conferred on them 
all. It is necessary to their security from 
oppression, that the whole class should have 
some representatives: but as their interest 
is every where the same, representatives 
elected by one body of them are necessarily 
the guardians of the rights of all. The 
great object of representation for them, is 
to be protected against violence and cruelty. 
Sympathy with suffering, and indignation 
against cruelty, are easily excited in nu¬ 


merous assemblies, and must either be felt 
or assumed by all their members. Popular 
elections generally ensure the return of some 
men, who shrink from no appeal, however 
invidious, on behalf of the oppressed. We 
must again repeat, that we consider such 
men as invaluable members of a House of 
Commons;—perhaps their number is at pre¬ 
sent too small. What we now maintain is, 
that, though elected by one place, they are 
in truth the representatives of the same sort 
of people in other places. Their number 
must be limited, unless we are willing to ex¬ 
clude other interests, and to sacrifice other 
most important objects of representation. 

The exercise of the elective franchise by 
some of the labouring classes betters the 
character, raises the spirit, and enhances the 
consequence of all. An English farmer or 
artisan is more high-spirited and inde¬ 
pendent than the same classes in despotic 
countries: but nobody has ever observed 
that there is in England a like difference 
between the husbandman and mechanic who 
have votes, and who have not. The exclu¬ 
sion of the class degrades the whole: but 
the admission of a part bestows on the whole 
a sense of importance, and a hold on the 
estimation of their superiors. It must be 
admitted, that a small infusion of popular 
election would not produce these effects : 
whatever might seem to be the accidental 
privilege of a few, would have no influence 
on the rank of their fellows. It must be 
considerable, and — what is perhaps still 
more necessary — it must be conspicuous, 
and forced on the attention by the circum¬ 
stances which excite the feelings, and strike 
the imagination of mankind. The value of 
external dignity is not altogether confined 
to kings or senates. The people also have 
their majesty; and they too ought to dis¬ 
play their importance in the exercise of their 
rights. 

The question is, whether all interests will. 
be protected, where the representatives are 
chosen by all men, or where they are elected 
by considerable portions only, of all classes 
of men. This question will perhaps be more 
clearly answered by setting out from ex- 








ON THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE. 


amples, than from general reasonings. If 
we suppose Ireland to be an independent 
state, governed by its former House of 
Commons, it will at once be admitted, that 
no shadow of just government existed, where 
the legislature were the enemies, instead of 
being the protectors, of the Catholics, who 
formed a great class in the community. That 
this evil was most cruelly aggravated by the 
numbers of the oppressed, is true. But, will 
it be contended, that such a government 
was unjust, only because the Catholics were 
a majority ? We have only then to suppose 
the case reversed; — that the Catholics were 
to assume the whole power, and to retaliate 
upon the Protestants, by excluding them 
from all political privilege. Would this be 
a just or equal government? That will 
hardly be avowed. But what would be the 
efFect of establishing universal suffrage in 
Ireland? It would be, to do that in sub¬ 
stance, which no man would propose in 
form. The Catholics, forming four-fifths of 
the population, would, as far as depends on 
laws, possess the whole authority of the 
state. Such a government, instead of pro¬ 
tecting all interests, would be founded in 
hostility to that which is the second interest 
in numbers, and in many respects the first. 
The oppressors and the oppressed would, 
indeed, change places; — we should have 
Catholic tyrants, and Protestant slaves: but 
our only consolation would be, that the 
island would contain more tyrants, and fewer 
slaves. If there be persons who believe that 
majorities have any power over the eternal 
principles of justice, or that numbers can in 
the least degree affect the difference between 
right and wrong, it would be vain for us to 
argue against those with whom we have no 
principles in common. To all others it must 
be apparent, that a representation of classes 
might possibly be so framed as to secure 
both interests; but that a representation 
of numbers must enslave the Protestant 
minority. 

That the majority of a people may be a 
tyrant as much as one or a few, is most 
apparent in the cases where a state is 
divided, by conspicuous marks, into a per- 


645 

manent majority and minority. Till the 
principles of toleration be universally felt, 
as well as acknowledged, religion will form 
one of these cases. Till reason and morality 
be far more widely diffused than they are, 
the outward distinctions of colour and fea¬ 
ture will form another, more pernicious, and 
less capable of remedy. Does any man 
doubt, that the establishment of universal 
suffrage, among emancipated slaves, would 
be only another word for the oppression, if 
not the destruction, of their former masters ? 
But is slavery itself really more unjust, 
where the slaves are a majority, than where 
they are a minority ? or may it not be said, 
on the contrary, that to hold men in slavery 
i3 most inexcusable, where society is not 
built on that unfortunate foundation, — 
where the supposed loss of their labour 
would be an inconsiderable evil, and no 
danger could be pretended from their manu¬ 
mission ? Is it not apparent, that the lower 
the right of suffrage descends in a country, 
where the whites are the majority, the more 
cruel would be the oppression of the en¬ 
slaved minority ? An aristocratical legisla¬ 
ture might consider, with some impartiality, 
the disputes of the free and of the servile 
labourers; but a body, influenced chiefly by 
the first of these rival classes, must be the 
oppressors of the latter. 

These, it may be said, are extreme cases; 
— they are selected for that reason: but the 
principle which they strikingly illustrate 
will, on a very little reflection, be found 
applicable in some degree to all commu¬ 
nities of men. 

The labouring classes are in every country 
a perpetual majority. The diffusion of 
education will doubtless raise their minds, 
and throw open prizes for the ambition of a 
few, which will spread both activity and 
content among the rest: but in the present 
state of the population and territory of 
European countries, the majority of men 
must earn their subsistence by daily labour. 
Notwithstanding local differences, persons 
in this situation have a general resemblance 
of character, and sameness of interest. Their 
interest, or what they think their interest, 







646 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


may be at variance with the real or supposed 
interests of the higher orders. If they are 
considered as forming, in this respect, one 
class of society, a share in the representation 
may be allotted to them, sufficient to protect 
their interests, compatibly with the equal 
protection of the interests of all other classes, 
and regulated by a due regard to all the 
qualities which are required in a well- 
composed legislative assembly. But if re¬ 
presentation be proportioned to numbers 
alone, every other interest in society is 
placed at the disposal of the multitude. No 
other class can be effectually represented: 
no other class can have a political security 
for justice; no other can have any weight 
in the deliberations of the legislature. No 
talents, no attainments, but such as recom¬ 
mend men to the favour of the multitude, 
can have any admission into it. A repre¬ 
sentation so constituted, would produce the 
same practical effects, as if every man whose 
income was above a certain amount, were 
excluded from the right of voting. It is of 
little moment to the proprietors, whether 
they be disfranchised, or doomed, in every 
election, to form a hopeless minority. 

Nor is this all. A representation, founded 
on numbers only, would be productive of 
gross inequality in that very class to which 
all others are sacrificed. The difference 
between the people of the country and those 
of towns, is attended with consequences 
which no contrivance of law can obviate. 
Towns are the nursery of political feeling. 
The frequency of meeting, the warmth of 
discussion, the variety of pursuit, the rival- 
ship of interest, the opportunities of in¬ 
formation, even the fluctuations and ex¬ 
tremes of fortune, direct the minds of their 
inhabitants to public concerns, and render 
them the seats of republican governments, 
or the preservers of liberty in monarchies. 
But if this difference be considerable among 
educated men, it seems immeasurable when 
we contemplate its effects on the more nu¬ 
merous classes. Among them, no. strong 
public sentiment can be kept up without 
numerous meetings. It is chiefly when they 
are animated by a view of their orfn strength 


and numbers,—when they are stimulated 
by an eloquence suited to their character, 
— and when the passions of each are 
strengthened by the like emotions of the 
multitude which surround him, that the 
thoughts of such men are directed to sub¬ 
jects so far from their common callings as the 
concerns of the commonwealth. All these 
aids are necessarily wanting to the dispersed 
inhabitants of the country, whose frequent 
meetings are rendered impossible by distance 
and poverty,—who have few opportunities 
of being excited by discussion or declama¬ 
tion, and very imperfect means of corre¬ 
spondence or concert with those at a distance. 
An agricultural people is generally submis¬ 
sive to the laws, and observant of the or¬ 
dinary duties of life, but stationary and 
stagnant, without the enterprise which is the 
source of improvement, and the public spirit 
which preserves liberty. If the whole po¬ 
litical power of the state, therefore, were 
thrown into the hands of the lowest classes, 
it would be really exercised only by the 
towns. About two-elevenths of the people 
of England inhabit towns which have a 
population of ten thousand souls or up¬ 
wards. A body so large, strengthened by 
union, discipline, and spirit, would without 
difficulty domineer over the lifeless and 
scattered peasants. In towns, the lower 
part of the middle classes are sometimes 
tame; while the lowest class are always 
susceptible of animation. But the small 
freeholders, and considerable farmers, ac¬ 
quire an independence from their position, 
which makes them very capable of public 
spirit. While the classes below them are 
incapable of being permanently rendered 
active elements in any political combination, 
the dead weight of their formal suffrages 
would only oppress the independent votes of 
their superiors. All active talent would, in 
such a case, fly to the towns, where alone 
its power could be felt. The choice of the 
country would be dictated by the cry of the 
towns, wherever it was thought worth while 
to take it from the quiet influence of the 
resident proprietors. Perhaps the only con¬ 
trivance, which can in any considerable 







ON THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE. G47 


degree remedy the political inferiority of 
the inhabitants of the country to those of 
towns, has been adopted in the English con¬ 
stitution, which, while it secures an as¬ 
cendant of landholders in the legislature, 
places the disposal of its most honoured and 
envied seats in the hands of the lowest 
classes among the agricultural population, 
who are capable of employing the right of 
suffrage with spirit and effect. 

They who think representation chiefly 
valuable, because whole nations cannot meet 
to deliberate in one place, have formed a 
very low notion of this great improvement. 
It is not a contrivance for conveniently col¬ 
lecting or blindly executing all the per¬ 
nicious and unjust resolutions of ignorant 
multitudes. To correct the faults of demo- 
cratical government, is a still more important 
object of representation, than to extend the 
sphere to which that government may be 
applied. It balances the power of the mul¬ 
titude by the influence of other classes: it 
substitutes skilful lawgivers for those who 
are utterly incapable of any legislative func¬ 
tion ; and it continues the trust long enough 
to guard the legislature from the temporary 
delusions of the people. By a system of 
universal suffrage and annual elections, all 
these temperaments would be destroyed. 
The effect of a crowded population, in in¬ 
creasing the intensity and activity of the 
political passions, is extremely accelerated in 
cities of the first class. The population of 
London and its environs is nearly equal to 
that of all other towns in England of or 
above ten thousand souls. According to the 
principle of universal suffrage, it would con¬ 
tain about two hundred and fifty thousand 
electors; and send fifty-five members to 
Parliament. This electoral army would be 
occupied for the whole year in election or 
canvass, or in the endless animosities in 
which both would be fertile. A hundred 
candidates for their suffrages would be daily 
employed in inflaming their passions. No 
time for deliberation, — no interval of re¬ 
pose in which inflamed passions might sub¬ 
side, could exist. The representatives would 
naturally be the most daring, and, for their 


purposes, the ablest of their body. They 
must lead or overawe the legislature. Every 
transient delusion, or momentary frenzy of 
which a multitude is susceptible, must rush 
with unresisted violence into the represen¬ 
tative body. Such a representation would 
differ in no beneficial respect from the 
wildest democracy. It would be a democracy 
clothed in a specious disguise, and armed 
with more effective instruments of oppres¬ 
sion, — but not wiser or more just than the 
democracies of old, which Hobbes called 
“ an aristocracy of orators, sometimes inter¬ 
rupted by the monarchy of a single orator.” 

It may be said that such reasonings sup¬ 
pose the absence of those moral restraints of 
property and opinion which would temper 
the exercise of this, as well as of every other 
kind of suffrage. Landholders would still 
influence their tenants, — farmers their la¬ 
bourers, — artisans and manufacturers those 
whom they employ; — property would still 
retain its power over those who depend on 
the proprietor. To this statement we in 
some respects accede; and on it we build 
our last and most conclusive argument 
against universal suffrage. 

It is true, that in very quiet times, a mul¬ 
tiplication of dependent voters would only 
augment the influence of wealth. If votes 
were bestowed on every private soldier, the 
effect would be only to give a thousand votes 
to the commanding officer who marched his 
battalion to the poll. Whenever the people 
felt little interest in public affairs, the same 
power would be exercised by every master 
through his dependants. The traders who 
employ many labourers in great cities would 
possess the highest power; the great con¬ 
sumers and landowners would engross the 
remainder; the rest of the people would be 
insignificant. As the multitude is composed 
of those individuals who are most incapable 
of fixed opinions, and as they are, in their 
collective capacity, peculiarly alive to pre¬ 
sent impulse, there is no vice to which 
they are so liable as inconstancy. Their 
passions are quickly worn out by their own 
violence. They become weary of the ex¬ 
cesses into which they have been plunged. 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


648 

Lassitude and indifference succeed to their 
fury, and are proportioned to its violence. 
They abandon public affairs to any hand 
disposed to guide them. They give up their 
favourite measures to reprobation, and their 
darling leaders to destruction. Their ^ac- 
clamations are often as loud around the 
scaffold of the demagogue, as around his 
triumphal car. 

Under the elective system, against which 
we now argue, the opposite evils of too 
much strengthening wealth, and too much 
subjecting property to the multitude, are 
likely, by turns, to prevail. In either case, 
it may be observed that the power of the 
middle classes would be annihilated. So¬ 
ciety, on such a system, would exhibit a 
series of alternate fits of frenzy and leth¬ 
argy. When the people were naturally 
disposed to violence, the mode of election 
would inflame it to madness. When they 
were too much inclined of themselves to 
listlessness and apathy, it would lull them to 
sleep. In these, as in every other respect, it 
is the reverse of a wisely-constituted repre¬ 
sentation, which is a restraint on the people 
in times of heat, and a stimulant to their 
sluggishness when they would otherwise fall 
into torpor. This even and steady interest 
in public concerns is impossible in a scheme 
which, in every case, would aggravate the 
predominant excess. 

It must never be forgotten, that the whole 
proprietary body must be in a state of per¬ 
manent conspiracy against an extreme de¬ 
mocracy. They are the natural enemies of 
a constitution, which grants them no power 
and no safety. Though property is often 
borne down by the torrent of popular ty¬ 
ranny, yet it has many chances of prevailing 
at last. Proprietors have steadiness, vigil¬ 
ance, concert, secrecy, and, if need be, dis¬ 
simulation. They yield to the storm : they 
regain their natural ascendant in the calm. 
Not content with persuading the people to 
submit to salutary restraints, they usually 
betray them, by insensible degrees, into ab¬ 
solute submission. 

If the commonwealth does not take this 
road to slavery, there are many paths that 


lead to that state of perdition. A dema¬ 
gogue seizes on that despotic power for 
himself, which he for a long time has exer¬ 
cised in the name of his faction; — a vic¬ 
torious general leads his army to enslave 
their country : and both these candidates for 
tyranny too often find auxiliaries in those 
classes of society which are at length brought 
to regard absolute monarchy as an asylum. 
Thus, wherever property is not allowed 
great weight in a free state, it will destroy 
liberty. The history of popular clamour, 
even in England, is enough to show that it 
is easy sometimes to work the populace into 
“ a sedition for slavery.” 

These obvious consequences have disposed 
most advocates of universal suffrage to pro¬ 
pose its combination with some other ingre¬ 
dients, by which, they tell us, that the poison 
will be converted into a remedy. The com¬ 
position now most in vogue is its union with 
the Ballot. Before we proceed to the con¬ 
sideration of that proposal, we shall bestow 
a few words on some other plans which have 
been adopted or proposed, to render uniform 
popular election consistent with public quiet. 
The most remarkable of these are that of 
Mr. Hume, where the freeholders and the 
inhabitants assessed to the poor, elect those 
who are to name the members of the Su¬ 
preme Council; — that lately proposed in 
France, where a popular body w T ould pro¬ 
pose candidates, from whom a small number 
of the most considerable proprietors would 
select the representatives; — and the singu¬ 
lar plan of Mr. Horne Tooke, which pro¬ 
posed to give the right of voting to all per¬ 
sons rated to the land-tax or parish-rates at 
2/. 2s. per annum, on condition of their 
paying to the public 21. 2s. at the time of 
voting ; but providing, that if the number of 
voters in any district fell short of four thou¬ 
sand, every man rated at 20/. per annum 
might give a second vote, on again paying 
the same sum; and making the same provi¬ 
sion, in case of the same failure, for third, 
fourth, fifth, &c. votes for every additional 
100/. at which the voter is rated, till the 
number of four thousand votes for the dis¬ 
trict should be completed. 











ON THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE. 649 


This plan of Mr. Tooke is an ingenious 
stratagem for augmenting the power of 
wealth, under pretence of bestowing the 
suffrage almost universally. To that of 
Mr. Hume it is a decisive objection, that it 
leaves to the people only those subordinate 
elections which would excite no interest in 
their minds, and would consequently fail in 
attaining one of the principal objects of 
popular elections. All schemes for sepa¬ 
rating the proposition of candidates for 
public office from the choice of the officers, 
become in practice a power of nomination 
in the proposers. It is easy to leave no 
choice to the electors, by coupling the 
favoured candidates with none but such as 
are absolutely ineligible. Yet one reason¬ 
able object is common to these projects : — 
they all aim at subjecting elections to the 
j<5int influence of property and popularity. 
In none of them is overlooked the grand 
principle of equally securing all orders of 
men, and interesting all in the maintenance 
of the constitution. It is possible that any 
of them might be in some measure effectual; 
but it would be an act of mere wantonness 
in us to make the experiment. By that va¬ 
riety of rights of suffrage which seems so 
fantastic, the English constitution has pro¬ 
vided for the union of the principles of pro¬ 
perty and popularity, in a manner much 
more effectual than those which the most 
celebrated theorists have imagined. Of the 
three, perhaps the least unpromising is that 
of Mr. Tooke, because it approaches nearest 
to the forms of public and truly popular 
elections. 

In the system now established in France, 
where the right of suffrage is confined to 
those who pay direct taxes amounting to 
twelve pounds by the year, the object is 
evidently to vest the whole power in the 
hands of the middling classes. The Royalists, 
who are still proprietors of the greatest 
estates in the kingdom, would have pre¬ 
ferred a greater extension of suffrage, in 
order to multiply the votes of their de¬ 
pendants. But, as the subdivision of for¬ 
feited estates has created a numerous body 
of small landowners, who are deeply in¬ 


terested in maintaining the new institutions, 
the law, which gives them almost the whole 
elective power, may on that account be ap¬ 
proved as politic. As a general regula¬ 
tion, it is very objectionable. 

If we were compelled to confine all elec¬ 
tive influence to one order, we must indeed 
vest it in the middling classes; both be¬ 
cause they possess the largest share of sense 
and virtue, and because they have the most 
numerous connexions of interest with the 
other parts of society. It is right that they 
should have a preponderating influence, 
because they are likely to make the best 
choice. But that is not the sole object of 
representation; and, if it were, there are 
not wanting circumstances which render it 
unfit that they should engross the whole 
influence. Perhaps there never was a time 
or country in which the middling classes 
were of a character so respectable and im¬ 
proving as they are at this day in Great 
Britain : but it unfortunately happens, that 
this sound and pure body have more to 
hope from the favour of Government than 
any other part of the nation. The higher 
classes may, if they please, be independent 
of its influence; the lower are almost below 
its direct action. On the middling classes, 
it acts with concentrated and unbroken 
force. Independent of that local consider¬ 
ation, the virtues of that excellent class are 
generally of a circumspect nature, and apt 
to degenerate into timidity. They have 
little of that political boldness which some¬ 
times belongs to commanding fortune, and 
often, in too great a degree, to thoughtless 
poverty. They require encouragement and 
guidance from higher leaders; and they 
need excitement from the numbers and 
even turbulence of their inferiors. The end 
of representation is not a medium between 
wealth and numbers, but a combination of 
the influence of both. It is the result of 
the separate action of great property, of de¬ 
liberate opinion, and of popular spiiit, on 
different parts of the political system. 

“ That principle of representation,” said 
Mr. Fox, “ is the best which calls into ac¬ 
tivity the greatest number of independent 









650 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


votes, and excludes those whose condition 
takes from them the powers of deliberation.” 
But even this principle, true in general, 
cannot be universally applied. Many who 
are neither independent nor capable of de¬ 
liberation, are at present rightly vested 
with the elective franchise, — not because 
they are qualified to make a good general 
choice of members, — but because they 
indirectly contribute to secure the good 
composition and right conduct of the 
legislature. 

The question of the Ballot remains. On 
the Ballot the advocates of universal suf¬ 
frage seem exclusively to rely for the de¬ 
fence of their schemes: without it, they 
appear tacitly to admit that universal suf¬ 
frage would be an impracticable and per¬ 
nicious proposal. But all males in the 
kingdom, it is said, may annually vote at 
elections with quiet and independence, if 
the Ballot enables them to give their votes 
secretly. Whether this expectation be rea¬ 
sonable, is the question on which the de¬ 
cision of the dispute seems now to depend. 

The first objection to this proposal is, 
that the Ballot would not produce secrecy. 
Even in those classes of men who are most 
accustomed to keep their own secret, the 
effect of the Ballot is very unequal and un¬ 
certain. The common case of clubs, in 
which a small minority is generally sufficient 
to exclude a candidate, may serve as an 
example. Where the club is numerous, the 
secret may be kept, as it is difficult to dis¬ 
tinguish the few who reject: but in small 
clubs, where the dissentients may amount to 
a considerable proportion of the whole, they 
are almost always ascertained. The prac¬ 
tice, it is true, is, in these cases, still useful; 
but it is only because it is agreed, by a sort 
of tacit convention, that an exclusion by 
Ballot is not a just cause of offence: it pre¬ 
vents quarrel, not disclosure. In the House 
of Commons, Mr. Bentham allows that the 
Ballot does not secure secrecy or inde¬ 
pendent choice. The example of the elec¬ 
tions at the India House is very unfor¬ 
tunately selected ; for every thing which a 
Ballot is supposed to prevent is to be found 


in these elections : — public and private can¬ 
vass, — the influence of personal friendship, 
connexion, gratitude, expectation, — pro¬ 
mises almost universally made and observed, 
— votes generally if not always known, — 
as much regard, indeed, to public grounds 
of preference as in most other bodies,— 
but scarcely any exclusion of private mo¬ 
tives, unless it be the apprehension of 
incurring resentment, which is naturally 
confined within narrow limits, by the in¬ 
dependent condition of the greater part of 
the electors. In general, indeed, they re¬ 
fuse the secrecy which the legislature seems 
to tender to them. From kindness, from 
esteem, from other motives, they are de¬ 
sirous that their votes should be known to 
candidates whom they favour. And what 
is disclosed to friends, is speedily discovered 
by opponents. 

If the Ballot should be thought a less 
offensive mode of voting against an indi¬ 
vidual than the voice, this slight advantage 
is altogether confined to those classes of 
society who have leisure for such fantastic 
refinements. But are any such influences 
likely, or rather sure, to act on the two 
millions of voters who would be given to 
us by universal suffrage ? Let us examine 
them closely. Will the country labourer 
ever avail himself of the proffered means of 
secrecy ? To believe this, we must suppose 
that he performs the most important act 
of his life, — that which most flatters his 
pride, and gratifies his inclination,—without 
speaking of his intention before, or boasting 
of his vote when he has given it. His life 
has no secrets. The circle of his village is 
too small for concealment. His wife, his 
children, his fellow-labourers, the com¬ 
panions of his recreations, know all that he 
does, and almost all that he thinks. Can 
any one believe that he would pass the 
evening before, or the evening after the 
day of election, at his alehouse, wrapt up in 
the secrecy of a Venetian senator, and con¬ 
cealing a suffrage as he would do a murder ? 
If his character disposed him to secrecy, 
would his situation allow it ? His landlord, 
or his employer, or their agents, or the 






ON THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE. 651 


leaders of a party in the election, could 
never have any difficulty in discovering him. 
The simple acts of writing his vote, of de¬ 
livering it at the poll, or sending it if he 
could not attend, would betray his secret in 
spite of the most complicated Ballot ever 
contrived in Venice. In great towns, the 
very mention of secret suffrage is ridiculous. 
By what contrivance are public meetings of 
the two hundred and fifty thousand London 
electors to be prevented ? There may be 
quiet and secrecy at the poll; but this does 
not in the least prevent publicity and tu¬ 
mult at other meetings occasioned by the 
election. A candidate will not forego the 
means of success which such meetings afford. 
The votes of those who attend them must be 
always known. If the Council of Ten were 
dispersed among a Westminster mob while 
candidates were speaking, they would catch 
its spirit, and betray their votes by huzzas 
or hisses. Candidates and their partisans, 
committees in parishes, agents in every 
street during an active canvass, would 
quickly learn the secret of almost any man 
in Westminster. The few who affected 
mystery would be detected by their neigh¬ 
bours. The evasive answer of the ablest of 
such dissemblers to his favoured friend or 
party, would be observably different, at 
least in tone and manner, from that which 
he gave to the enemy. The zeal, attach¬ 
ment, and enthusiasm, which must prevail 
in such elections, as long as they continue 
really popular, would probably bring all 
recurrence to means of secrecy into dis¬ 
credit, and very speedily into general disuse. 
Even the smaller tradesmen, to whom the 
Ballot might seem desirable, as a shield 
from the displeasure of their opulent cus¬ 
tomers, would betray the part they took in 
the election, by their ambition to be leaders 
in their parishes. The formality of the 
Ballot might remain: but the object of 
secrecy is incompatible with the nature of 
such elections. 

The second objection is, that if secrecy of 
suffrage could be really adopted, it would, 
in practice, contract, instead of extending, 
the elective franchise, by abating, if not 


extinguishing, the strongest inducements to 
its exercise. All wise laws contain in them¬ 
selves effectual means for their own execu¬ 
tion : but, where votes are secret, scarcely 
any motive for voting is left to the majority 
of electors. In a blind eagerness to free 
the franchise from influence, nearly all the 
common motives for its exercise are taken 
away. The common elector is neither to 
gain the favour of his superiors, nor the 
kindness of his fellows, nor the gratitude of 
the candidate for whom he votes : from all 
these, secrecy must exclude him. He is 
forbidden to strengthen his conviction,— 
to kindle his zeal, — to conquer his fears or 
selfishness, in numerous meetings, of those 
with whom he agrees; for, if he attends 
such meetings he must publish his suffrage, 
and the Ballot, in his case, becomes alto¬ 
gether illusory. Every blameable motive 
of interest, — every pardonable inducement 
of personal partiality, is, indeed, taken away. 
But what is left in their place ? Nothing 
but a mere sense of public duty, unaided by 
the popular discipline which gives fervour 
and vigour to public sentiments. A wise 
lawgiver does not trust to a general sense 
of duty in the most unimportant law. If 
such a principle could be trusted, laws 
would be unnecessary. Yet to this cold 
feeling, stripped of all its natural and most 
powerful aids, would the system of secret 
suffrage alone trust for its execution. At 
the poll it is said to be sufficient, because all 
temptations to do ill are supposed to be 
taken away: but the motives by which 
electors are induced to go to a poll, have 
been totally overlooked. The inferior classes, 
for whom this whole system is contrived, 
would, in its practice, be speedily disfran¬ 
chised. They would soon relinquish a pri¬ 
vilege when it was reduced to a trouble- 

O 

some duty. Their public principles are 
often generous; but they do not arise from 
secret meditation, and they do not flourish 
in solitude. 

Lastly, if secret suffrage were to be per¬ 
manently practised by all voters, it would 
deprive election of all its popular qualities, 
and of many of its beneficial effects. The 










652 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


great object of popular elections is, to in¬ 
spire and strengthen the love of liberty. 
On the strength of that sentiment freedom 
wholly depends, not only for its security 
against the power of time and of enemies, 
but for its efficiency and reality while it 
lasts. If we could suppose a people per¬ 
fectly indifferent to political measures, and 
without any disposition to take a part in 
public affairs, the most perfect forms and 
institutions of liberty would be among them 
a dead letter. The most elaborate machi¬ 
nery would stand still for want of a moving 
power. In proportion as a people sinks 
more near to that slavish apathy, their con¬ 
stitution becomes so far vain, and their best 
laws impotent. Institutions are carried into 
effect by men, and men are moved to action 
by their feelings. A system of liberty can 
be executed only by men who love liberty. 
With the spirit of liberty, very unpromising 
forms grow into an excellent government: 
without it, the most specious cannot last, 
and are not worth preserving. The institu¬ 
tions of a free state are safest and most 
effective, when numerous bodies of men 
exercise their political rights with pleasure 
and pride, — consequently with zeal and 
boldness, — when these rights are endeared 
to them by tradition and by habit, as well 
as by conviction and feeling of their ines¬ 
timable value, — and when the mode of ex¬ 
ercising privileges is such as to excite the 
sympathy of all who view it, and to spread 
through the whole society a jealous love of 
popular right, and a proneness to repel with 
indignation every encroachment on it. 

Popular elections contribute to these ob¬ 
jects, partly by the character of the majority 
of the electors, and partly by the mode in 
which they give their suffrage. Assemblies 
of the people of great cities are indeed very 
ill qualified to exercise authority; but with¬ 
out their occasional use, it can never be 
strongly curbed. Numbers are nowhere else 
to be collected. On numbers alone, much of 
their power depends. In numerous meet¬ 
ings, every man catches animation from 
the feelings of his neighbour, and gathers 
courage from the strength of a multitude. 


Such assemblies, and they alone, with all 
their defects and errors, have the privilege of 
inspiring many human beings with a perfect, 
however transient, disinterestedness, and of 
rendering the most ordinary men capable 
of foregoing interest, and forgetting self, in 
the enthusiasm of zeal for a common cause. 
Their vices are a corrective of the delibe¬ 
rating selfishness of their superiors. Their 
bad, as well as good qualities, render them 
the portion of society the most susceptible 
of impressions, and the most accessible to 
public feelings. They are fitted to pro¬ 
duce that democratic spirit which, tempered 
in its progress through the various classes of 
the community, becomes the vital principle 
of liberty. It is very true, that the oc¬ 
casional absurdity and violence of these 
meetings, often alienate men of timid virtue 
from the cause of liberty. It is enough for 
the present purpose, that in those long 
periods to which political reasonings must 
always be understood to apply, they contri¬ 
bute far more to excite and to second, than 
to offend or alarm, the enlightened friends 
of the rights of the people. But meetings 
for election are by far the safest and the 
most effective of all popular assemblies. 
They are brought together by the constitu¬ 
tion ; they have a legal character; they dis¬ 
play the ensigns of public authority; they 
assemble men of all ranks and opinions; and, 
in them, the people publicly and conspicu¬ 
ously bestow some of the highest prizes 
pursued by a generous ambition. Hence 
they derive a consequence, and give a sense 
of self-importance, to their humblest mem¬ 
bers, which would be vainly sought for in 
spontaneous meetings. They lend a part of 
their own seriousness and dignity to other 
meetings occasioned by the election, and 
even to those which, at other times, are 
really, or even nominally, composed of 
electors. 

In elections, political principles cease to 
be mere abstractions. They are embodied 
in individuals; and the cold conviction of a 
truth, or the languid approbation of a mea¬ 
sure, is animated by attachment for leaders, 
and hostility to adversaries. Every political 











ON THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE. 653 


passion is warmed in the contest. Even the 
outward circumstances of the scene strike 
the imagination, and affect the feelings. 
The recital of them daily spreads enthusiasm 
over a country. The various fortunes of 
the combat excite anxiety and agitation on 
all sides; and an opportunity is offered of 
discussing almost every political question, 
under circumstances in which the hearts of 
hearers and readers take part in the ar¬ 
gument: till the issue of a controversy is 
regarded by the nation with some degree of 
the same solicitude as the event of a battle. 
In this manner is formed democratical as¬ 
cendancy, which is most perfect when the 
greatest numbers of independent judgments 
influence the measures of government. Read¬ 
ing may, indeed, increase the number and 
intelligence of those whose sentiments com¬ 
pose public opinion; but numerous assem¬ 
blies, and consequently popular elections, 
can alone generate the courage and zeal 
which form so large a portion of its power. 

With these effects it is apparent that se¬ 
cret suffrage is absolutely incompatible: they 
cannot exist together. Assemblies to elect, 
or assemblies during elections, make all suf¬ 
frages known. The publicity and boldness 
in which voters give their suffrage are of the 
very essence of popular elections, and greatly 
contribute to their animating effect. The 
advocates of the Ballot tell us, indeed, that 
it would destroy canvass and tumult. But 
after the destruction of the canvass, elections 
would no longer teach humility to the great, 
nor self-esteem to the humble. Were the 
causes of tumult destroyed, elections would 
no longer be nurseries of political zeal, and 
instruments fpr rousing national spirit. The 
friends of liberty ought rather to view the 
turbulence of the people with indulgence 
and pardon, as powerfully tending to exer¬ 
cise and invigorate their public spirit. It is 
not to be extinguished, but to be rendered 
safe by countervailing institutions of an op¬ 
posite tendency in other parts of the con¬ 
stitutional system. 

The original fallacy, which is the source of 
all erroneous reasoning in favour of the 
Ballot, is the assumption that the value of 


popular elections chiefly depends on the 
exercise of a deliberate judgment by the 
electors. The whole anxiety of its advocates 
is to remove the causes which might disturb 
a considerate choice. In order to obtain 
such a choice, which is not the great purpose 
of popular elections, these speculators would 
deprive them of the power to excite and 
diffuse public spirit, — the great and inesti¬ 
mable service which a due proportion of 
such elections renders to a free state. In 
order to make the forms of democracy uni¬ 
versal, their plan would universally extin¬ 
guish its spirit. In a commonwealth where 
universal suffrage was already established, 
the Ballot might perhaps be admissible as an 
expedient for tempering such an extreme 
democracy. Even there, it might be ob¬ 
jected to, as one of those remedies for licen¬ 
tiousness which are likely to endanger liberty 
by destroying all democratic spirit; — it 
would be one of those dexterous frauds by 
which the people are often weaned from the 
exercise of their privileges. 

The system which we oppose is established 
in the United States of America; and it is 
said to be attended with no mischievous 
effects. To this we answer, that, in America, 
universal suffrage is not the rule, but the 
exception. In twelve out of the nineteen 
states* which compose that immense con¬ 
federacy, the disgraceful institution of sla¬ 
very deprives great multitudes not only of 
political franchises, but of the indefeasible 
rights of all mankind. The numbers of the 
representatives of the Slave-states in Con¬ 
gress is proportioned to their population, whe¬ 
ther slaves or freemen; — a provision aris¬ 
ing, indeed, from the most abominable of all 
human institutions, but recognising the just 
principle, that property is one of the elements 
of every wise representation. In many states, 
the white complexion is a necessary qualifi¬ 
cation for suffrage, and the disfranchised are 
separated from the privileged order by a 
physical boundary, which no individual can 


* This was written in 1819. In 1845 the pro¬ 
portion is thirteen Slave to fourteen Free states, 
exclusive of Texas. —Ed. 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


654 


ever pass. In countries of slavery, where to 
be free is to be noble, the universal distri¬ 
bution of privilege among the ruling caste, 
is a natural consequence of the aristocrati- 
cal pride with which each man regards the 
dignity of the whole order, especially when 
they are all distinguished from their slaves 
by the same conspicuous and indelible marks. 
Yet, in Virginia, which has long been the 
ruling state of the confederacy, even the 
citizens of the governing class cannot vote 
without the possession of a freehold estate. 
A real or personal estate is required in New 
England, — the ancient seat of the character 
and spirit of America, — the parent of those 
seamen, who, with a courage and skill 
worthy of our common forefathers, have 
met the followers of Nelson in war, — the 
nursery of the intelligent and moral, as well 
as hardy and laborious race, who now 
annually colonise the vast regions of the 
West. 

But were the fact otherwise, America 
contains few large, and no very great towns ; 
the people are dispersed, and agricultural; 
and, perhaps, a majority of the inhabitants 
are-either landowners, or have that imme¬ 
diate expectation of becoming proprietors, 
which produces nearly the same effect on 
character with the possession of property. 
Adventurers who, in other countries, disturb 
society, are there naturally attracted towards 
the frontier, where they pave the way for 
industry, and become the pioneers of civil¬ 
isation. There is no part of their people in 
the situation where democracy is danger¬ 
ous, or even usually powerful. The disper¬ 
sion of the inhabitants, and their distance 
from the scene of great affairs, are perhaps 
likely rather to make the spirit of liberty 
among them languid, than to rouse it to 
excess. 

In what manner the present elective sys¬ 
tem of America may act, at the remote 
period when the progress of society shall 
have conducted that country to the crowded 
cities and unequal fortunes of Europe, no 
man will pretend to foresee, except those 
whose presumptuous folly disables them from 
forming probable conjectures on such sub¬ 


jects. If, from the unparalleled situation of 
America, the present usages should quietly 
prevail for a very long time, they may 
insensibly adapt themselves to the gradual 
changes in the national condition, and at 
length be found capable of subsisting in 
a state of things to which, if they had 
been suddenly introduced, they would have 
proved irreconcileably adverse. In the 
thinly-peopled states of the West, universal 
suffrage itself may be so long exercised 
without the possibility of danger, as to 
create a national habit which may be strong 
enough to render its exercise safe in the 
midst of an indigent populace. In that long 
tranquillity it may languish into forms, and 
these forms may soon follow the spirit. For 
a period far exceeding our foresight, it can¬ 
not affect the confederacy further than the 
effect which may arise from very popular 
elections in a few of the larger Western 
towns. The order of the interior country, 
wherever it is adopted, will be aided by the 
compression of its firmer and more compact 
confederates. It is even possible that the 
extremely popular system which prevails in 
some American elections may, in future 
times, be found not more than sufficient to 
counterbalance the growing influence of 
wealth in the South, and the tendencies 
towards Toryism which are of late per¬ 
ceptible in New England. 

The operation of different principles on 
elections, in various parts of the Continent, 
may even now be discerned. Some remark¬ 
able facts have already appeared. In the 
state of Pennsylvania, we have * a practical 
proof that the Ballot is not attended with 
secrecy. We also know f that commit¬ 
tees composed of the leaders of the Fe¬ 
deral and Democratic parties, instruct their 
partisans how they are to vote at every 
election; and that in this manner the leaders 
of the Democratic party who now predomi- 

* Fearon, Travels in North America, p. 138. 
How could this intelligent writer treat the absence 
of tumult, in such a city and country, as bearing 
any resemblance to the like circumstance in 
Europe ? 

t Ibid. p. 320. 







ON THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE. 655 

nate in their Caucus* or committee at 
Washington, do in effect nominate to all the 
important offices in North America. Thus 
we already see combinations formed, and 
interests arising, on which the future go¬ 
vernment of the confederacy may depend 
more than on the forms of election, or the 
letter of its present laws. Those who con¬ 
demn the principle of party, may disapprove 
these associations as unconstitutional. To 
us who consider parties as inseparable from 
liberty, they seem remarkable as examples 
of those undesigned and unforeseen cor¬ 
rectives of inconvenient laws, which spring 
out of the circumstances of society. The 
election of so great a magistrate as the Pre¬ 
sident, by great numbers of electors, scat- 

tered over a vast continent, without the 
power of concert, or the means of personal 
knowledge, would naturally produce con¬ 
fusion, if it were not tempered by the confi¬ 
dence of the members of both parties in the 
judgment of their respective leaders. The 
permanence of thesje leaders, slowly raised 
by a sort of insensible election to the con¬ 
duct of parties, tends to counteract the evil 
of that system of periodical removal, which 
is peculiarly inconvenient in its application 
to important executive offices. The internal 
discipline of parties may be found to be a 
principle of subordination of great value in 
republican institutions. Certain it is, that 
the affairs of the United States have hitherto 
been generally administered, in times of 
great difficulty and under a succession of 
Presidents, with a forbearance, circumspec¬ 
tion, constancy, and vigour, not surpassed 
by those commonwealths who have been 
most justly renowned for the wisdom of 
their councils. 

The only disgrace or danger which we 
perceive impending over America, arises 
from the execrable institution of slavery, — 
the unjust disfranchisement of free Blacks, 
— the trading in slaves carried on from 
state to state, —and the dissolute and violent 
character of those adventurers, whose impa¬ 
tience for guilty wealth spreads the horrors 
of slavery over the new acquisitions in the 
South. Let the lawgivers of that Imperial 
Republic deeply consider how powerfully 
these disgraceful circumstances tend to 
weaken the love of liberty, — the only bond 
which can hold together such vast territories, 
and therefore the only source and guard of 
the tranquillity and greatness of America. 

-----— i 

* The following account of this strange term 
will show its probable origin, and the long-expe¬ 
rienced efficacy of such an expedient for controlling 
the Ballot: — “ About the year 1738, the father of 
Samuel Adams and twenty others who lived in the 
north or shipping part of Boston, used to meet, to 
make a Caucus, and lay their plan for introducing 
certain persons into places of trust. Each dis¬ 
tributed the ballots in his own circle, and they 
generally carried the election. In this manner 
Mr. S. Adams first became representative for Bos¬ 
ton. Caucusing means electioneering.”' Gordon, 
Histoiy of the American Revolution, p. 216. note. 
It is conjectured, that as this practice originated 
in the shipping part of Boston, “Caucus” was a 
corruption of Caulkers’ Meeting. For this in¬ 
formation we are indebted to Pickering’s Ameri¬ 
can Vocabulary (Boston, 1816); a modest and 
sensible book, of which the principal fault is, 
that the author ascribes too much importance 
to some English writers, who are not objects of 
much reverence to a near observer. Mr. Picker¬ 
ing’s volume, however, deserves a place in English i 
libraries. - 1 










A SPEECH IN DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER,* 

ACCUSED OF A LIBEL ON THE FIRST CONSUL OF FRANCE. 
DELIVERED IN THE COURT OF KING’S DENCH ON THE 21 ST OF FEBRUARY, 1803. 


Gentlemen of the Jury, 

The time is now come for me to address 
you on behalf of the unfortunate Gentleman 
who is the defendant on this record. 

I must begin with observing, that though 
I know myself too well to ascribe to any thing 
but to the kindness and good-nature of my 
learned friend the Attorney-General f the 
unmerited praises which he has been pleased 
to bestow on me, yet I will venture to say, 
he has done me no more than justice in sup¬ 
posing that in this place, and on this occa¬ 


* The First Consul had for some time previously 
shown considerable irritability under the fire of 
the English journalists, when the Peace of Amiens, 
by permitting a rapprochement with the English 
Ministry, afforded an opening through which his 
paw could reach the source of annoyance. M. Jean 
Peltier, on whom it lighted, was an emigrant, who 
had been conducting for some years various pe¬ 
riodical works in the Royalist interest. From one 
of these — “ L’Ambigu ” — three articles, which 
are alluded to separately in the course of the 
speech, were selected by the law officers of the 
Crown for prosecution, as instigating the assassin¬ 
ation of the First Consul. Nor, perhaps, could such 
a conclusion have been successfully struggled with 
by any advocate. The proceeding was one that 
was accompanied with much excitement in public 
opinion, as was evidenced by the concourse of per¬ 
sons surrounding the court on the day of trial. It 
was supposed by some that a verdict of acquittal 
would have had an unfavourable effect upon the 
already feverish state of the intercourse between 
the two Governments. In fact, though found 
“guilty,” the Defendant escaped any sentence 
through the recurrence of hostilities.— Ed. 
f The Right Honourable Spencer Perceval.— Ed. 


sion, where I exercise the functions of an 
inferior minister of justice,— an inferior 
minister indeed, but a minister of justice 
still,—I am incapable of lending myself to 
the passions of any client, and that I will not 
make the proceedings of this Court subser¬ 
vient to any political purpose. Whatever is 
respected by the laws and government of 
my country shall, in this place, be respected 
by me. In considering matters that deeply 
interest the quiet, the safety, and the liber¬ 
ties of all mankind, it is impossible for me 
not to feel warmly and strongly; but I shall 
make an effort to control my feelings, how¬ 
ever painful that effort may be; and where I 
cannot speak out but at the risk of offend¬ 
ing either sincerity or prudence, I shall 
labour to contain myself and be silent. 

I cannot but feel, Gentlemen, how much 
I stand in need of your favourable attention 
and indulgence. The charge which I have 
to defend is surrounded with the most in¬ 
vidious topics of discussion. But they are 
not of my seeking. The case, and the topics 
which are inseparable from it, are brought 
here by the prosecutor. Here I find them, 
and here it is my duty to deal with them, as 
the interests of Mr. Peltier seem to me to 
require. He, by his choice and confidence, 
has cast on me a very arduous duty, which 
I could not decline, and which I can still 
less betray. He has a right to expect from 
me a faithful, a zealous, and a fearless de¬ 
fence ; and this his just expectation, accord¬ 
ing to the measure of my humble abilities, 
shall be fulfilled. I have said, a fearless 







DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 657 


defence : — perhaps that word was unneces¬ 
sary in the place where I now stand. In¬ 
trepidity in the discharge of professional 
duty is so common a quality at the English 
Bar, that it has, thank God! long ceased to 
be a matter of boast or praise. If it had 
been otherwise, Gentlemen, — if the Bar 
could have been silenced or overawed by 
power, I may presume to say, that an 
English jury would not this day have been 
met to administer justice. Perhaps I need 
scarce say that my defence shall be fearless, 
in a place where fear never entered any 
heart but that of a criminal. But you will 
pardon me for having said so much, when 
you consider who the real parties before 
you are. 

Gentlemen, the real prosecutor is the 
master of the greatest empire the civilised 
world ever saw. The defendant is a de¬ 
fenceless, proscribed exile. He is a French 
Royalist, who fled from his country in the 
autumn of 1792, at the period of that me¬ 
morable and awful emigration when all the 
proprietors and magistrates of the greatest 
civilised country of Europe were driven 
from their homes by the daggers of assassins; 
—when our shores were covered, as with 
the wreck of a great tempest, with old men, 
and women, and children, and ministers of 
religion, who fled from the ferocity of their 
countrymen as before an army of invading 
barbarians. The greater part of these un¬ 
fortunate exiles, — of those I mean who have 
been spared by the sword, or who have sur¬ 
vived the effect of pestilential climates or 
broken hearts, — have been since permitted 
to revisit their country. Though despoiled 
of their all, they have eagerly embraced 
even the sad privilege of being suffered to 
die in their native land. Even this mise¬ 
rable indulgence was to be purchased by 
compliances, — by declarations of allegiance 
to the new government, — which some of 
these suffering royalists deemed incompatible 
with their conscience, with their dearest 
attachments, and their most sacred duties. 
Among these last is Mr. Peltier. I do not 
presume to blame those who submitted; and 
I trust you will not judge harshly of those 


who refused. You will not think unfavour¬ 
ably of a man who stands before you as the 
voluntary victim of his loyalty and honour. 
If a revolution (which God avert!) were to 
drive us into exile, and to cast us on a 
foreign shore, we should expect, at least, to 
be pardoned by generous men, for stubborn 
loyalty, and unseasonable fidelity, to the 
laws and government of our fathers. 

This unfortunate Gentleman had devoted 
a great part of his life to literature. It was 
the amusement and ornament of his better 
days: since his own ruin, and the desolation 
of his country, he has been compelled to 
employ it as a means of support. For the 
last ten years he has been engaged in a 
variety of publications of considerable im¬ 
portance : but, since the peace, he has de¬ 
sisted from serious political discussion, and 
confined himself to the obscure journal 
which is now before you, — the least cal¬ 
culated, surely, of any publication that ever 
issued from the press, to rouse the alarms of 
the most jealous government,—which will 
not be read in England, because it is not 
written in our language, — which cannot be 
read in France, because its entry into that 
country is prohibited by a power whose man¬ 
dates are not very supinely enforced, nor 
often evaded with impunity, — which can 
have no other object than that of amusing 
the companions of the author’s principles 
and misfortunes, by pleasantries and sar¬ 
casms on their victorious enemies. There is 
indeed, Gentlemen, one remarkable circum¬ 
stance in this unfortunate publication : — it 
is the only, or almost the only, journal, which 
still dares to espouse the cause of that royal 
and illustrious family, which but fourteen 
years ago was flattered by every press, and 
guarded by every tribunal, in Europe. 
Even the court in which we are met affords 
an example of the vicissitudes of their for¬ 
tune. My Learned Friend has reminded 
you, that the last prosecution tried in this 
place, at the instance of a French govern¬ 
ment, was for a libel on that magnanimous 
princess, who has since been butchered in 
sight of her palace. 

I do not make these observations with 


u u 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


658 


any purpose of questioning the general 
principles which have been laid down by 
my Learned Friend. I must admit his 
right to bring before you those who libel 
any government recognised by His Majesty, 
and at peace with the British empire. I 
admit that, whether such a government be 
of yesterday or a thousand years old, — 
whether it be a crude and bloody usurpation, 
or the most ancient, just, and paternal au¬ 
thority upon earth,—we are here equally 
bound by His Majesty’s recognition to pro¬ 
tect it against libellous attacks. I admit 
that if, during our Usurpation, Lord Claren¬ 
don had published his History at Paris, or 
the Marquis of Montrose his verses on the 
murder of his sovereign, or Mr. Cowley his 
Discourse on Cromwell’s Government, and 
if the English ambassador had complained, 
the President de Mole, or any other of the 
great magistrates who then adorned the 
Parliament of Paris, however reluctantly, 
painfully, and indignantly, might have been 
compelled to have condemned these illus¬ 
trious men to the punishment of libellers. 
I say this only for the sake of bespeaking a 
favourable attention from your generosity 
and compassion to what will be feebly urged 
in behalf of my unfortunate Client, who has 
sacrificed his fortune, his hopes, his con¬ 
nexions, and his country, to his conscience, 
— who seems marked out for destruction in 
this his last asylum. 

That he still enjoys the security of this 
asylum, — that he has not been sacrificed to 
the resentment of his powerful enemies, is 
perhaps owing to the firmness of the King’s 
Government. If that be the fact, Gentle¬ 
men,— if his Majesty’s Ministers have re¬ 
sisted applications to expel this unfortunate 
Gentleman from England, I should publicly 
thank them for their firmness, if it were not 
unseemly and improper to suppose that they 
could have acted otherwise, — to thank an 
English Government for not violating the 
most sacred duties of hospitality, — for not 
bringing indelible disgrace on their country. 
But be that as it may, Gentlemen, he now 
comes before you, perfectly satisfied that an 
English jury is the most refreshing prospect 


that the eye of accused innocence ever met 
in a human tribunal; and he feels with me 
the most fervent gratitude to the Protector 
of empires, that, surrounded as we are with 
the ruins of principalities and powers, we 
still continue to meet together, after the 
manner of our fathers, to administer justice 
in this her ancient sanctuary. 

There is another point of view, Gentlemen, 
in which this case seems to me to merit your 
most serious attention. I consider it as the 
first of a long series of conflicts between 
the greatest power in the world, and the 
only free press remaining in Europe. No 
man living is more thoroughly convinced than 
I am, that my Learned Friend will never 
degrade his excellent character, — that he 
will never disgrace his high magistracy by 
mean compliances, — by an immoderate and 
unconscientious exercise of power; yet I 
am convinced by circumstances which I shall 
now abstain from discussing, that I am to 
consider this as the first of a long series of 
conflicts, between the greatest power in the 
world, and the only free press now remaining 
in Europe. Gentlemen, this distinction of 
the English press is new : it is a proud and 
melancholy distinction. Before the great 
earthquake of the French Revolution had 
swallowed up all the asylums of free dis¬ 
cussion on the Continent, we enjoyed that 
privilege, indeed, more fully than others, 
but we did not enjoy it exclusively. In 
great monarchies the press has always been 
considered as too formidable an engine to be 
entrusted to unlicensed individuals. But in 
other Continental countries, either by the 
laws of the state, or by long habits of libe¬ 
rality and toleration in magistrates, a liberty 
of discussion has been enjoyed, perhaps 
sufficient for the most useful purposes. It 
existed, in fact, where it was not protected 
by law : and the wise and generous conni¬ 
vance of governments was daily more and 
more secured by the growing civilisation of 
their subjects. In Holland, in Switzerland, 
and in the Imperial towns of Germany, the 
press was either legally or practically free. 
Holland and Switzerland are no more : and, 
since the commencement of this prosecution, 







DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 659 


fifty Imperial towns have been erased from 
the list of independent states, by one dash 
of the pen. Three or four still preserve a 
precarious and trembling existence. I will 
not say by what compliances they must pur¬ 
chase its continuance. I will not insult the 
feebleness of states whose unmerited fall I 
do most bitterly deplore. 

These governments were in many respects 
one of the most interesting parts of the 
ancient system of Europe. Unfortunately 
for the repose of mankind, great states are 
compelled, by regard to their own safety, to 
consider the military spirit and martial 
habits of their people as one of the main 
objects of their policy. Frequent hostilities 
seem almost the necessary condition of their 
greatness: and, without being great, they 
cannot long remain safe. Smaller states, 
exempted from this cruel necessity,— a hard 
condition of greatness, a bitter satire on 
human nature, — devoted themselves to the 
arts of peace, to the cultivation of literature, 
and the improvement of reason. They be¬ 
came places of refuge for free and fearless 
discussion : they were the impartial spec¬ 
tators and judges of the various contests of 
ambition, which, from time to time, dis¬ 
turbed the quiet of the world. They thus 
became peculiarly qualified to be the organs 
of that public opinion which converted Eu¬ 
rope into a great republic, with laws which 
mitigated, though they could not extinguish, 
ambition, and with moral tribunals to which 
even the most despotic sovereigns were 
amenable. If wars of aggrandisement were 
undertaken, their authors were arraigned in 
the face of Europe. If acts of internal 
tyranny were perpetrated, they resounded 
from a thousand presses throughout all 
civilised countries. Princes on whose will 
there were no legal checks, thus found a 
moral restraint which the most powerful of 
them could not brave with absolute impu¬ 
nity. They acted before a vast audience, to 
whose applause or condemnation they could 
not be utterly indifferent. The very con¬ 
stitution of human nature,—the unalter¬ 
able laws of the mind of man, against 
which all rebellion is fruitless, subjected the 


proudest tyrants to this control. No eleva¬ 
tion of power,—no depravity, however con¬ 
summate,—no innocence, however spotless, 
can render man wholly independent of the 
praise or blame of his fellow-men. 

These governments were in other respects 
one of the most beautiful and interesting 
parts of our ancient system. The perfect 
security of such inconsiderable and feeble 
states — their undisturbed tranquillity amidst 
the wars and conquests that surrounded 
them attested, beyond any other part of the 
European system, the moderation, the jus¬ 
tice, the civilisation to which Christian Eu¬ 
rope had reached in modern times. Their 
weakness was protected only by the habitual 
reverence for justice, which, during a long 
series of ages, had grown up in Christendom. 
This was the only fortification which de¬ 
fended them against those mighty monarchs 
to whom they offered themselves so easy a 
prey. And, till the French Revolution, this 
was sufficient. Consider, for instance, the 
situation of the republic of Geneva: think 
of her defenceless position in the very jaws 
of France; but think also of her undisturbed 
security, — of her profound quiet,—of the 
brilliant success with which she applied to 
industry and literature, while Louis XIY. 
was pouring his myriads into Italy before 
her gates. Call to mind, if ages crowded 
into years have not effaced them from your 
memory, that happy period when we scarcely 
dreamt more of the subjugation of the 
feeblest republic of Europe, than of the con¬ 
quest of her mightiest empire, and tell me 
if you can imagine a spectacle more beautiful 
to the moral eye, or a more striking proof 
of progress in the noblest principles of true 
civilisation. 

These feeble states,—these monuments 
of the justice of Europe,—the asylum of 
peace, of industry, and of literature,—the 
organs of public reason, — the refuge of 
oppressed innocence and persecuted truth, 
—have perished with those ancient prin¬ 
ciples which were their sole guardians and 
protectors. They have been swallowed up 
by that fearful convulsion, which has shaken 
the uttermost corners of the earth. They 


U u 2 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


660 


are destroyed and gone for ever. One asylum 
of free discussion is still inviolate. There is 
still one spot in Europe where man can freely 
exercise his reason on the most important 
concerns of society,—where he can boldly 
publish his judgment on the acts of the 
proudest and most powerful tyrants. The 
press of England is still free. It is guarded 
by the free constitution of our forefathers; 
— it is guarded by the hearts and arms of 
Englishmen; and I trust I may venture to 
say, that if it be to fall, it will fall only 
under the ruins of the British empire. It 
is an awful consideration, Gentlemen: — 
every other monument of European liberty 
has perished: that ancient fabric which has 
been gradually reared by the wisdom and 
virtue of our fathers still stands. It stands 
(thanks be to God!) solid and entire; but 
it stands alone, and it stands amidst ruins. 

In these extraordinary circumstances, I 
repeat that I must consider this as the first 
of a long series of conflicts between the 
greatest power in the world and the only 
free press remaining in Europe; and I trust 
that you will consider yourselves as the ad¬ 
vanced guard of liberty, as having this day 
to fight the first battle of free discussion 
against the most formidable enemy that it 
ever encountered. You will therefore ex¬ 
cuse me, if on so important an occasion I 
remind you, at more length than is usual, 
of those general principles of law and policy 
on this subject, which have been handed 
down to us by our ancestors. 

Those who slowly built up the fabric of 
our laws, never attempted anything so absurd 
as to define by any precise rule the obscure 
and shifting boundaries which divide libel 
from history or discussion. It is a subject 
which, from its nature, admits neither rules 
nor definitions. The same words may be 
perfectly innocent in one case, and most 
mischievous and libellous in another. A 
change of circumstances, often apparently 
slight, is sufficient to make the whole differ¬ 
ence. These changes, which may be as 
numerous as the variety of human intentions 
and conditions, can never be foreseen or 
comprehended under any legal definitions; 


and the framers of our law have never 
attempted to subject them to such defini¬ 
tions. They left such ridiculous attempts 
to those who call themselves philosophers, 
but who have in fact proved themselves 
most grossly and stupidly ignorant of that 
philosophy which is conversant with human 
affairs. 

The principles of the law of England on 
the subject of political libel are few and 
simple; and they are necessarily so broad, 
that, without an habitually mild administra¬ 
tion of justice, they might encroach mate¬ 
rially on the liberty of political discussion. 
Every publication which is intended to 
vilify either our own government or the go¬ 
vernment of any foreign state in amity with 
this kingdom, is, by the law of England, a 
libel. To protect political discussion from 
the danger to which it would be exposed 
by these wide principles, if they were se¬ 
verely and literally enforced, our ancestors 
trusted to various securities; some growing 
out of the law and constitution, and others 
arising from the character of those public 
officers whom the constitution had formed, 
and to whom its administration is com¬ 
mitted. They trusted in the first place to 
the moderation of the legal officers of the 
Crown, educated in the maxims and imbued 
with the spirit of a free government, con¬ 
trolled by the superintending power of Par¬ 
liament, and peculiarly watched in all poli¬ 
tical prosecutions by the reasonable and 
wholesome jealousy of their fellow-subjects. 
And I am bound to admit, that since the 
glorious era of the Revolution,—making 
due allowance for the frailties, the faults, 
and the occasional vices of men,—they have 
upon the whole not been disappointed. I 
know that, in the hands of my Learned 
Friend, that trust will never be abused. 
But, above all, they confided in the mo¬ 
deration and good sense of juries, — popular 
in their origin,—popular in their feelings, 
—popular in their very prejudices,—taken 
from the mass of the people, and imme¬ 
diately returning to that mass again. By 
these checks and temperaments they hoped 
that they should sufficiently repress ma- 






DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 661 

lignant libels, without endangering that 
freedom of inquiry which is the first security 
of a free state. They knew that the offence 
of a political libel is of a very peculiar 
nature, and differing in the most important 
particulars from all other crimes. In all v 
other cases the most severe execution of law 
can only spread terror among the guilty; 
but in political libels it inspires even the, 
innocent with fear. This striking peculiarity 
arises from the same circumstances which 
make it impossible to define the limits of 
libel and innocent discussion,—which make 
it impossible for a man of the purest and 
most honourable mind to be always per¬ 
fectly certain, whether he be within the 
territory of fair argument and honest narra¬ 
tive, or whether he may not have unwittingly 
overstepped the faint and varying line which 
bounds them. But, Gentlemen, I will go 
farther:—this is the only offence where se¬ 
vere and frequent punishments not only in¬ 
timidate the innocent, but deter men from 
the most meritorious acts, and from ren¬ 
dering the most important services to their 
country, — indispose and disqualify men for 
the discharge of the most sacred duties 
which they owe to mankind. To inform 
the public on the conduct of those who ad¬ 
minister public affairs, requires courage and 
conscious security. It is always an in¬ 
vidious and obnoxious office; but it is often 
the most necessary of all public duties. If 
it is not done boldly, it cannot be done effec¬ 
tually : and it is not from writers trembling 
under the uplifted scourge, that we are to 
hope for it. 

There are other matters, Gentlemen, to 
which I am desirous of particularly calling 
your attention. These are, the circum¬ 
stances in the condition of this country, 
which have induced our ancestors, at all 
times, to handle with more than ordinary 
tenderness that branch of the liberty of dis¬ 
cussion which is applied to the conduct of 
foreign states. The relation of this kingdom 
to the commonwealth of Europe is so pe¬ 
culiar, that no history, I think, furnishes a 
parallel to it. From the moment in which 
we abandoned all projects of Continental 

aggrandisement, we could have no interest 
respecting the state of the Continent, but 
the interests of national safety, and of com¬ 
mercial prosperity. The paramount interest 
of every state,—that which comprehends 
every other, is security: and the security of 
Great Britain requires nothing on the Con¬ 
tinent but the uniform observance of justice. 
t It requires nothing but the inviolability of 
ancient boundaries, and the sacredness of 
ancient possessions, which, on these subjects, 
is but another form of words for justice. 

As to commercial prosperity, it is, indeed, 
a secondary, but still a very important branch 
of our national interest; and it requires 
nothing on the Continent of Europe but the 
maintenance of peace, as far as the paramount 
interest of security will allow. Whatever 
ignorant or prejudiced men may affirm, no 
war was ever gainful to a commercial nation. 
Losses may be less in some, and incidental 
profits may arise in others. But no such 
profits ever formed an adequate compen¬ 
sation for the waste of capital and industry 
which all wars must produce. Next to 
peace, our commercial greatness depends 
chiefly on the affluence and prosperity of 
our neighbours. A commercial nation has, 
indeed, the same interest in the wealth of 
her neighbours, that a tradesman has in the 
wealth of his customers. The prosperity of 
England has been chiefly owing to the gene¬ 
ral progress of civilised nations in the arts 
and improvements of social life. Not an 
acre of land has been brought into culti¬ 
vation in the wilds of Siberia, or on the 
shores of the Mississippi, which has not 
widened the market for English industry. 

It is nourished by the progressive pro¬ 
sperity of the world; and it amply repays 
all that it has received. It can only be em¬ 
ployed in spreading civilisation and enjoy¬ 
ment over the earth ; and by the unchange¬ 
able laws of nature, in spite of the impotent 
tricks of governments, it is now partly ap¬ 
plied to revive the industry of those very 
nations who are the loudest in their senseless 
clamours against its pretended mischiefs. If 
the blind and barbarous project of destroy¬ 
ing English prosperity could be accomplished, 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


662 


it could have no other effect than that of 
completely beggaring the very countries, 
which now stupidly ascribe their own poverty 
to our wealth. 

Under these circumstances, Gentlemen, it 
became the obvious policy of this kingdom, 

— a policy in unison with the maxims of a 
free government, — to consider with great 
indulgence even the boldest animadversions 
of our political writers on the ambitious 
projects of foreign states. Bold, and some¬ 
times indiscreet, as these animadversions 
might be, they had at least the effect of 
warning the people of their danger, and of 
rousing the national indignation against 
those encroachments which England has 
almost always been compelled in the end to 
resist by arms. Seldom, indeed, has she 
been allowed to wait, till a provident regard 
to her own safety should compel her to take 
up arms in defence of others. For, as it 
was said by a great orator of antiquity, 
“ that no man ever was the enemy of the 
republic who had not first declared war 
against him,”* so I may say, with truth, 
that no man ever meditated the subjugation 
of Europe, who did not consider the destruc¬ 
tion, or the corruption, of England as the 
first condition of his success. If you ex¬ 
amine history you will find, that no such 
project was ever formed in which it was not 
deemed a necessary preliminary, either to 
detach England from the common cause, or 
to destroy her. It seems as if all the con¬ 
spirators against the independence of nations 
might have sufficiently taught other states 
that England is their natural guardian and 
protector, — that she alone has no interest 
but their preservation, — that her safety is 
interwoven with their own. When vast 
projects of aggrandisement are manifested, 

— when schemes of criminal ambition are 
carried into effect, the day of battle is fast 
approaching for England. Her free govern¬ 
ment cannot engage in dangerous wars, 
without the hearty and affectionate support 
of her people. A state thus situated cannot 


* The reference is probably to Cicero. Orat. in 
Catilinam, iv. cap. 10. — Ed. 


without the utmost peril silence those 
public discussions, which are to point the 
popular indignation against those who must 
soon be enemies. In domestic dissensions, it 
may sometimes be the supposed interest of 
government to overawe the press : but it 
never can be even their apparent interest 
when the danger is purely foreign. A King 
of England who, in such circumstances, 
should conspire against the free press of 
this country, would undermine the found¬ 
ations of his own throne; — he would silence 
the trumpet which is to call his people round 
his standard. 

Gentlemen, the public spirit of a people 
(by which I mean the whole body of those 
affections which unites men’s hearts to the 
commonwealth) is in various countries com¬ 
posed of various elements, and depends on a 
great variety of causes. In this country, I 
may venture to say, that it mainly depends 
on the vigour of the popular parts and prin¬ 
ciples of our government; and that the 
spirit of liberty is one of its most important 
elements. Perhaps it may depend less on 
those advantages of a free government, which 
are most highly estimated by calm reason, 
than upon those parts of it which delight 
the imagination, and flatter the just and 
natural pride of mankind. Am ong these 
we are certainly not to forget the political 
rights which are not uniformly withheld 
from the lowest classes, and the continual 
appeal made to them, in public discussion, 
upon the greatest interests of the state. 
These are undoubtedly among the circum¬ 
stances which endear to Englishmen their 
government and their country, and animate 
their zeal for that glorious institution which 
confers on the meanest of them a sort of 
distinction and nobility unknown to the 
most illustrious slaves, who tremble at the 
frown of a tyrant. Whoever was unwarily 
and rashly to abolish or narrow these privi¬ 
leges (which it must be owned are liable to 
great abuse, and to very specious objections), 
might perhaps discover, too late, that he had 
been dismantling the fortifications of his 
country. Of whatever elements public 
spirit is composed, it is always and every 













DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 


where the chief defensive principle of a 
state (it is perfectly distinct from courage: 

— perhaps no nation — certainly no Eu¬ 
ropean nation ever perished from an infe¬ 
riority of courage); and undoubtedly no 
considerable nation was ever subdued, in 
which the public affections were sound and 
vigorous. It is public spirit which binds 
together the dispersed courage of individuals, 
and fastens it to the commonwealth : — it is 
therefore, as I have said, the chief defensive 
principle of every country. Of all the 
stimulants which rouse it into action, the 
most powerful among us is certainly the 
press : and the press cannot be restrained 
or weakened without imminent danger that 
the national spirit may languish, and that 
the people may act with less zeal and affec¬ 
tion for their country in the hour of its 
danger. 

These principles, Gentlemen, are not new: 
they are genuine old English principles. 
And though in our days they have been 
disgraced and abused by ruffians and fana¬ 
tics, they are in themselves as just and sound 
as they are liberal; and they are the only 
principles on which a free state can be safely 
governed. These principles I have adopted 
since I first learnt the use of reason ; and I 
think I shall abandon them only with life. 

On these principles I am now to call your 
attention to the libel with which this unfor¬ 
tunate Gentleman is charged. I heartily 
rejoice that I concur with the greatest part 
of what has been said by my Learned Friend, 
who has done honour even to his character 
by the generous and liberal principles which 
he has laid down. He has told you that he 
does not mean to attack historical narrative; 

— he has toid you that he does not mean to 
attack political discussion;—he has told you 
also that he does not consider every intem¬ 
perate word into which a writer, fairly en¬ 
gaged in narration or reasoning, might be 
betrayed, as a fit subject for prosecution. 
The essence of the crime of libel consists in 
the malignant mind which the publication 
proves, and from which it flows. A jury 
must be convinced, before they find a man 
guilty of libel, that his intention was to libel, 


-1 

663 

— not to state facts which he believed to be 
true, or reasonings which he thought just. 
My Learned Friend has told you that the 
liberty of history includes the right of pub¬ 
lishing those observations which occur to in¬ 
telligent men when they consider the affairs 
of the world ; and I think he will not deny 
that it includes also the right of expressing 
those sentiments which all good men feel on 
the contemplation of extraordinary examples 
of depravity or excellence. 

One more privilege of the historian, which 
the Attorney-General has not named, but to 
which his principles extend, it is now my 
duty to claim on behalf of my client: — I 
mean, the right of republishing, historically, 
those documents (whatever their original 
malignity may be) which display the charac¬ 
ter and unfold the intentions of governments, 
or factions, or individuals. I think my 
Learned Friend will not deny, that an his¬ 
torical compiler may innocently republish in 
England the most insolent and outrageous 
declaration of war ever published against 
His Majesty by a foreign government. The 
intention of the original author was to vilify 
and degrade his Majesty’s government: but 
the intention of the compiler is only to 
gratify curiosity, or perhaps to rouse just 
indignation against the calumniator whose 
production he republishes; his intention is 
not libellous, — his republication is therefore 
not a libel. Suppose this to be the case with 
Mr. Peltier ; — suppose him to have repub¬ 
lished libels with a merely historical inten¬ 
tion. In that case it cannot be pretended 
that he is more a libeller than my learned 
friend Mr. Abbott *, who read these supposed 
libels to you when he opened the pleadings. 
Mr. Abbott republished them to you, that 
you might know and judge of them: Mr. 
Peltier, on the supposition I have made, 
also republished them, that the public might 
know and judge of them. 

You already know that the general plan 
of Mr. Peltier’s publication was to give a 
picture of the cabals and intrigues, — of the 


* The junior counsel for the prosecution, after¬ 
wards Lord Tenterden. — Ed. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS AVORKS. 


664 


hopes and projects, of French factions. It 
is undoubtedly a natural and necessary part 
of this plan to republish all the serious and 
ludicrous pieces which these factions cir¬ 
culate against each other. The Ode ascribed 
to Chenier or Ginguene I do really believe 
to have been written at Paris, — to have been 
circulated there, — to have been there attri¬ 
buted to one of these writers, — to have 
been sent to England as their work, — and 
as such, to have been republished by Mr. 
Peltier. But I am not sure that I have 
evidence to convince you of the truth of 
this. Suppose that I have not: will my 
Learned Friend say that my client must 
necessarily be convicted ? I, on the con¬ 
trary, contend, that it is for my Learned 
Friend to show that it is not an historical 
republication: — such it professes to be, and 
that profession it is for him to disprove. 
The profession may indeed be a “ mask: ” 
but it is for my Friend to pluck off the mask, 
and expose the libeller, before he calls upon 
you for a verdict of “ guilty.” 

If the general lawfulness of such repub¬ 
lications be denied, then I must ask Mr. 
Attorney-General to account for the long 
impunity which English newspapers have 
enjoyed. I must request him to tell you 
why they have been suffered to republish all 
the atrocious, official and unofficial, libels 
which have been published against His Ma¬ 
jesty for the last ten years, by the Brissots, 
the Marats, the Dantons, the Robespierres, 
the Barreres, the Talliens, the Reubells, the 
Merlins, the Barras, and all that long line 
of bloody tyrants who oppressed their own 
country, and insulted every other which they 
had not the power to rob. What must be 
the answer? That the English publishers 
were either innocent if their motive was to 
gratify curiosity, or praiseworthy if their 
intention was to rouse indignation against 
the calumniators of their country. If any 
other answer be made, I must remind my 
Friend of a most sacred part of his duty, — 
the duty of protecting the honest fame of 
those who are absent in the service of their 
country. Within these few days, we have 
seen in every newspaper in England, a pub¬ 


lication, called the Report of Col. Sebas- 
tiani, in which a gallant British officer 
(General Stuart) is charged with writing 
letters to procure assassination. The pub¬ 
lishers of that infamous Report are not and 
will not be prosecuted, because their inten¬ 
tion is not to libel General Stuart. On any 
other principle, why have all our newspapers 
been suffered to circulate that most atrocious 
of all libels against the King and people of 
England, which purports to be translated 
from the Moniteur of the 9th of August, 
1802 ; a libel against a Prince, who has passed 
through a factious and stormy reign of forty- 
three years without a single imputation on 
his personal character, — against a people 
who have passed through the severest trials 
of national virtue with unimpaired glory, 
who alone in the world can boast of mutinies 
without murder, of triumphant mobs with¬ 
out massacre, of bloodless revolutions and of 
civil wars unstained by a single assassination; 

— that most impudent and malignant libel, 
which charges such a King of such a people 
not only with having hired assassins, but 
with being so shameless, — so lost to all 
sense of character, as to have bestowed on 
these assassins, if their murderous projects 
had succeeded, the highest badges of public 
honour, — the rewards reserved for states¬ 
men and heroes, — the Order of the Garter; 

— the Order which was founded by the 
heroes of Crecy and Poitiers, — the Garter 
which was worn by Henry the Great and 
by Gustavus Adolphus, — which might now 
be worn by the Hero * who, on the shores of 
Syria, the ancient theatre of English chi¬ 
valry, has revived the renown of English va¬ 
lour and of English humanity, — that unsul¬ 
lied Garter, which a detestable libeller dares 
to say is to be paid as the price of murder ? 

If I had now to defend an English pub¬ 
lisher for the republication of that abomi¬ 
nable libel, what must I have said on his 
defence ? I must have told you that it was 
originally published by the French Govern¬ 
ment in their official gazette, — that it was 
republished by the English editor to gratify 


* Sir Sydney Smith. — Ed. 







DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 665 


the natural curiosity, perhaps to rouse the 
just resentment, of his English readers. I 
should have contended, and, I trust, with 
success, that his republication of a libel was 
not libellous, — that it was lawful, — that it 
was laudable. All that would be important, 
at least all that would be essential in such a 
defence, I now state to you on behalf of Mr. 
Peltier; and if an English newspaper may 
safely republish the libels of the French 
Government against his Majesty, I shall 
leave you to judge whether Mr. Peltier, in 
similar circumstances, may not, with equal 
safety, republish the libels of Chenier against 
the First Consul. On the one hand, you 
have the assurances of Mr. Peltier in the 
context, that this Ode is merely a repub¬ 
lication ; — you have also the general plan 
of his work, with which such a republication 
is perfectly consistent. On the other hand, 
you have only the suspicions of Mr. Attor¬ 
ney-General that this Ode is an original 
production of the Defendant. 

But supposing that you should think it 
his production, and that you should also 
think it a libel, — even in that event, which 
I cannot anticipate, I am not left without a 
defence. The question will still be open: — 
is it a libel on Buonaparte, or is it a libel on 
Chenier or Ginguene ? This is not an in¬ 
formation for a libel on Chenier; and if you 
should think that this Ode was produced by 
Mr. Peltier, and ascribed by him to Chenier 
for the sake of covering that writer with the 
odium of Jacobinism, the Defendant is en¬ 
titled to your verdict of “ not guilty.” Or 
if you should believe that it is ascribed to 
Jacobinical writers for the sake of satirising a 
French Jacobinical faction, you must also in 
that case acquit him. Butler puts seditious 
and immoral language into the mouths of 
rebels and fanatics; but Hudibras is not for 
that reason a libel on morality or govern¬ 
ment. Swift, in the most exquisite piece of 
irony in the world (his Argument against 
the Abolition of Christianity), uses the lan¬ 
guage of those shallow, atheistical coxcombs 
whom his satire was intended to scourge. 
The scheme of his irony required some levity, 
and even some profaneness of language; but 


nobody was ever so dull as to doubt whether 
Swift meant to satirise atheism or religion. 
In the same manner Mr. Peltier, when he 
wrote a satire on French Jacobinism, was 
compelled to ascribe to Jacobins a Ja¬ 
cobinical hatred of government. He was 
obliged, by dramatic propriety, to put into 
their mouths those anarchical maxims which 
are complained of in this Ode. But it will 
be said, these incitements to insurrection are 
here directed against the authority of Buona¬ 
parte. This proves nothing, because they 
must have been so directed, if the Ode was 
a satire on Jacobinism. French Jacobins 
must inveigh against Buonaparte, because 
he exercises the powers of government: the 
satirist who attacks them must transcribe 
their sentiments and adopt their language. 

I do not mean to say, Gentlemen, that 
Mr. Peltier feels any affection, or professes 
any allegiance to Buonaparte. If I were 
to say so, he would disown me. He would 
disdain to purchase an acquittal by the pro¬ 
fession of sentiments which he disclaims and 
abhors. Not to love Buonaparte is no crime. 
The question is not whether Mr. Peltier 
loves or hates the First Consul, but whether 
he has put revolutionary language into the 
mouth of Jacobins, with a view to paint 
their incorrigible turbulence, and to exhibit 
the fruits of Jacobinical revolutions to the 
detestation of mankind. 

Now, Gentlemen, we cannot give a pro¬ 
bable answer to this question without pre¬ 
viously examining two or three questions on 
which the answer to the first must very 
much depend. Is there a faction in France 
which breathes the spirit, and is likely to 
employ the language of this Ode ? Does it 
perfectly accord with their character and 
views ? Is it utterly irreconcileable with the 
feelings, opinions, and wishes of Mr. Peltier ? 
If these questions can be answered in the 
affirmative, then I think you must agree 
with me, that Mr. Peltier does not in this 
Ode speak his own sentiments, — that he 
does not here vent his own resentment 
against Buonaparte, but that he personates 
a Jacobin, and adopts his language for the 
sake of satirising his principles. 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


663 

These questions, Gentlemen, lead me to 
those political discussions, which, generally 
speaking, are in a court of justice odious and 
disgusting. Here, however, they are neces¬ 
sary, and I shall consider them only as far 
as the necessities of this cause require. 

Gentlemen, the French Revolution — I 
must pause, after I have uttered words 
which present such an overwhelming idea. 
But I have not now to engage in an enter¬ 
prise so far beyond my force as that of 
examining and judging that tremendous re¬ 
volution. I have only to consider the cha¬ 
racter of the factions which it must have 
left behind it. The French Revolution began 
with great and fatal errors. These errors 
produced atrocious crimes. A mild and 
feeble monarchy was succeeded by bloody 
anarchy, which very shortly gave birth to 
military despotism. France, in a few years, 
described the whole circle of human society. 
All this was in the order of nature. When 
every principle of authority and civil dis¬ 
cipline, — when every principle which en¬ 
ables some men to command, and disposes 
others to obey, was extirpated from the 
mind by atrocious theories, and still more 
atrocious examples, — when every old insti¬ 
tution was trampled down with contumely, 
and every new institution covered in its 
cradle with blood, — when the principle of 
property itself, the sheet-anchor of society, 
was annihilated, — when in the persons of 
the new possessors, whom the poverty of 
language obliges us to call proprietors, it 
was contaminated in its source by robbery 
and murder, and became separated from the 
education and the manners, from the general 
presumption of superior knowledge and 
more scrupulous probity which form its only 
liberal titles to respect, — when the people 
were taught to despise every thing old, and 
compelled to detest every thing new, there 
remained only one principle strong enough 
to hold society together, — a principle ut¬ 
terly incompatible, indeed, with liberty, and 
unfriendly to civilisation itself, — a tyran¬ 
nical and barbarous principle, but, in that 
miserable condition of human affairs, a 
refuge from still more intolerable evils : — I 


| mean the principle of military power, which 
' gains strength from that confusion and 
bloodshed in which all the other elements 
of society are dissolved, and which, in these 
terrible extremities, is the cement that 
preserves it from total destruction. Under 
such circumstances, Buonaparte usurped the 
supreme power in France ; — I say usurped , 
because an illegal assumption of power is an 
usurpation. But usurpation, in its strongest 
moral sense, is scarcely applicable to a pe¬ 
riod of lawless and savage anarchy. The 
guilt of military usurpation, in truth, be¬ 
longs to the authors of those confusions 
which sooner or later give birth to such an 
usurpation. Thus, to use the words of the 
historian, “ by recent as well as all ancient 
example, it became evident, that illegal vio¬ 
lence, with whatever pretences it may be 
covered, and whatever object it may pursue, 
must inevitably end at last in the arbitrary 
and despotic government of a single per¬ 
son.” * But though the government of 
Buonaparte has silenced the Revolutionary 
factions, it has not and it cannot have extin¬ 
guished them. No human power could re¬ 
impress upon the minds of men all those 
sentiments and opinions which the so¬ 
phistry and anarchy of fourteen years had 
obliterated. A faction must exist, which 
breathes the spirit of the Ode now be¬ 
fore you. 

It is, I know, not the spirit of the quiet 
and submissive majority of the French 
people. They have always rather suffered, 
than acted in, the Revolution. Completely 
exhausted by the calamities through which 
they have passed, they yield to any power 
which gives them repose. There is, indeed, 
a degree of oppression which rouses men to 
resistance ; but there is another and a greater 
which wholly subdues and unmans them. It 
is remarkable that Robespierre himself was 
safe, till he attacked his own accomplices. 
The spirit of men of virtue was broken, and 
there was no vigour of character left to 
destroy him, but in those daring ruffians 
who were the sharers of his tyranny. 

* Hume, History of England, vol. vii. p. 220. 







DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 667 


As for the wretched populace who were 
made the blind and senseless instrument of 
so many crimes, — whose frenzy can now be 
reviewed by a good mind, with scarce any 
moral sentiment but that of compassion, — 
that miserable multitude of beings, scarcely 
human, have already fallen into a brutish 
forgetfulness of the very atrocities which 
they themselves perpetrated: they have 
already forgotten all the acts of their 
drunken fury. If you ask one of them, who 
destroyed that magnificent monument of 
religion and art ? or who perpetrated that 
massacre ? they stupidly answer, “ The Ja¬ 
cobins ! ” though he who gives the answer 
was probably one of these Jacobins himself; 
so that a traveller, ignorant of French his¬ 
tory, might suppose the Jacobins to be the 
name of some Tartar horde, who, after lay¬ 
ing waste France for ten years, were at last 
expelled by the native inhabitants. They 
have passed from senseless rage to stupid 
quiet: their delirium is followed by lethargy. 

In a word, Gentlemen, the great body of 
the people of France have been severely 
trained in those convulsions and proscrip¬ 
tions which are the school of slavery. They 
are capable of no mutinous, and even of no 
bold and manly political sentiments : and if 
this Ode professed to paint their opinions, it 
would be a most unfaithful picture. But it 
is otherwise with those who have been the 
actors and leaders in the scene of blood : it 
is otherwise with the numerous agents of 
the most indefatigable, searching, multiform, 
and omnipresent tyranny that ever existed, 
which pervaded every class of society,— 
which had ministers and victims in every 
village in France. 

Some of them, indeed, — the basest of the 
race, — the Sophists, the Rhetors, the Poet- 
laureates of murder, — who were cruel only 
from cowardice, and calculating selfishness, 
are perfectly willing to transfer their venal 
pens to any government that does not dis¬ 
dain their infamous support. These men, 
republicans from servility, who published 
rhetorical panegyrics on massacre, and who 
reduced plunder to a system of ethics, are as 
ready to preach slavery as anarchy. But 


the more daring—I had almost said the 
more respectable — ruffians cannot so easily 
bend their heads under the yoke. These 
fierce spirits have not lost 

“ The unconquerable will, the study of revenge, 
immortal hate.” * 

They leave the luxuries of servitude to the 
mean and dastardly hypocrites, — to the Be- 
lials and Mammons of the infernal faction. 
They pursue their old end of tyranny under 
their old pretext of liberty. The recollec¬ 
tion of their unbounded power renders 
every inferior condition irksome and vapid: 
and their former atrocities form, if I may so 
speak, a sort of moral destiny which irre¬ 
sistibly impels them to the perpetration of 
new crimes. They have no place left for 
penitence on earth: they labour under the 
most awful proscription of opinion that 
ever was pronounced against human beings : 
they have cut down every bridge by which 
they could retreat into the society of men. 
Awakened from their dreams of democracy, 
— the noise subsided that deafened their 
ears to the voice of humanity, — the film 
fallen from their eyes which hid from them 
the blackness of their own deeds,—haunted 
by the memory of their inexpiable guilt, — 
condemned daily to look on the faces of 
those whom their hand has made widows 
and orphans, they are goaded and scourged 
by these real furies, and hurried into the 
tumult of new crimes, to drown the cries of 
remorse, or, if they be too depraved for 
remorse, to silence the curses of mankind. 
Tyrannical power is their only refuge from 
the just vengeance of their fellow creatures : 
murder is their only means of usurping 
power. They have no taste, no occupation, 
no pursuit, but power and blood. If their 
hands are tied, they must at least have the 
luxury of murderous projects. They have 
drunk too deeply of human blood ever to 
relinquish their cannibal appetite. 

Such a faction exists in France: it is 
numerous ; it is powerful; and it has a prin¬ 
ciple of fidelity stronger than any that ever 

* Paradise Lost, bpok ii. — Ed. 















668 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

held together a society. They are banded 
together by despair of forgiveness, — by the 
unanimous detestation of mankind. They 
are now restrained by a severe and stern 
government: but they still meditate the re¬ 
newal of insurrection and massacre; and 
they are prepared to renew the worst and 
most atrocious of their crimes,—that crime 
against posterity and against human nature 
itself, — that crime of which the latest gene¬ 
rations of mankind may feel the fatal con¬ 
sequences,—the crime of degrading and pro¬ 
stituting the sacred name of liberty. I must 
own that, however paradoxical it may appear, 1 
I should almost think not worse, but more j 
meanly of them if it were otherwise. I must 
then think them destitute of that — I will 
not call it courage, because that is the name 
of a virtue — but of that ferocious energy 
which alone rescues ruffians from contempt. 
If they were destitute of that which is the 
heroism of murderers, they would be the 
lowest as well as the most abominable of 
beings. It is impossible to conceive any 
thing more despicable than wretches who, 
after hectoring and bullying over their 
meek and blameless sovereign, and his de¬ 
fenceless family, — whom they kept so long 
in a dungeon trembling for their existence, 
— whom they put to death by a slow 
torture of three years, — after playing the 
republicans and the tyrannicides to women 
and children, — become the supple and 
fawning slaves of the first government that 
knows how to wield the scourge with a firm 
hand. 

I have used the word “ Republican,” be¬ 
cause it is the name by which this atrocious 
faction describes itself. The assumption of 
that name is one of their crimes. They are 
no more “ Republicans ” than “ Royalists: ” 
they are the common enemies of all human 
society. God forbid, that by the use of that 
word, I should be supposed to reflect on the 
members of those respectable republican 
communities which did exist in Europe before 
the French Revolution. That Revolution has 
spared many monarchies, but it has spared 
no republic within the sphere of its destruc¬ 
tive energy. One republic only now exists in 

the world — a republic of English blood, 
which was originally composed of republican 
societies, under the protection of a monarchy, 
which had therefore no great and perilous 
change in their internal constitution to effect, 
and of which (I speak it with pleasure and 
pride) the inhabitants, even in the convul¬ 
sions of a most deplorable separation, dis¬ 
played the humanity as well as valour, which 

I trust I may say they inherited from their 
forefathers. Nor do I mean, by the use of 
the word “ Republican,” to confound this 
execrable faction with all those who, in the 
liberty of private speculation, may prefer a 
republican form of government. I own, that 
after much reflection, I am not able to con¬ 
ceive an error more gross than that of those 
who believe in the possibility of erecting a 
republic in any of the old monarchical coun¬ 
tries of Europe, — who believe that in such 
countries an elective supreme magistracy 
can produce any thing but a succession of 
stern tyrannies and bloody civil wars. It is 
a supposition which is belied by all experi¬ 
ence, and which betrays the greatest igno¬ 
rance of the first principles of the constitution 
of society. It is an error which has a false 
appearance of superiority over vulgar pre¬ 
judice ; it is, therefore, too apt to be attended 
with the most criminal rashness and pre¬ 
sumption, and too easy to be inflamed into 
the most immoral and anti-social fanaticism. 
But as long as it remains a mere quiescent 
error, it is not the proper subject of moral 
disapprobation. 

If then, Gentlemen, such a faction, falsely 
calling itself “ Republican,” exists in France, 
let us consider whether this Ode speaks 
their sentiments, — describes their cha¬ 
racter, — agrees with their views. Trying 
it by the principle I have stated, I think 
you will have no difficulty in concluding, 
that it is agreeable to the general plan of 
this publication to give an historical and 
satirical view of the Brutuses and brutes of 
the Republic, — of those who assumed and 
disgraced the name of Brutus*, and who, 

* A Citizen Brutus was President of the Mili¬ 
tary Commission at Marseilles, in January, 1794. 











DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 669 


under that name, sat as judges in their 
mock tribunals with pistols in their girdles, 
to anticipate the office of the executioner 
on those unfortunate men whom they treated 
as rebels, for resistance to Robespierre and 
Couthon. 

I now come to show you, that this Ode 
cannot represent the opinions of Mr. Peltier. 
He is a French Royalist; he has devoted 
his talents to the cause of his King; for 
that cause he has sacrificed his fortune and 
hazarded his life; — for that cause he is 
proscribed and exiled from his country. 
I could easily conceive powerful topics of 
Royalist invective against Buonaparte : and 
if Mr. Peltier had called upon Frenchmen 
by the memory of St. Louis and Henry the 
Great, — by the memory of that illustrious 
family which reigned over them for seven 
centuries, and with whom all their martial 
renown and literary glory are so closely con¬ 
nected, — if he had adjured them by the 
spotless name of that Louis XVI., the martyr 
of his love for his people, which scarce a 
man in France can now pronounce but in 
the tone of pity and veneration, — if he had 
thus called upon them to change their use¬ 
less regret and their barren pity into ge¬ 
nerous and active indignation, — if he had 
reproached the conquerors of Europe with 
the disgrace of being the slaves of an up¬ 
start stranger, — if he had brought before 
their minds the contrast between their coun¬ 
try under her ancient monarchs, the source 
and model of refinement in manners and 
taste, and since their expulsion the scourge 
and opprobrium of humanity, — if he had 
exhorted them to drive out their ignoble 
tyrants, and to restore their native sove¬ 
reign, I should then have recognised the 
voice of a Royalist, — I should have recog¬ 
nised language that must have flowed from 
the heart of Mr. Peltier, and I should have 
been compelled to acknowledge that it was 
pointed against Buonaparte. 

But instead of these, or similar topics, 
what have we in this Ode ? On the sup¬ 
position that it is the invective of a Royalist, 
how is it to be reconciled to common sense ? 
What purpose is it to serve ? To whom is it 


addressed ? To what interests does it ap¬ 
peal ? What passions is it to rouse ? If it be 
addressed to Royalists, then I request, Gen¬ 
tlemen, that you will carefully read it, and 
tell me whether, on that supposition, it can 
be any thing but the ravings of insanity, 
and whether a commission of lunacy be not 
a proceeding more fitted to the author’s 
case, than a conviction for a libel. On that 
supposition, I ask you whether it does not 
amount, in substance, to such an address as 
the following : — “ Frenchmen ! Royalists! 
I do not call upon you to avenge the murder 
of your innocent sovereign, the butchery of 
your relations and friends, or the disgrace 
and oppression of your country. I call 
upon you by the hereditary right of Barras, 
transmitted through a long series of ages, — 
by the beneficent government of Merlin and 
Reubell, those worthy successors of Charle¬ 
magne, whose authority was as mild as it 
was lawful, — I call upon you to revenge 
on Buonaparte the deposition of that Di¬ 
rectory who condemned the far greater part 
of yourselves to beggary and exile, — who 
covered France with Bastiles and scaffolds, 
— who doomed the most respectable re¬ 
maining members of their community, the 
Pichegrus, the Barbe-Marbois’, the Barthe- 
lemis, to a lingering death in the pestilential 
wilds of Guiana. I call upon you to avenge 
on Buonaparte the cause of those Councils 
of Five Hundred, or of Two Hundred, of 
Elders or of Youngsters, — those disgusting 
and nauseous mockeries of representative 
assemblies, — those miserable councils which 
sycophant sophists had converted into ma¬ 
chines for fabricating decrees of proscrip¬ 
tion and confiscation, — which not only pro¬ 
scribed unborn thousands, but, by a refine¬ 
ment and innovation in rapine, visited the 
sins of the children upon the fathers and 
beggared parents, not for the offences but 
for the misfortunes of their sons. I call 
upon you to restore this Directory and these 
Councils, and all this horrible profanation of 
the name of a republic, and to punish those 
who delivered you from them. I exhort 
you to reverence the den of these banditti 
as ‘ the sanctuary of the laws,’ and to la- 






670 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


ment the day in which this intolerable 
nuisance was abated as ‘ an unfortunate 
day.’ Last of all, I exhort you once more 
to follow that deplorable chimera, — the 
first lure that led you to destruction, — the 
sovereignty of the people ; although I know, 
and you have bitterly felt, that you never 
were so much slaves in fact, as since you 
have been sovereigns in theory! ” Let me 
ask Mr. Attorney-General, whether, upon 
his supposition, I have not given you a 
faithful translation of this Ode; and I think 
I may safely repeat, that, if this be the lan¬ 
guage of a Royalist addressed to Royalists, 
it must be the production of a lunatic. But, 
on my supposition, every thing is natural 
and consistent. You have the sentiments 
and language of a Jacobin: — it is there¬ 
fore probable, if you take it as an historical 
republication of a Jacobin piece; it is just, 
if you take it as a satirical representation of 
Jacobin opinions and projects. 

Perhaps it will be said, that this is the 
production of a Royalist writer, who as¬ 
sumes a Republican disguise to serve 
Royalist purposes. But if my Learned 
Friend chooses that supposition, I think an 
equal absurdity returns upon him in an¬ 
other shape. We must then suppose it to 
be intended to excite Republican discon¬ 
tent and insurrection against Buonaparte. 
It must then be taken as addressed to Re¬ 
publicans. Would Mr. Peltier, in that case, 
have disclosed his name as the publisher? 
Would he not much rather have circulated 
the Ode in the name of Chenier, without 
prefixing his own, which was more than 
sufficient to warn his Jacobinical readers 
against all his counsels and exhortations. 
If he had circulated it under the name of 
Chenier only, he would indeed have hung 
out Republican colours; but by prefixing 
his own, he appears without disguise. You 
must suppose him then to say : — “ Repub¬ 
licans! I, your mortal enemy for fourteen 
years, whom you have robbed of his all, — 
whom you have forbidden to revisit his 
country under pain of death, — who, from 
the beginning of the Revolution, has un¬ 
ceasingly poured ridicule upon your follies, 


and exposed your crimes to detestation, — 
who in the cause of his unhappy sovereign 
braved your dangers for three years, and 
who escaped, almost by miracle, from your 
assassins in September, — who has since 
been constantly employed in warning other 
nations by your example, and in collecting 
the evidence upon which history will pro¬ 
nounce your condemnation, — I who at this 
moment deliberately choose exile and ho¬ 
nourable poverty, rather than give the 
slightest mark of external compliance with 
your abominable institutions, — I your most 
irreconcileable and indefatigable enemy, of¬ 
fer you counsel which you know can only 
be a snare into which I expect you to fall, 
though by the mere publication of my name 
I have sufficiently forewarned you that I 
can have no aim but that of your destruc¬ 
tion.” I ask you again, Gentlemen, is this 
common sense ? Is it not as clear, from the 
name of the author, that it is not addressed 
to Jacobins, as, from the contents of the 
publication, that it is not addressed to 
Royalists? It may be the genuine work 
of Chenier; for the topics are such as he 
would employ : it may be a satire on Ja¬ 
cobinism ; for the language is well adapted 
to such a composition: but it cannot be 
a Royalist’s invective against Buonaparte, 
intended by him to stir up either Royalists 
or Republicans to the destruction of the 
First Consul. 

I cannot conceive it to be necessary that 
I should minutely examine this Poem to 
confirm my construction. There are one or 
two passages on which I shall make a few 
observations. The first is the contrast be¬ 
tween the state of England and that of 
France, of which an ingenious friend * has 
favoured me with a translation, which I shall 
take the liberty of reading to you: — 

“ Her glorious fabric England rears 
On law’s fix’d base alone ; 

Law’s guardian pow’r while each reveres, 

England! thy people’s freedom fears 
No danger from the throne. 


* Mr. Canning. — En. 








DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 


“ For there, before almighty law, 

High birth, high place, with pious awe, 

In reverend homage bend: 

There’s man’s free spirit unconstrain’d, 

Exults, in man’s best rights maintain’d, — 
Rights, which by ancient valour gain’d, 

From age to age descend. 

“ Britons, by no base fear dismay’d,- 
May power’s worst acts arraign. 

Does tyrant force their rights invade ? 

They call on law’s impartial aid, 

Nor call that aid in vain. 

“ Hence, of her sacred charter proud, 

With every earthly good endow’d, 

O’er subject seas unfurl’d, 

Britannia waves her standard wide; — 

Hence, sees her freighted navies ride, 

Up wealthy Thames’ majestic tide, 

The wonder of the world.” 

Here, at first sight, you may perhaps think 
that the consistency of the Jacobin charac¬ 
ter is not supported — that the Republican 
disguise is thrown off, — that the Royalist 
stands unmasked before you : — but, on more 
consideration, you will find that such an 
inference would be too hasty. The leaders 
of the Revolution are now reduced to envy 
that British constitution which, in the in¬ 
fatuation of their presumptuous ignorance, 
they once rejected with scorn. They are now 
slaves (as themselves confess) because twelve 
years ago they did not believe Englishmen 
to be free. They cannot but see that Eng¬ 
land is the only popular government in 
Europe; and they are compelled to pay 
a reluctant homage to the justice of English 
principles. The praise of England is too 
striking a satire on their own government to 
escape them; and I may accordingly venture 
to appeal to. all those who know any thing of 
the political circles of Paris, whether such 
contrasts between France and England as 
that which I have read to you be not the 
most favourite topics of the opponents of 
Buonaparte. But in the very next stanza — 

“ Cependant, encore affligee 
Par l’odieuse heredite, 

Londres de titres surchargee, 

Londres n’a pas VEgalite — 

you see that though they are forced to ren¬ 
der an unwilling tribute to our liberty, they 


671 

cannot yet renounce all their fantastic and 
deplorable chimeras. They endeavour to 
make a compromise between the experience 
on which they cannot shut their eyes, and 
the wretched systems to which they still 
cling. Fanaticism is the most incurable of 
all mental diseases ; because in all its forms, 
— religious, philosophical, or political, — it 
is distinguished by a sort of mad contempt 
for experience , which alone can correct the 
errors of practical judgment. And these 
democratical fanatics still speak of the 
odious principle of “ hereditary govern¬ 
ment ; ” they still complain that we have not 
equality: they know not that this odious 
principle of inheritance is our bulwark 
against tyranny, — that if we had their pre¬ 
tended equality we should soon cease to be 
the objects of their envy. These are the 
sentiments which you would naturally ex¬ 
pect from half-cured lunatics: but once 
more I ask you, whether they can be the 
sentiments of Mr. Peltier ? Would he com¬ 
plain that we have too much monarchy, or 
too much of what they call “ aristocracy ? ” 
If he has any prejudices against the English 
government, must they not be of an entirely 
opposite kind ? 

I have only one observation more to make 
on this Poem. It relates to the passage 
which is supposed to be an incitement to 
assassination. In my way of considering the 
subject, Mr. Peltier is not answerable for 
that passage, whatever its demerits may be. 
It is put into the mouth of a Jacobin; and it 
will not, I think, be affirmed, that if it were 
an incitement to assassinate, it would be 
very unsuitable to his character. Expe¬ 
rience, and very recent experience, has 
abundantly proved how widely the French 
Revolution has blackened men’s imagina¬ 
tions, — what a daring and desperate cast 
it has given to their characters, — how much 
it has made them regard the most ex¬ 
travagant projects of guilt as easy and 
ordinary expedients, — and to what a hor¬ 
rible extent it has familiarised their minds 
to crimes which before were only known 
among civilised nations by the history of 
barbarous times, or as the subject of poetical 







672 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

fiction. But, thank God! Gentlemen, we in 
England have not learned to charge any 
man with inciting to assassination, — not 
even a member of that atrocious sect who 
have revived political assassination in Chris¬ 
tendom, — except when we are compelled 
to do so by irresistible evidence. Where 
is that evidence here ? In general it is im¬ 
moral, — because it is indecent, — to speak 
with levity, still more to anticipate with 
pleasure, the destruction of any human 
being. But between this immorality and 
the horrible crime of inciting to assassination, 
there is a wide interval indeed. The real 
or supposed author of this Ode gives you to 
understand that he would hear with no 
great sorrow of the destruction of the First 
Consul. But surely the publication of that 
sentiment is very different from an ex¬ 
hortation to assassinate. 

But, says my Learned Friend, why is the 
example of Brutus celebrated ? Why are 
the French reproached with their baseness 
in not copying that example ? Gentlemen, 

I have no judgment to give on the act of 
Marcus Brutus. I rejoice that I have not: 

I should not dare to condemn the acts of 
brave and virtuous men in extraordinary 
and terrible circumstances, and which have 
been, as it were, consecrated by the vene¬ 
ration of so many ages. Still less should 

I dare to weaken the authority of the most 
sacred rules of duty, by praises which would 
be immoral, even if the acts themselves 
were in some measure justified by the awful 
circumstances under which they were done. 

I am not the panegyrist of “ those instances 
of doubtful public spirit at which morality 
is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from 
which affrighted nature recoils.” * But 
whatever we may think of the act of Brutus, 
surely my Learned Friend will not contend 
that every allusion to it, every panegyric on 
it, which has appeared for eighteen centuries, 
in prose and verse, is an incitement to assas¬ 
sination. From the conspicuce divina Philip- 
pica fames , down to the last schoolboy 
declamation, he will find scarce a work of 

literature without such allusions, and not 
very many without such panegyrics. I must 
say that he has construed this Ode more like 
an Attorney-General than a critic in poetry. 
According to his construction, almost every 
fine writer in our language is a preacher of 
murder. 

Having said so much on the first of these 
supposed libels, 1 shall be very short on the 
two that remain: — the verses ascribed to a 
Dutch Patriot, and the Parody of the Speech 
of Lepidus. 

In the first of these, the piercing eye 
of Mr. Attorney-General has again disco¬ 
vered an incitement to assassinate, — the 
most learned incitement to assassinate that 
ever was addressed to such ignorant ruffians 
as are most likely to be employed for such 
purposes! — in an obscure allusion to an 
obscure, and perhaps fabulous, part of Ro¬ 
man history, — to the supposed murder of 
Romulus, about which none of us know any¬ 
thing, and of which the Jacobins of Paris 
and Amsterdam probably never heard. 

But the Apotheosis: — here my Learned 
Friend has a little forgotten himself;—he 
seems to argue as if Apotheosis always pre¬ 
supposed death. But he must know, that 
Augustus, and even Tiberius and Nero, were 
deified during their lives; and he cannot 
have forgotten the terms in which one of 
the court-poets of Augustus speaks of his 
master’s divinity: — 

-“ Praesens divus habebitur 

Augustus, adjectis Britannis 

Imperio.” * 

If any modern rival of Augustus should 
choose that path to Olympus, I think he will 
find it more steep and rugged than that by 
which Pollux and Hercules climbed to the 
ethereal towers ; and that he must be con¬ 
tent with “ purpling his lips” with Burgundy 
on earth, as he has very little chance of 
doing so with nectar among the gods. 

The utmost that can seriously be made of 
this passage is, that it is a wish for a man’s 
death. I repeat, that I do not contend for 

* Burke, Works (quarto), vol. iv. p. 427. 

* Horace, lib. iii. ode 5. — Ed. 







DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 


673 


the decency of publicly declaring such wishes, 
or even for the propriety of entertaining 
them. But the distance between such a 
wish and a persuasive to murder, is immense. 
Such a wish for a man’s death is very often 
little more than a strong, though I admit not 
a very decent, way of expressing detestation 
of his character. 

But without pursuing this argument 
any farther, I think myself entitled to 
apply to these Verses the same reasoning 
which I have already applied to the first 
supposed libel on Buonaparte. If they be 
the real composition of a pretended Dutch 
Patriot, Mr. Peltier may republish them in¬ 
nocently : if they be a satire on such pre¬ 
tended Dutch patriots, they are not a libel 
on Buonaparte. Granting, for the sake of 
argument, that they did contain a serious 
exhortation to assassinate, is there any thing 
in such an exhortation inconsistent with the 
character of these pretended patriots ? They 
who were disaffected to the mild and tolerant 
government of their flourishing country, be¬ 
cause it did not exactly square with all their 
theoretical whimsies, — who revolted from 
that administration as tyrannical, which made 
Holland one of the wonders of the world 
for protected industry, for liberty of action 
and opinion, and for a prosperity which I 
may venture to call the greatest victory of 
man over hostile elements, — who served in 
the armies of Robespierre, under the impu¬ 
dent pretext of giving liberty to their own 
country, and who have, finally, buried in 
the same grave its liberty, its independence, 
and perhaps its national existence, — such 
are men not entitled to much tenderness 
from a political satirist; and he will scarcely 
violate dramatic propriety if he impute to 
them any language, however criminal and 
detestable. They who could not brook the 
authority of their old, lazy, good-natured 
government, are not likely to endure with 
patience the yoke of that stern domination 
which they have brought upon themselves, 
and which, as far as relates to them, is only 
the just punishment of their crimes. 

I know nothing more odious than their 
character, unless it be that of those who in¬ 


voked the aid of the oppressors of Switzer¬ 
land to be the deliverers of Ireland! The 
latter guilt has, indeed, peculiar aggravations. 
In the name of liberty they were willing to 
surrender their country into the hands of 
tyrants, the most lawless, faithless, and mer¬ 
ciless that ever scourged Europe, — who, at 
the very moment of the negotiation, were 
covered with the blood of the unhappy Swiss, 
the martyrs of real independence and of real 
liberty. Their success would have been the 
destruction of the only free community re¬ 
maining in Europe, — of England, the only 
bulwark of the remains of European inde¬ 
pendence. Their means were the passions 
of an ignorant and barbarous peasantry, and 
a civil war, which could not fail to produce 
all the horrible crimes and horrible re¬ 
taliations of the last calamity that can befall 
society,—a servile revolt. They sought the 
worst of ends by the most abominable of 
means. They laboured for the subjugation 
of the world at the expense of crimes and 
miseries which men of humanity and con¬ 
science would have thought too great a price 
for its deliverance. 

The last of these supposed libels, Gentle¬ 
men, is the Parody on the Speech of Lepi- 
dus, in the Fragments of Sallust. It is 
certainly a very ingenious and happy parody 
of an original, attended with some historical 
obscurity and difficulty, which it is no part 
of our present business to examine. This 
Parody is said to have been clandestinely 
placed among the papers of one of the most 
amiable and respectable men in France, M. 
Camille Jourdan, in order to furnish a pre¬ 
text for involving that excellent person in a 
charge of conspiracy. This is said to have 
been done by a spy of Fouche. Now, Gen¬ 
tlemen, I take this to be a satire on Fouche, 
— on his manufacture of plots, — on his con¬ 
trivances for the destruction of innocent and 
virtuous men; and I should admit it to be a 
libel on Fouche, if it were possible to libel 
him. I own that I should like to see Fouche 
appear as a plaintiff, seeking reparation for 
his injured character, before any tribunal, 
safe from his fangs, — where he had not the 
power of sending the judges to Guiana or 


X X 







674 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

Madagascar. It happens that we know some¬ 
thing of the history of M. Fouche, from a 
very credible witness against him, — from 
himself. You will perhaps excuse me for 
reading to you some passages of his letters 
in the year 1793, from which you will judge 
whether any satire can be so severe as the 
portrait he draws of himself: — “ Convinced 
that there are no innocent men in this in¬ 
famous city” (the unhappy city of Lyons), 

“ but those who are oppressed and loaded 
with irons by the assassins of the people ” 
(he means the murderers who were con¬ 
demned to death for their crimes), “ we are 
on our guard against the tears of repentance ! 
nothing can disarm our severity. They have 
not yet dared to solicit the repeal of your 
first decree for the annihilation of the city 
of Lyons! but scarcely anything has yet 
been done to carry it into execution.” (Pa¬ 
thetic !) “ The demolitions are too slow. 

More rapid means are necessary to repub¬ 
lican impatience. The explosion of the mine, 
and the devouring activity of the flames, 
can alone adequately represent the omni¬ 
potence of the people.” (Unhappy populace, 
always the pretext, the instrument, and the 
victim of political crimes !) “ Their will 

cannot be checked like that of tyrants — it 
ought to have the effects of thunder! ” * 
The next specimen of this worthy gentleman 
which I shall give, is in a speech to the 
Jacobin Club of Paris, on the 21st of De¬ 
cember, 1793, by his worthy colleague in the 
mission to Lyons, Collot d’Herbois : — “We 
are accused” (you, Gentlemen, will soon see 
how unjustly) “ of being cannibals, men of 
blood; but it is in counter-revolutionary 
petitions, hawked about for signature by 
aristocrats, that this charge is made against 
us. They examine with the most scrupulous 
attention how the counter-revolutionists are 
put to death, and they affect to say, that 
they are not killed at one stroke.” (He 
speaks for himself and his colleague Fouche, 
and one would suppose that he was going to 
deny the fact, — but nothing like it.) “ Ah, 
Jacobins, did Chalier die at the first stroke ? ” 

(This Chalier was the Marat of Lyons.) “ A 
drop of blood poured from generous veins 
goes to my heart” (humane creature!); 

“ but I have no pity for conspirators.” (He 
however proceeds to state a most undeniable 
proof of his compassion.) “ We caused two 
hundred to be shot at once, and it is charged 
upon us as a crime! ” (Astonishing! that 
such an act of humanity should be called a 
crime!) “ They do not know that it is a 

proof of our sensibility ! When twenty cri¬ 
minals are guillotined, the last of them dies 
twenty deaths: but these two hundred con¬ 
spirators perished at once. They speak of 
sensibility; we also are full of sensibility ! 
The Jacobins have all the virtues ! They are 
compassionate, humane , generous ! ” (This is 
somewhat hard to be understood, but it is 
perfectly explained by what follows) ; “ but 
they reserve these sentiments for the patriots 
who are their brethren, which the aristocrats 
never will be.” * 

The only remaining document with which 

I shall trouble you, is a letter from Fouche 
to his amiable colleague Collot d’Herbois, 
which, as might be expected in a confidential 
communication, breathes all the native ten¬ 
derness of his soul: — “ Let us be terrible, 
that we may run no risk of being feeble or 
cruel. Let us annihilate in our wrath, at a 
single blow, all rebels, all conspirators, all 
traitors” (comprehensive words in his vo¬ 
cabulary), “ to spare ourselves the pain, the 
long agony, of punishing like kings! ” 
(Nothing but philanthropy in this worthy 
man’s heart.) “ Let us exercise j ustice after 
the example of nature; let us avenge our¬ 
selves like a people; let us strike like the 
thunderbolt; and let even the ashes of our 
enemies disappear from the soil of liberty! 
Let the perfidious and ferocious English be 
attacked from every side; let the whole re¬ 
public form a volcano to pour devouring 
lava upon them; may the infamous island 
which produced these monsters, who no 
longer belong to humanity, be for ever 
buried under the waves of the ocean! Fare¬ 
well, my friend ! Tears of joy stream from 

* Moniteur, 24tli November, 1793. 

* Moniteur, 24th December. 








DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 675 


my eyes” (we shall soon see for what); 
“they deluge my soul.”* Then follows a 
little postscript, which explains the cause of 
this excessive joy, so hyperbolical in its 
language, and which fully justifies the in¬ 
dignation of the humane writer against the 
“ ferocious English,” who are so stupid and 
so cruel as never to have thought of a 
benevolent massacre, by way of sparing 
themselves the pain of punishing individual 
criminals. “ We have only one way of cele¬ 
brating victory. We send this evening two 
hundred and thirteen rebels to be shot! ” 

Such, Gentlemen, is M. Fouche, who is 
said to have procured this Parody to be mixed 
with the papers of my excellent friend Ca¬ 
mille Jourdan, to serve as a pretext for his 
destruction. Fabricated plots are among the 
most usual means of such tyrants for such 
purposes; and if Mr. Peltier intended to 
libel — shall I say ? — Fouche by this com¬ 
position, I can easily understand both the 
Parody and the history of its origin. But 
if it be directed against Buonaparte to serve 
Royalist purposes, I must confess myself 
wholly unable to conceive why Mr. Peltier 
should have stigmatised his work, and de¬ 
prived it of all authority and power of per¬ 
suasion, by prefixing to it the infamous 
name of Fouche. 

On the same principle I think one of the 
observations of my Learned Friend, on the 
title of this publication, may be retorted on 
him. He has called your attention to the 
title, — “L’Ambigu, ou Varietes atroces et 
amusantes.” Now, Gentlemen, I must ask 
whether, had these been Mr. Peltier’s own 
invectives against Buonaparte, he would 
himself have branded them as “ atrocious ? ” 
But if they be specimens of the opinions 
and invectives of a French faction, the title 
is very natural, and the epithets are per¬ 
fectly intelligible. Indeed I scarce know a 
more appropriate title for the whole tragi¬ 
comedy of the Revolution than that of 
“ atrocious and amusing varieties.” 

My Learned Friend has made some ob¬ 
servations on other parts of this publication, 


* Moniteur, 25 th December. 


to show the spirit which animates the author; 
but they do not seem to be very material to 
the question between us. It is no part of 
my case that Mr. Peltier has not spoken with 
some unpoliteness, — with some flippancy, — 
with more severity than my Learned Friend 
may approve, of factions and of administra¬ 
tions in France. Mr. Peltier cannot love 
the Revolution, or any government that has 
grown out of it and maintains it. The Re¬ 
volutionists have destroyed his family; they 
have seized his inheritance; they have beg¬ 
gared, exiled, and proscribed himself. If 
he did not detest them he would be un¬ 
worthy of living; and he would be a base 
hypocrite if he were to conceal his senti¬ 
ments. But I must again remind you, that 
this is not an Information for not sufficiently 
honouring the French Revolution, — for not 
showing sufficient reverence for the Con¬ 
sular government. These are no crimes 
among us. England is not yet reduced to 
such an ignominious dependence. Our hearts 
and consciences are not yet in the bonds of 
so wretched a slavery. This is an Informa¬ 
tion for a libel on Buonaparte, and if you 
believe the principal intention of Mr. Peltier 
to have been to republish the writings or to 
satirise the character of other individuals, 
you must acquit him of a libel on the First 
Consul. 

Here, Gentlemen, I think I might stop, 
if I had only to consider the defence of 
Mr. Peltier. I trust that you are already 
convinced of his innocence. I fear I have 
exhausted your patience, as I am sure I 
have very nearly exhausted my own strength. 
But so much seems to me to depend on 
your verdict, that I cannot forbear from 
laying before you some considerations of a 
more general nature. 

Believing as I do that we are on the eve 
of a great struggle,—that this is only the 
first battle between reason and power,— 
that you have now in your hands, com¬ 
mitted to your trust, the only remains of 
free discussion in Europe, now confined to 
this kingdom; addressing you, therefore, as 
the guardians of the most important in¬ 
terests of mankind; convinced that the un- 


XX 2 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


676 


fettered exercise of reason depends more on 
your present verdict than on any other that 
•pras ever delivered by a jury, I cannot con¬ 
clude without bringing before you the sen¬ 
timents and examples of our ancestors in 
some of those awful and perilous situations 
by which Divine Providence has in former 
ages tried the virtue of the English nation. 
We are fallen upon times in which it be¬ 
hoves us to strengthen our spirits by the 
contemplation of great examples of con¬ 
stancy. Let us seek for them in the annals 
of our forefathers. 

The reign of Queen Elizabeth may be 
considered as the opening of the modern 
history of England, especially in its con¬ 
nexion with the modern system of Europe, 
which began about that time to assume the 
form that it preserved till the French Re¬ 
volution. It was a very memorable period, 
the maxims of which ought to be engraven 
on the head and heart of every Englishman. 
Philip II., at the head of the greatest empire 
then in the world, was openly aiming at 
universal domination; and his project was 
so far from being thought chimerical by the 
wisest of his contemporaries, that in the 
opinion of the great Due de Sully he must 
have been successful, “ if, by a most singular 
combination of circumstances, he had not at 
the same time been resisted by two such 
strong heads as those of Henry IY. and 
Queen Elizabeth.” To the most extensive 
and opulent dominions, the most numerous 
and disciplined armies, the most renowned 
captains, the greatest revenue, he added also 
the most formidable power over opinion. 
He was the chief of a religious faction, 
animated by the most atrocious fanaticism, 
and prepared to second his ambition by re¬ 
bellion, anarchy, and regicide, in every Pro¬ 
testant state. Elizabeth was among the first 
objects of his hostility. That wise and 
magnanimous Princess placed herself in the 
front of the battle for the liberties of Europe. 
Though she had to contend at home with 
his fanatical faction, which almost occupied 
Ireland, which divided Scotland, and was 
not of contemptible strength in England, 
she aided the oppressed inhabitants of the 


Netherlands in their just and glorious re¬ 
sistance to his tyranny; she aided Henry 
the Great, in suppressing the abominable 
rebellion which anarchical principles had 
excited and Spanish arms had supported in 
France; and after a long reign of various 
fortune, in which she preserved her uncon¬ 
quered spirit through great calamities, and 
still greater dangers, she at length broke 
the strength of the enemy, and reduced his 
power within such limits as to be compatible 
with the safety of England, and of all Eu¬ 
rope. Her only effectual ally was the spirit 
of her people: and her policy flowed from 
that magnanimous nature which in the hour 
of peril teaches better lessons than those of 
cold reason. Her great heart inspired her 
with the higher and a nobler wisdom, which 
disdained to appeal to the low and sordid 
passions of her people even for the protection 
of their low and sordid interests; because 
she knew, or rather she felt, that these are 
effeminate, creeping, cowardly, short-sighted 
passions, which shrink from conflict even in 
defence of their own mean objects. In a 
righteous cause she roused those generous 
affections of her people which alone teach 
boldness, constancy, and foresight, and which 
are therefore the only safe guardians of the 
lowest as well as the highest interests of a 
nation. In her memorable address to her 
army, when the invasion of the kingdom 
was threatened by Spain, this woman of 
heroic spirit disdained to speak to them of 
their ease and their commerce, and their 
wealth and their safety. No! She touched 
another chord; — she spoke of their national 
honour, of their dignity as Englishmen, of 
“ the foul scorn that Parma or Spain should 
dare to invade the borders of her realms! ” 
She breathed into them those grand and 
powerful sentiments which exalt vulgar men 
into heroes,—which led them into the battle 
of their country armed with holy and irre¬ 
sistible enthusiasm,—which even cover with 
their shield all the ignoble interests that 
base calculation and cowardly selfishness 
tremble to hazard, but shrink from de¬ 
fending. A sort of prophetic instinct, — if 
I may so speak, — seems to have revealed 






DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 677 


to her the importance of that great instru¬ 
ment for rousing and guiding the minds of 
men, of the effects of which she had had 
no experience, — which, since her time, has 
changed the condition of the world, — but 
which few modern statesmen have thoroughly 
understood or wisely employed — which is 
no doubt connected with many ridiculous 
and degrading details,—which has produced, 
and which may again produce, terrible mis¬ 
chiefs, — but the influence of which must 
after all be considered as the most certain 
effect and the most efficacious cause of 
civilisation, — and which, whether it be a 
blessing or a curse, is the most powerful 
engine that a politician can move: —I mean 
the press. It is a curious fact, that, in the 
year of the Armada, Queen Elizabeth caused 
to be printed the first Gazettes that ever 
appeared in England; and I own, when I 
consider that this mode of rousing a national 
spirit was then absolutely unexampled,— 
that she could have no assurance of its 
efficacy from the precedents of former times, 
— I am disposed to regard her having re¬ 
course to it as one of the most sagacious 
experiments,—one of the greatest discoveries 
of political genius,—one of the most striking 
anticipations of future experience, that we 
find in history. I mention it to you, to 
justify the opinion that I have ventured to 
state, of the close connexion of our national 
spirit with our press, and even our periodical 
press. I cannot quit the reign of Elizabeth 
without laying before you the maxims of 
her policy, in the language of the greatest 
and wisest of men. Lord Bacon, in one 
part of his discourse on her reign, speaks 
thus of her support of Holland: — “ But let 
me rest upon the honourable and continual 
aid and relief she hath given to the dis¬ 
tressed and desolate people of the Low 
Countries; a people recommended unto her 
by ancient confederacy and daily intercourse, 
by their cause so innocent, and their fortune 
so lamentable! ” — In another passage of 
the same discourse, he thus speaks of the 
general system of her foreign policy, as the 
protector of Europe, in words too remark¬ 
able to require any commentary: — “ Then 


it is her government, and her government 
alone, that hath been the sconce and fort of 
all Europe, which hath lett this proud na¬ 
tion from overrunning all. If any state be 
yet free from his factions erected in the 
bowels thereof; if there be any state wherein 
this faction is erected that is not yet fired 
with civil troubles; if there be any state 
under his protection that enjoyeth mo¬ 
derate liberty, upon whom he tyrannizeth 
not; it is the mercy of this renowned Queen 
that standeth between them and their mis¬ 
fortunes ! ” 

The next great conspirator against the 
rights of men and of nations, against the 
security and independence of all European 
states, against every kind and degree of civil 
and religious liberty, was Louis XIV. In 
his time the character of the English nation 
was the more remarkably displayed, because 
it was counteracted by an apostate and per¬ 
fidious government. During great part of 
his reign, you know that the throne of Eng¬ 
land was filled by princes who deserted the 
cause of their country and of Europe,— 
who were the accomplices and the tools of 
the oppressor of the world, — who were 
even so unmanly, so unprincely, so base, as 
to have sold themselves to his ambition, — 
who were content that he should enslave the 
Continent, if he enabled them to enslave 
Great Britain. These princes, traitors to 
their own royal dignity and to the feelings 
of the generous people whom they ruled, 
preferred the condition of the first slave of 
Louis XIV. to the dignity of the first free¬ 
man of England. Yet, even under these 
princes, the feelings of the people of this 
kingdom were displayed on a most memorable 
occasion towards foreign sufferers and foreign 
oppressors. The Revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes threw fifty thousand French Pro¬ 
testants on our shores. They were received, 
as I trust the victims of tyranny ever will 
be in this land, which seems chosen by Pro¬ 
vidence to be the home of the exile, — the 
refuge of the oppressed. They were wel¬ 
comed by a people high-spirited as well as 
humane, who did not insult them by clan¬ 
destine charity, — who did not give alms in 







678 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

secret lest their charity should be detected 
by neighbouring tyrants! No! they were 
publicly and nationally welcomed and re¬ 
lieved. They were bid to raise their voice 
against their oppressor, and to proclaim their 
wrongs to all mankind. They did so. They 
were joined in the cry of just indignation 
by every Englishman worthy of the name. 
It was a fruitful indignation, which soon 
produced the successful resistance of all 
Europe to the common enemy. Even then, 
when Jeffreys disgraced the Bench which 
his Lordship * now adorns, no refugee was 
deterred by prosecution for libel from giv¬ 
ing vent to his feelings, — from arraigning 
the oppressor in the face of all Europe. 

During this ignominious period of our 
history, a war arose on the Continent, which 
cannot but present itself to the mind on 
such an occasion as this, — the only war that 
was ever made on the avowed ground of at¬ 
tacking a free press. I speak of the in¬ 
vasion of Holland by Louis XIY. The 
liberties which the Dutch gazettes had taken 
in discussing his conduct were the sole 
cause of this very extraordinary and memor¬ 
able war, which was of short duration, un¬ 
precedented in its avowed principle, and 
most glorious in its event for the liberties of 
mankind. That republic, at all times so 
interesting to Englishmen,—in the worst 
times of both countries our brave enemies, 
— in their best times our most faithful and 
valuable friends, — was then charged with 
the defence of a free press against the op¬ 
pressor of Europe, as a sacred trust for the 
benefit of all generations. They felt the 
sacredness of the deposit; they felt the 
dignity of the station in which they were 
placed: and though deserted by the un- 
English Government of England, they as¬ 
serted their own ancient character, and drove 
out the great armies and great captains of 
the oppressor with defeat and disgrace. 
Such was the result of the only war hitherto 
avowedly undertaken to oppress a free 
country because she allowed the free and 
public exercise of reason : — and may the 

God of Justice and Liberty grant that such 
may ever be the result of wars made by 
tyrants against the rights of mankind, es¬ 
pecially of those against that right which is 
the guardian of every other. 

This war, Gentlemen, had the effect of 
raising up from obscurity the great Prince of 
Orange, afterwards King William III.— the 
deliverer of Holland, the deliverer of England, 
the deliverer of Europe, —the only hero who 
was distinguished by such a happy union of 
fortune and virtue that the objects of his am¬ 
bition were always the same with the interests 
of humanity, — perhaps, the only man who 
devoted the whole of his life exclusively to 
the service of mankind. This most illustrious 
benefactor of Europe, — this “ hero without 
vanity or passion,” as he has been justly and 
beautifully called by a venerable prelate*, 
who never made a step towards greatness 
without securing or advancing liberty, who 
had been made Stadtholder of Holland for 
the salvation of his own country, was soon 
after made King of England for the deliver- 
ance of ours. When the people of Great 
Britain had once more a government worthy 
of them, they returned to the feelings and 
principles of their ancestors, and resumed 
their former station and their former duties 
as protectors of the independence of nations. 
The people of England, delivered from a 
government which disgraced, oppressed, and 
betrayed them, fought under William as 
their forefathers had fought under Eliza¬ 
beth, and after an almost uninterrupted 
struggle of more than twenty years, in 
which they were often abandoned by for¬ 
tune, but never by their own constancy and 
magnanimity, they at length once more de¬ 
feated those projects of guilty ambition, 
boundless aggrandisement, and universal 
domination, which had a second time 
threatened to overwhelm the whole civilised 
world. They rescued Europe from being 
swallowed up in the gulf of extensive em¬ 
pire, which the experience of all times points 
out as the grave of civilisation,—where men 
are driven by violent conquest and mili- 

* Lord Ellenborough. — Ed. 

* Dr. Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph. 
















DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 


tary oppression into lethargy and slavish¬ 
ness of heart,—where after their arts have 
perished with the mental vigour from which 
they spring, they are plunged by the com¬ 
bined power of effeminacy and ferocity into 
irreclaimable and hopeless barbarism. Our 
ancestors established the safety of their own 
country by providing for that of others, and 
rebuilt the European system upon such firm 
foundations, that nothing less than the tem¬ 
pest of the French Revolution could have 
shaken it. 

This arduous struggle was suspended for 
a short time by the Peace of Ryswick. The 
interval between that Treaty and the War 
of the Succession enables us to judge how 
our ancestors acted in a very peculiar situ¬ 
ation which requires maxims of policy very 
different from those which usually govern 
states. The treaty which they had con¬ 
cluded was in truth and substance only a 
truce. The ambition and the power of the 
enemy were such as to render real peace 
impossible; and it was perfectly obvious 
that the disputed succession of the Spanish 
monarchy would soon render it no longer 
practicable to preserve even the appearance 
of amity. It was desirable, however, not to 
provoke the enemy by unseasonable hos¬ 
tility ; but it was still more desirable, — it 
was absolutely necessary, to keep up the 
national jealousy and indignation against 
him who was soon to be their open enemy. 
It might naturally have been apprehended 
that the press might have driven into pre¬ 
mature war a prince who not long before 
had been violently exasperated by the press 
of another free country. I have looked 
over the political publications of that time 
with some care, and I can venture to say, 
that at no period were the system and pro¬ 
jects of Louis X1Y. animadverted on with 
more freedom and boldness than during that 
interval. Our ancestors, and the heroic 
Prince who governed them, did not deem it 
wise policy to disarm the national mind for 
the sake of prolonging a truce ; — they were 
both too proud and too wise to pay so great 
a price for so small a benefit. 

In the course of the eighteenth century, a 


679 

great change took place in the state of poli¬ 
tical discussion in this country: — I speak 
of the multiplication of newspapers. I know 
that newspapers are not very popular in this 
place, which is, indeed, not very surprising, 
because they are known here only by their 
faults. Their publishers come here only 
to receive the chastisement due to their 
offences. With all their faults, I own I 
cannot help feeling some respect for what¬ 
ever is a proof of the increased curiosity 
and increased knowledge of mankind; and I 
cannot help thinking, that if somewhat more 
indulgence and consideration were shown 
for the difficulties of their situation, it might 
prove one of the best correctives of their 
faults, by teaching them that self-respect 
which is the best security for liberal conduct 
towards others. But however that may be, 
it is very certain that the multiplication of 
these channels of popular information has 
produced a great change in the state of our 
domestic and foreign politics. At home, it 
has, in truth, produced a gradual revolution 
in our government. By increasing the num¬ 
ber of those who exercise some sort of judg¬ 
ment on public affairs, it has created a sub¬ 
stantial democracy, infinitely more important 
than those democratical forms which have 
been the subject of so much contest. So 
that I may venture to say, England has not 
only in its forms the most democratical 
government that ever existed in a great 
country, but, in substance , has the most de¬ 
mocratical government that ever existed in 
any country; — if the most substantial de¬ 
mocracy be that state in which the greatest 
number of men feel an interest and express 
an opinion upon political questions, and in 
which the greatest number of judgments 
and wills concur in influencing public 
measures. - 

The same circumstance gave great ad¬ 
ditional importance to our discussion of con¬ 
tinental politics. That discussion was no 
longer, as in the preceding century, confined 
to a few pamphlets, written and read only 
by men of education and rank, which reached 
the multitude very slowly and rarely. In 
newspapers an almost daily appeal was made, 















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


680 

directly or indirectly, to the judgment and 
passions of almost every individual in the 
kingdom upon the measures and principles 
not only of his own country, but of every 
state in Europe. Under such circumstances, 
the tone of these publications in speaking of 
foreign governments became a matter of im¬ 
portance. You will excuse me, therefore, 
if, before I conclude, I remind you of the 
general nature of their language on one or 
two very remarkable occasions, and of the 
boldness with which they arraigned the 
crimes of powerful sovereigns, without any 
check from the laws and magistrates of their 
own country. This toleration, or rather this 
protection, was too long and uniform to be 
accidental. I am, indeed, very much mis¬ 
taken if it be not founded upon a policy 
which this country cannot abandon without 
sacrificing her liberty and endangering her 
national existence. 

The first remarkable instance which I 
shall choose to state of the unpunished and 
protected boldness of the English press,— 
of the freedom with which they animad¬ 
verted on the policy of powerful sovereigns, 
is on the Partition of Poland in 1772, — an 
act not perhaps so horrible in its means, nor 
so deplorable in its immediate effects, as some 
other atrocious invasions of national inde¬ 
pendence which have followed it, but the 
most abominable in its general tendency and 
ultimate consequences of any political crime 
recorded in history, because it was the first 
practical breach in the system of Europe,— 
the first example of atrocious robbery per¬ 
petrated on unoffending countries, which has 
been since so liberally followed, and which 
has broken down all the barriers of habit 
and principle that guarded defenceless states. 
The perpetrators of this atrocious crime were 
the most powerful sovereigns of the Con¬ 
tinent, whose hostility it certainly was not 
the interest of Great Britain wantonly to 
incur. They were the most illustrious princes 
of their age; and some of them were doubt¬ 
less entitled to the highest praise for their 
domestic administration, as well as for the 
brilliant qualities which distinguished their 
character. But none of these circumstances, 


— no dread of their resentment, — no ad¬ 
miration of their talents, — no consideration 
for their rank, — silenced the animadversion 
of the English press. Some of you remem¬ 
ber,— all of you know, that a loud and 
unanimous cry of reprobation and execra¬ 
tion broke out against them from every part 
of this kingdom. It was perfectly unin¬ 
fluenced by any considerations of our own 
mere national interest, which might perhaps 
be supposed to be rather favourably affected 
by that partition. It was not, as in some 
other countries, the indignation of rival rob¬ 
bers, who were excluded from their share of 
the prey: it was the moral anger of disin¬ 
terested spectators against atrocious crimes, 

— the gravest and the most dignified moral 
principle which the God of Justice has im¬ 
planted in the human heart, — that one, the 
dread of which is the only restraint on the 
actions of powerful criminals, and the pro¬ 
mulgation of which is the only punishment 
that can be inflicted on them. It ^s a re¬ 
straint which ought not to be weakened : it 
is a punishment which no good man can 
desire to mitigate. That great crime was 
spoken of as it deserved in England. Rob¬ 
bery was not described by any courtly 
circumlocutions : rapine was not called 
“ policy: ” nor was the oppression of an 
innocent people termed a “ mediation ” in 
their domestic differences. No prosecutions, 

— no Criminal Informations followed the 
liberty and the boldness of the language 
then employed. No complaints even appear 
to have been made from abroad; — much 
less any insolent menaces against the free 
constitution which protected the English 
press. The people of England were too long 
known throughout Europe for the proudest 
potentate to expect to silence our press by 
such means. 

I pass over the second partition of Poland 
in 1792 (you all remember what passed on 
that occasion—the universal abhorrence ex¬ 
pressed by every man and every writer of 
every party, — the succours that were pub¬ 
licly preparing by large bodies of individuals 
of all parties for the oppressed Poles) ; I 
hasten to the final dismemberment of that 








DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 681 


unhappy kingdom, which seems to me the 
most striking example in our history of the 
habitual, principled, and deeply-rooted for¬ 
bearance of those who administer the law 
towards political writers. We were engaged 
in the most extensive, bloody, and dangerous 
war that this country ever knew ; and the 
parties to the dismemberment of Poland 
were our allies, and our only powerful and 
effective allies. We had every motive of 
policy to court their friendship: every reason 
of state seemed to require that we should 
not permit them to be abused and vilified 
by English writers. What was the fact ? 
Did any Englishman consider himself at 
liberty, on account of temporary interests, 
however urgent, to silence those feelings of 
humanity and justice which guard the cer¬ 
tain and permanent interests of all countries ? 
You all remember that every voice, and 
every pen, and every press in England were 
unceasingly employed to brand that abo¬ 
minable robbery. You remember that this 
was not confined to private writers, but that 
the same abhorrence was expressed by every 
member of both Houses of Parliament who 
was not under the restraints of ministerial 
reserve. No minister dared even to blame 
the language of honest indignation which 
might be very inconvenient to his most im¬ 
portant political projects; and I hope I may 
venture to say, that no English assembly 
would have endured such a sacrifice of eter¬ 
nal justice to any miserable interest of an 
hour. Did the Law-officers of the Crown 
venture to come into a court of justice to 
complain of the boldest of the publications 
of that time Z They did not. I do not say 
that they felt any disposition to do so; — I 
believe that they could not. But I do say, 
that if they had, — if they had spoken of the 
necessity of confining our political writers to 
cold narrative and unfeeling argument, — if 
they had informed a jury, that they did not 
prosecute history, but invective, — that if 
private writers be at all to blame great 
princes, it must be with moderation and de¬ 
corum, — the sound heads and honest hearts 
of an English jury would have confounded 
such sophistry, and would have declared, by 


their verdict, that moderation of language 
is a relative term, which varies with the 
subject to which it is applied,—that atrocious 
crimes are not to be related as calmly and 
coolly as indifferent or trifling events,— that 
if there be a decorum due to exalted rank 
and authority, there is also a much more 
sacred decorum due to virtue and to human 
nature, which would be outraged and tram¬ 
pled under foot, by speaking of guilt in a 
lukewarm language, falsely called moderate. 

Soon after, Gentlemen, there followed an 
act, in comparison with which all the deeds 
of rapine and blood perpetrated in the world 
are innocence itself, — the invasion and de¬ 
struction of Switzerland, — that unparalleled 
scene of guilt and enormity, — that unpro¬ 
voked aggression against an innocent coun¬ 
try, which had been the sanctuary of peace 
and liberty for three centuries, respected as 
a sort of sacred territory by the fiercest 
ambition, — raised, like its own mountains, 
beyond the region of the storms which raged 
around on every side, — the only warlike 
people that never sent forth armies to dis¬ 
turb their neighbours, — the only govern¬ 
ment that ever accumulated treasures with¬ 
out imposing taxes, — an innocent treasure, 
unstained by the tears of the poor, the in¬ 
violate patrimony of the commonwealth, 
which attested the virtue of a long series of 
magistrates, but which at length caught the 
eye of the spoiler, and became the fatal 
occasion of their ruin! Gentlemen, the de¬ 
struction of such a country, — “ its cause so 
innocent, and its fortune so lamentable ! ”— 
made a deep impression on the people of 
England. I will ask my Learned FHend, if 
we had then been at peace with the French 
republic, whether we must have been silent 
spectators of the foulest crimes that ever 
blotted the name of humanity ? — whether 
we must, like cowards and slaves, have 
repressed the compassion and indignation 
with which that horrible scene of tyranny 
had filled our hearts ? Let me suppose, 
Gentlemen, that Aloys Reding, who has 
displayed in our times the simplicity, mag¬ 
nanimity, and piety of ancient heroes, 
had, after his glorious struggle, honoured 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


i- 

682 


this kingdom by choosing it as his refuge, — 
that, after performing prodigies of valour at 
the head of his handful of heroic peasants on 
the field of Morgarten (where his ancestor, 
the Landamman Reding, had, five hundred 
years before, defeated the first oppressors of 
Switzerland), he had selected this country 
to be his residence, as the chosen abode of 
liberty, as the ancient and inviolable asylum 
of the oppressed, would my Learned Friend 
have had the boldness to have said to this 
hero, “that he must hide his tears,” (the 
tears shed by a hero over the ruins of his 
country!) “lest they might provoke the 
resentment of Reubell or Rapinat, — that he 
must smother the sorrow and the anger 
with which his heart was loaded, — that he 
must breathe his murmurs low, lest they 
might be overheard by the oppressor! ” 
Would this have been the language of my 
Learned Friend ? I know that it would not. 
I know, that by such a supposition, I have 
done wrong to his honourable feelings — to 
his honest English heart. I am sure that he 
knows as well as I do, that a nation which 
should thus receive the oppressed of other 
countries, would be preparing its own neck 
for the yoke. He knows the slavery which 
such a nation would deserve, and must 
speedily incur. He knows, that sympathy 
with the unmerited sufferings of others, and 
disinterested anger against their oppressors, 
are, if I may so speak, the masters which 
are appointed by Providence to teach us 
fortitude in the defence of our own rights, 

— that selfishness is a dastardly principle, 
which betrays its charge and flies from its 
post, — and that those only can defend 
themselves with valour, who are animated 
by the moral approbation with which they 
can survey their sentiments towards others, 

— who are ennobled in their own eyes by 
a consciousness that they are fighting for 
justice as well as interest, — a consciousness 
which none can feel, but those who have 
felt for the wrongs of their brethren. These 
are the sentiments which my Learned 
Friend would have felt. He would have 
told the hero : — “ Your confidence is not de¬ 
ceived : this is still that England, of which 


the history may, perhaps, have contributed 
to fill your heart with the heroism of liberty. 
Every other country of Europe is crouching 
under the bloody tyrants who destroyed 
your country: we are unchanged. We are 
still the same people which received with 
open arms the victims of the tyranny of 
Philip II. and Louis XIY. We shall not 
exercise a cowardly and clandestine hu¬ 
manity. Here we are not so dastardly as to 
rob you of your greatest consolation;—here, 
protected by a free, brave, and high-minded 
people, you may give vent to your indigna¬ 
tion, — you may proclaim the crimes of your 
tyrants, — you may devote them to the exe¬ 
cration of mankind. There is still one spot 
upon earth in which they are abhorred, 
.without being dreaded! ” 

I am aware, Gentlemen, that I have al¬ 
ready abused your indulgence; but I must 
entreat you to bear with me for a short 
time longer, to allow me to suppose a case 
which might have occurred, in which you 
will see the horrible consequences of en¬ 
forcing rigorously principles of law, which I 
cannot contest, against political writers. We 
might have been at peace with France 
during the whole of that terrible period 
which elapsed between August 1792 and 
1794, which has been usually called the 
“ reign of Robespierre! ” — the only series 
of crimes, perhaps, in history, which, in 
spite of the common disposition to exagge¬ 
rate extraordinary facts, has been beyond 
measure underrated in jpublic opinion. I 
say this, Gentlemen, after an investigation, 
which I think entitles me to affirm it with 
confidence. Men’s minds were oppressed by 
the atrocity and the multitude of crimes ; 
their humanity and their indolence took re¬ 
fuge in scepticism from such an overwhelm¬ 
ing mass of guilt: and the consequence was, 
that all these unparalleled enormities, though 
proved, not only with the fullest historical, 
but with the strictest judicial evidence, were 
at the time only half-believed, and are now 
scarcely half-remembered. When .these atro¬ 
cities, — of which the greatest part are as 
little known to the public in general as the 
campaigns of Genghis Khan, but are still 













DEFENCE OF JEAN PELTIER. 


protected from the scrutiny of men by the 1 
immensity of those voluminous records of j 
guilt in which they are related, and under 
the mass of which they will lie buried, till 
some historian be found with patience and 
courage enough to drag them forth into 
light, for the shame, indeed, but for the in¬ 
struction of mankind, — which had the pe¬ 
culiar malignity, through the pretexts with 
which they were covered, of making the no¬ 
blest objects of human pursuit seem odious 
and detestable, — which had almost made 
the names of liberty, reformation, and hu¬ 
manity, synonymous with anarchy, robbery, 
and murder, — which thus threatened not 
only to extinguish every principle of im¬ 
provement, to arrest the progress of civilised 
society, and to disinherit future generations 
of that rich succession to be expected from 
the knowledge and wisdom of the present, 
but to destroy the civilisation of Europe 
(which never gave such a proof of its vigour 
and robustness, as in being able to resist 
their destructive power), — when all these 
horrors were acting in the greatest empire 
of the Continent, I will ask my Learned 
Friend, if we had then been at peace with 
France, how English writers were to relate 
them so as to escape the charge of libelling 
a friendly Government ? 

When Robespierre, in the debates in the 
National Convention on the mode of mur¬ 
dering their blameless sovereign, objected to 
the formal and tedious mode of murder 
called a “trial,” and proposed to put him 
immediately to death without trial, “ on the 
principles of insurrection ,”—because, to doubt 
the guilt of -the King would be to doubt of 
the innocence of the Convention, and if the 
King were not a traitor, the Convention 
must be rebels, — would my Learned Friend 
have had an English writer state all this 
with “decorum and moderation?” Would 
he have had an English writer state, that 
though this reasoning was not perfectly 
agreeable to our national laws, or perhaps to 
our national prejudices, yet it was not for 
him to make any observations on the judicial 
proceedings of foreign states ? When Marat, 
in the same Convention, called for two hun- 


683 

dred and seventy thousand heads, must our 
j English writers have said, that the remedy 
did, indeed, seem to their weak judgment 
rather severe; but that it was not for them 
to judge the conduct of so illustrious an 
assembly as the National Convention, or the 
suggestions of so enlightened a statesman 
as M. Marat ? When that Convention re¬ 
sounded with applause at the news of seve¬ 
ral hundred aged priests being thrown into 
the Loire, and particularly at the exclama¬ 
tion of Carrier, who communicated the intel¬ 
ligence : — “ What a revolutionary foment is 
the Loire ! ” — when these suggestions and 
narratives of murder, which have hitherto 
been only hinted and whispered in the most 
secret cabals, in the darkest caverns of 
banditti, were triumphantly uttered, pa¬ 
tiently endured, and even loudly applauded 
by an assembly of seven hundred men, 
acting in the sight of all Europe, would my 
Learned Friend have wished that there had 
been found in England a single writer so 
base as to deliberate upon the most safe, 
decorous, and polite manner of relating all 
these things to his countrymen? When 
Carrier ordered five hundred children under 
fourteen years to be shot, the greater part of 
whom escaped the fire from their size,— 
when the poor victims ran for protection to 
the soldiers, and were bayoneted clinging 
round their knees, would my Friend — But 
I cannot pursue the strain of interrogation; 
it is too much! It would be a violence 
which I cannot practise on my own feelings; 
it would be an outrage to my Friend; it 
would be an affront to you ; it would be an 
insult to humanity. 

No! better, — ten thousand times better, 
would it be that every press in the world 
were burnt, — that the very use of letters 
were abolished, that we were returned to 
the honest ignorance of the rudest times, 
than that the results of civilisation should be 
made subservient to the purposes of bar¬ 
barism ; — than that literature should be 
employed to teach a toleration for cruelty, 
— to weaken moral hatred for guilt, —to 
deprave and brutalise the human mind. I 
know that I speak my Friend’s feelings as 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


684 


well as my own, when I say, God forbid 
that the dread of any punishment should 
ever make any Englishman an accomplice 
in so corrupting his countrymen, — a public 
teacher of depravity and barbarity ! 

Mortifying and horrible as the idea is, I 
must remind you, Gentlemen, that even at 
that time, even under the reign of Robes¬ 
pierre, my Learned Friend, if he had then 
been Attorney-General, might have been 
compelled by some most deplorable neces¬ 
sity, to have come into this Court to ask 
your verdict against the libellers of Barrere 
and Collot d’Herbois. Mr. Peltier then em¬ 
ployed his talents against the enemies of the 
human race, as he has uniformly and bravely 
done. I do not believe that any peace, any 
political considerations, any fear of punish¬ 
ment, would have silenced him. He has 
shown too much honour and constancy, and 
intrepidity, to be shaken by such circum¬ 
stances as these. My Learned Friend might 
then have been compelled to have filed a 
Criminal Information against Mr. Peltier, 
for “ wickedly and maliciously intending to 
vilify and degrade Maximilian Robespierre, 
President of the Committee of Public Safety 
of the French Republic ! ” He might have 
been reduced to the sad necessity of ap¬ 
pearing before you to belie his own better 
feelings by prosecuting Mr. Peltier for pub¬ 
lishing those sentiments which my Friend 
himself had a thousand times felt, and a 
thousand times expressed. He might have 
been obliged even to call for punishment 
upon Mr. Peltier, for language which he 
and all mankind would for ever despise 
Mr. Peltier, if he were not to employ. Then 
indeed, Gentlemen, we should have seen 
the last humiliation fall on England ; — the 
tribunals, the spotless and venerable tri¬ 
bunals of this free country, reduced to be 
the ministers of the vengeance of Robes¬ 
pierre ! What could have rescued us from 
this last disgrace ? — the honesty and cou¬ 
rage of a jury. They would have delivered 
the judges of their country from the dire 
necessity of inflicting punishment on a 
brave and virtuous man, because he spoke 
truth of a monster. They would have 


despised the threats of a foreign tyrant as 
their ancestors braved the power of op¬ 
pressors at home. 

In the court where we are now met, Crom¬ 
well twice sent a satirist on his tyranny to 
be convicted and punished as a libeller, and 
in this court, — almost in sight of the 
scaffold streaming with the blood of his 
Sovereign, — within hearing of the clash of 
his bayonets which drove out Parliaments 
with scorn and contumely, — a jury twice 
rescued the intrepid satirist * from his fangs, 
and sent out with defeat and disgrace the 
Usurper’s Attorney-General from what he 
had the impudence to call his court! Even 
then, Gentlemen, when all law and liberty 
were trampled under the feet of a military 
banditti, — when those great crimes were 
perpetrated in a high place and with a high 
hand against those who were the objects of 
public veneration, which more than any 
thing else upon earth overwhelm the minds 
of men, break their spirits, and confound 
their moral sentiments, obliterate the dis¬ 
tinctions between right and wrong in their 
understanding, and teach the multitude 
to feel no longer any reverence for that 
justice which they thus see triumphantly 
dragged at the chariot wheels of a tyrant, 
— even then, when this unhappy country, 
triumphant indeed abroad but enslaved at 
home, had no prospect but that of a long 
succession of tyrants “ wading through 
slaughter to a throne,” — even then, I say, 
when all seemed lost, the unconquerable 
spirit of English liberty survived in the 
hearts of English jurors. That spirit is, I 
trust in God, not extinct: and if any modern 
tyrant were, in the plenitude of his inso¬ 
lence, to hope to overawe an English jury, 
I trust and I believe that they would tell 
him : — “ Our ancestors braved the bayonets 
of Cromwell; — we bid defiance to yours. 
Contempsi Catilinae gladios; — non perti- 
mescam tuos! ” 

What could be such a tyrant’s means of 
overawing a jury? As long as their coun¬ 
try exists, they are girt round with im- 


* Lilburne. 











A CHARGE TO THE GRAND JURY OF BOMBAY. 685 

penetrable armour. Till the destruction 
of their country, no danger can fall upon 
them for the performance of their duty. 
And I do trust that there is no Englishman 
so unworthy of life as to desire to outlive 
England. But if any of us are condemned 
to the cruel punishment of surviving our 
country, — if in the inscrutable counsels of 
Providence, this favoured seat of justice 
and liberty, — this noblest work of human 
wisdom and virtue, be destined to destruc¬ 
tion (which I shall not be charged with 
national prejudice for saying would be the 
most dangerous wound ever inflicted on 
civilisation), at least, let us carry with us 

into our sad exile the consolation that we 
ourselves have not violated the rights of 
hospitality to exiles, — that we have not 
torn from the altar the suppliant who claimed 
protection as the voluntary victim of loyalty 
and conscience. 

Gentlemen, I now leave this unfortunate 
Gentleman in your hands. His character 
and his situation might interest your hu¬ 
manity : but, on his behalf, I only ask justice 
from you. I only ask a favourable con¬ 
struction of what cannot be said to be more 
than ambiguous language; and this you 
will soon be told from the highest authority 
is a part of justice. 

A CHARGE, 

DELIVERED TO THE GRAND JURY OF THE ISLAND OF BOMBAY, 

ON THE 20TH OF JULY, 1811. 

Gentlemen of the Grand Jury, 

The present calendar is unfortunately 
remarkable for the number and enormity of 
crimes. To what cause we are to impute 
the very uncommon depravity which has, in 
various forms, during the last twelve months, 
appeared before this Court, it is difficult, and 
perhaps impossible, to determine. But the 
length of this calendar may probably be, in 
a great measure, ascribed to the late com¬ 
mendable disuse of irregular punishment at 
the Office of Police : so that there may be 
not so much an increase of crimes as of 
regular trials. 

To frame and maintain a system of police, 
warranted by law, vigorous enough for pro¬ 
tection, and with sufficient legal restraints 
to afford a security against oppression, must 
be owned to be a matter of considerable 
difficulty in the crowded, mixed, and shift- 

ing population of a great Indian sea-port. 
It is no wonder, then, that there should be 
defects in our system, both in the efficacy of 
its regulations and in the legality of its 
principles. And this may be mentioned with 
more liberty, because these defects have 
originated long before the time of any one 
now in authority ; and have rather, indeed, 
arisen from the operation of time and chance 
on human institutions, than from the fault 
of any individual. The subject has of late 
occupied much of my attention. Govern¬ 
ment have been pleased to permit me to lay 
my thoughts before them, — a permission of 
which I shall in a few days avail myself; 
and I hope that my diligent inquiry and 
long reflection may contribute somewhat to 
aid their judgment in the establishment of a 
police which may be legal, vigorous, and 
unoppressive. 









MACKINTOSH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


686 


In reviewing the administration of law in 
this place since I have presided here, two 
circumstances present themselves, which ap¬ 
pear to deserve a public explanation. 

The first relates to the principles adopted 
by the Court in cases of commercial insol¬ 
vency. 

In India, no law compels the equal dis¬ 
tribution of the goods of an insolvent mer¬ 
chant : we have no system of bankrupt laws. 
The consequence is too well known. Every 
mercantile failure has produced a disreput¬ 
able scramble, in which no individual could 
be blamed; because, if he were to forego 
his rights, they would not be sacrificed to 
equitable division, but to the claims of a 
competitor no better entitled than himself. 
A few have recovered all, and the rest have 
lost all. Nor was this the worst. Opulent 
commercial houses, either present, or well 
served by vigilant agents, almost always 
foresaw insolvency in such time as to secure 
themselves. But old officers, widows, and 
orphans in Europe, could know nothing of 
the decaying credit of their Indian bankers, 
and they had no agents but those bankers 
themselves: they, therefore, were the vic¬ 
tims of every failure. The rich generally 
saved what was of little consequence to 
them, and the poor almost constantly lost 
their all. These scenes have frequently 
been witnessed in various parts of India: 
they have formerly occurred here. On the 
death of one unfortunate gentleman, since I 
have been here, the evil was rather dreaded 
than felt. 

Soon after my arrival, I laid before the 
British merchants of this island, a plan for 
the equal distribution of insolvent estates, 
of which accident then prevented the adop¬ 
tion. Since that time, the principle of the 
plan has been adopted in several cases of 
actual or of apprehended insolvency, by a 
conveyance of the whole estate to trustees, 
for the equal benefit of all the creditors. 
Some disposition to adopt similar arrange¬ 
ments appears of late to manifest itself in 
Europe. And certainly nothing can be bet¬ 
ter adapted to the present dark and unquiet 
condition of the commercial world. Wher¬ 


ever they are adopted early, they are likely 
to prevent bankruptcy. A very intelligent 
merchant justly observed to me, that, under 
such a system, the early disclosure of em¬ 
barrassment would not be attended with 
that shame and danger which usually pro¬ 
duce concealment and final ruin. In all 
cases, and at every period, such arrange¬ 
ments would limit the evils of bankruptcy 
to the least possible amount. It cannot, 
therefore, be matter of wonder that a court 
of justice should protect such a system with 
all the weight of their opinion, and to the 
utmost extent of their legal power. 

I by no means presume to blame those 
creditors who, on the first proposal of this 
experiment, withheld their consent, and pre¬ 
ferred the assertion of their legal rights. 
They had, I dare say, been ill used by their 
debtors, who might personally be entitled to 
no indulgence from them. It is too much 
to require of men, that, under the influence 
of cruel disappointment and very just re¬ 
sentment, they should estimate a plan of 
public utility in the same manner with a 
dispassionate and disinterested spectator. 
But experience and reflection will in time 
teach them, that, in seeking to gratify a just 
resentment against a culpable insolvent, 
they, in fact, direct their hostility against 
the unoffending and helpless part of their 
fellow-creditors. 

One defect in this voluntary system of 
bankrupt laws must be owned to be con¬ 
siderable: it is protected by no penalties 
against the fraudulent concealment of pro¬ 
perty. There is no substitute for such 
penalties, but the determined and vigilant 
integrity of trustees. I have, therefore, 
with pleasure, seen that duty undertaken 
by European gentlemen of character and 
station. Besides the great considerations 
of justice and humanity to the creditors, I 
will confess that I am gratified by the inter¬ 
ference of English gentlemen to prevent 
the fall of eminent or ancient commercial 
families among the natives of India.* 


* . . . “ I am persuaded that your feelings 
would have entirely accorded with mine: con- 







A CHARGE TO THE GRAND JURY OF BOMBAY. 687 


The second circumstance which I think 
myself now bound to explain, relates to the 
dispensation of penal law. 

Since my arrival here, in May, 1804, the 
punishment of death has not been inflicted 
by this Court. Now, the population subject 
to our jurisdiction, either locally or person¬ 
ally, cannot be estimated at less than two 
hundred thousand persons. Whether any 
evil consequence has yet arisen from so 
unusual, — and in the British dominions 
unexampled, — a circumstance as the dis¬ 
use of capital punishment, for so long a 
period as seven years, among a population 
so considerable, is a question which you 
are entitled to ask, and to which I have 
the means of affording you a satisfactory 
answer. 

The criminal records go back to the year 
1756. From May, 1756, to May, 1763, the 
capital convictions amounted to one hundred 
and forty-one; and the executions were 
forty-seven. The annual average of per¬ 
sons who suffered death was almost seven ; 
and the annual average of capital crimes 
ascertained to have been perpetrated was 
nearly twenty. From May, 1804, to May, 
1811, there have been one hundred and 
nine capital convictions. The annual ave¬ 
rage, therefore, of capital crimes, legally 
proved to have been perpetrated during 
that period, is between fifteen and sixteen. 
During this period there has been no capital 
execution. But as the population of this 
island has much more than doubled during the 
last fifty years, the annual average of capital 


vinced that, both as jurors and as private gentle¬ 
men, you will always consider yourselves as in¬ 
trusted, in this remote region of the earth, with 
the honour of that beloved country, which, I trust, 
becomes more dear to you, as I am sure it does 
to me, during every new moment of absence; that, 
in your intercourse with each other as well as with 
the natives of India, you will keep unspotted the 
ancient character of the British nation,—renowned 
in every age, and in no age more then the present, 
for valour, for justice, for humanity, and generosity, 
— for every virtue which supports, as w r ell as for 
every talent and accomplishment which adorns 
human society.” Charge, 21st July, 1805. — En. 


convictions during the last seven years ought 
to have been forty, in order to show the same 
proportion of criminality with that of the 
first seven yearsy 7 Between 1756 and 1763, 
the military force was comparatively small: 
a few factories or small ports only depended 
on this government. Between 1804 and 
1811, five hundred European officers, and 
probably four thousand European soldiers, 
were scattered over extensive territories. 
Though honour and morality be powerful 
aids of law with respect to the first class, 
and military discipline with respect to the 
second, yet it might have been expected, as 
experience has proved, that the more violent 
enormities would be perpetrated by the 
European soldiery — uneducated and some¬ 
times depraved as many of them must 
originally be, — often in a state of mischie¬ 
vous idleness, — commanding, in spite of all 
care, the means of intoxication, and cor¬ 
rupted by contempt for the feelings and 
rights of the natives of this country. If 
these circumstances be considered, it will 
appear that the capital crimes committed 
during the last seven years, with no capital 
execution, have, in proportion to the popu¬ 
lation, not been much more than a third of 
those committed in the first seven years, 
notwithstanding the irffiiction of death on 
forty-seven persons. The intermediate pe¬ 
riods lead to the same results. The num¬ 
ber of capital crimes in any one of these 
periods does not appear to be diminished 
either by the capital executions of the same 
period, or of that immediately preceding: 
they bear no assignable proportion to each 
other. 

In the seven years immediately preceding 
the last, which were chiefly in the presidency 
of my learned predecessor, Sir William Syer, 
there was a very remarkable diminution of 
capital punishments. The average fell from 
about four in each year, which was that of 
the seven years before Sir William Syer, to 
somewhat less than two in each year. Yet 
the capital convictions were diminished about 
one-third. 

“ The punishment of death is principally 
intended to prevent the more violent and 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


688 


atrocious crimes. From May, 1797, there 
were eighteen convictions for murder, of 
which I omit two, as of a very particular 
kind. In that period there were twelve 
capital executions. From May, 1804, to 
May, 1811, there were six convictions for 
murder *, omitting one which was considered 
by the jury as in substance a case of man¬ 
slaughter with some aggravation. The mur¬ 
ders in the former period were, therefore, 
very nearly as three to one to those in the 
latter, in which no capital punishment was 
inflicted. From the number of convictions, 
I of course exclude those cases where the 
prisoner escaped; whether he owed his safety 
to defective proof of his guilt, or to a legal 
objection. This cannot affect the justness 
of a comparative estimate, because the pro¬ 
portion of criminals who escape on legal 
objections before courts of the same law, 
must, in any long period, be nearly the same. 
But if the two cases, — one where a formal 
verdict of murder, with a recommendation 
to mercy, was intended to represent an 
aggravated manslaughter; and the other of 
a man who escaped by a repugnancy in the 
indictment, where, however, the facts were 
more near manslaughter than'murder,—be 
added, then the murders of the last seven 


* . . . “ The truth seems to be, as I observed to 
you on a former occasion, that the natives of India, 
though incapable of the crimes which arise from 
violent passions, are, beyond every other people of 
the earth, addicted to those vices which proceed 
from the weakness of natural feeling, and the almost 
total absence of moral restraint. This observation 
may, in a great measure, account for that most ag¬ 
gravated species of child-murder which prevails 
among them. They are not actively cruel; but 
they are utterly insensible. They have less fero¬ 
city, perhaps, than most other nations; but they 
have still less compassion. Among them, there¬ 
fore, infancy has lost its natural shield. The 
paltry temptation of getting possession of the few 
gold and silver ornaments, with which parents in 
this country load their infants, seems sufficient to 
lead these timid and mild beings to destroy a child 
without pity, without anger, without fear, without 
remorse, with little apprehension of punishment, 
and with no apparent shame on detection.” 
Charge, 19th April, 1806. — Ed. 


years will be eight, while those of the former 
seven years will be sixteen. 

“ This small experiment has, therefore, 
been made without any diminution of the 
security of the lives and properties of men. 
Two hundred thousand men have been go¬ 
verned for seven years without a capital 
punishment, and without any increase of 
crimes. If any experience has been ac¬ 
quired, it has been safely and innocently 
gained. It was, indeed, impossible that the 
trial could ever have done harm. It was 
made on no avowed principle of impunity or 
even lenity. It was in its nature gradual, 
subject to cautious reconsideration in every 
new instance, and easily capable of being 
altogether changed on the least appearance 
of danger. Though the general result be 
rather remarkable, yet the usual maxims 
which regulate judicial discretion have in a 
very great majority of cases been pursued. 
The instances of deviation from those maxims 
scarcely amount to a twentieth of the whole 
convictions. 

I have no doubt of the right of society to 
inflict the punishment of death on enormous 
crimes, wherever an inferior punishment is 
not sufficient. I consider it as a mere modi¬ 
fication of the right of self-defence, which 
may as justly be exercised in deterring from 
attack, as in repelling it. I abstain from the 
discussions in which benevolent and en¬ 
lightened men have, on more sober prin¬ 
ciples, endeavoured to show the wisdom of, 
at least, confining the punishment of death 
to the highest class of crimes. I do not even 
presume in this place to give an opinion 
regarding the attempt which has been made 
by one* whom I consider as among the 
wisest and most virtuous men of the present 
age, to render the letter of our penal law 
more conformable to its practice. My only 
object is to show that no evil has hitherto 
resulted from the exercise of judicial dis¬ 
cretion in this Court. I speak with the less 
reserve, because the present sessions are 
likely to afford a test which will determine 
whether I have been actuated by weakness 

* Sir Samuel Romilly. — Ed. 









ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 689 

or by firmness, — by fantastic scruples and 
irrational feelings, or by a calm and steady 
view to. what appeared to me the highest 
interests of society.* 

I have been induced to make these ex¬ 
planations by the probability of this being 
the last time of my addressing a grand jury 
from this place. His Majesty has been gra¬ 
ciously pleased to approve of my return to 
Great Britain, which the state of my health 
has for some time rendered very desirable. 
It is therefore probable, though not certain, 

that I may begin my voyage before the next 
sessions. 

In that case, Gentlemen, I now have the 
honour to take my leave of you, with those 
serious thoughts that naturally arise at the 
close of every great division of human life,— 
with the most ardent and unmixed wishes 
for the welfare of the community with which 

I have been for so many years connected by 
an honourable tie, — and with thanks to you, 
Gentlemen, for the assistance which many of 
you have often afforded me in the discharge 
of duties, which are necessary, indeed, and 
sacred, but which, to a single judge, in a 
recent court, and small society, are pecu¬ 
liarly arduous, invidious, and painful. 

* Alluding to the impending trial of a native 
artillery-man for murder, who was eventually 
executed. — Ed. 

SPEECH 

ON TUB 

ANNEXATION OF GENOA TO THE KINGDOM OF SARDINIA.* 

DELIVERED IN TIIE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 

27tii OF APRIL, 1815. 

Mr. Speaker, 

I now rise, pursuant to my notice, to dis¬ 
charge the most arduous, and certainly the 
most painful, public duty which I have ever 
felt myself called upon to perform. I have 

* On the general reverses that befell the arms 
of France in the spring of 1814, and the consequent 
withdrawal of her troops from Italy, Lord William 
Bentinck was instructed to occupy the territories 
of the republic of Genoa, “ without committing his 
Court or the Allies with respect to their ultimate 
disposition.” Of the proclamation which he issued 
upon the occasion of carrying these orders into 
effect, dated March 14th, Lord Castlereagh had 
himself observed, that “an expression or two, 
taken separately, might create an impression that 
his views of Italian liberation went to the form of 
the government, as well as to the expulsion of the 

to bring before the House, probably for its 
final consideration, the case of Genoa, which, 
in various forms of proceedings and stages 
of progress, has already occupied a consi¬ 
derable degree of our attention. All these 

French.” On the success of the military move¬ 
ment, the General reported that he had, “ in conse¬ 
quence of the unanimous desire of the Genoese to 
return to their ancient state,” proclaimed the old 
form of government. That this desire was unjustly 
thwarted, and that these expectations, fairly raised 
by Lord William Bentinck’s proclamation, had 
been wrongfully disappointed by the final territo¬ 
rial settlement of the Allies at Paris, it was the 
scope of this speech to prove. For the papers re¬ 
ferred to, see Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 
vol. xxx. p. 387., and for the Resolutions moved, 
ibid. p. 932. — Ed. 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


690 

previous discussions of this great question 
of faith and justice, have been hitherto of 
necessity almost confined to one side. When 
my Honourable Friend* moved for papers 
on this subject, the reasoning was only on 
this side of the House. The gentlemen on 
the opposite side professedly abstained from 
discussion of the merits of the case, because 
they alleged that discussion was then pre¬ 
mature, and that a disclosure of the docu¬ 
ments necessary to form a right judgment, 
would at that period have been injurious to 
the public interest. In what that danger 
consisted, or how such a disclosure would 
have been more inconvenient on the 22nd 
of February than on the 27th of April, they 
will doubtless this day explain. I have in 
vain examined the papers for an explana¬ 
tion of it. It was a serious assertion, made 
on their Ministerial responsibility, and ab¬ 
solutely requires to be satisfactorily esta¬ 
blished. After the return of the Noble 
Lord I from Vienna, the discussion was 
again confined to one side, by the singular 
course which he thought fit to adopt. When 
my Honourable Friend j gave notice of a 
motion for all papers respecting those 
arrangements at Vienna, which had been 
substantially completed, the Noble Lord 
did not intimate any intention of acceding 
to the motion. He suffered it to proceed as 
if it were to be adversely debated, and in¬ 
stead of granting the papers, so that they 
might be in the possession of every member 
a sufficient time for careful perusal and at¬ 
tentive consideration, he brought out upon 
us in the middle of his speech a number of 
documents, which had been familiar to him 
for six months, but of which no private 
member of the House could have known the 
existence. It was impossible for us to dis¬ 
cuss a great mass of papers, of which we 


* Mr. Lambton (afterwards Earl of Durham) 
had on the 22nd of February made a motion for 
papers connected with the case of Genoa, on which 
occasion Sir James Mackintosh had supported him. 
— Ed. 

f Viscount Castlereagh. — Ed. 

J Mr. Whitbread. — Ed. 


had heard extracts once read in the heat and 
hurry of debate. For the moment we were 
silenced by this ingenious stratagem : the 
House was taken by surprise. They were 
betrayed into premature applause of that of 
which it was absolutely impossible that they 
should be competent judges. It might be 
thought to imply a very unreasonable dis¬ 
trust in the Noble Lord of his own talents, 
if it were not much more naturally im¬ 
putable to his well-grounded doubts of the 
justice of his cause. 

I have felt, Sir, great impatience to bring 
the question to a final hearing, as soon as 
every member possessed that full inform¬ 
ation in which alone I well knew that my 
strength must consist. The production of 
the papers has occasioned some delay; but 
it has been attended also with some ad¬ 
vantage to me, which I ought to confess. 
It has given me an opportunity of hearing 
in another place a most perspicuous and 
forcible statement of the defence of Mi¬ 
nisters *, — a statement which, without dis¬ 
paragement to the talents of the Noble 
Lord, I may venture to consider as contain¬ 
ing the whole strength of their case. After 
listening to that able statement, — after 
much reflection for two months, — after the 
most anxious examination of the papers 
before us, I feel myself compelled to adhere 
to my original opinion, and to bring before 
the House the forcible transfer of the Ge¬ 
noese territory to the foreign master whom 
the Genoese people most hate, — a transfer 
stipulated for by British ministers, and ex¬ 
ecuted by British troops, — as an act by 
which the pledged faith of this nation has 
been forfeited, the rules of justice have 
been violated, the fundamental principles of 
European policy have been shaken, and the 
odious claims of conquest stretched to an 
extent unwarranted by a single precedent 
in the good times of Europe. On the ex¬ 
amination of these charges, I entreat gen¬ 
tlemen to enter with a disposition which 
becomes a solemn and judicial determina¬ 
tion of a question which affects the honour 

* By Earl Bathurst, in the House of Lords.—E d. 















ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 


691 


n 


of their country, — certainly without for¬ 
getting that justice which is due to the 
King’s Ministers, whose character it does 
most deeply import. 

I shall not introduce into this discussion 
any of the practical questions which have 
arisen out of recent and terrible events.* 
They may, like other events in history, 
supply argument or illustration ; but I shall 
in substance argue the case, as if I were 
again speaking on the 22nd of February, 
without any other change than a tone pro¬ 
bably more subdued than would have been 
natural during that short moment of secure 
and almost triumphant tranquillity. 

For this transaction, and for our share in 
all the great measures of the Congress of 
Vienna, the Noble Lord has told us that 
he is “ pre-eminently responsible.” I know 
not in what foreign school he may have 
learnt such principles or phrases ; but how¬ 
ever much his colleagues may have re¬ 
signed their discretion to him, I trust that 
Parliament will not suffer him to relieve 
them from any part of their responsibility. 
I shall not now inquire on what principle of 
constitutional law the whole late conduct 
of Continental negotiations by the Noble 
Lord could be justified. A Secretary of 
State has travelled over Europe with the 
crown and sceptre of Great Britain, ex¬ 
ercising the royal prerogatives without the 
possibility of access to the Crown, to give 
advice, and to receive commands, and con¬ 
cluding his country by irrevocable acts, 
without communication with the other re¬ 
sponsible advisers of the King. I shall not 
now examine into the nature of what our 
ancestors would have termed an “ accroach¬ 
ment ” of royal power, — an offence de¬ 
scribed indeed with dangerous laxity in 
ancient times, but, as an exercise of supreme 
power in another mode than by the forms, 
and under the responsibility prescribed by 
law, undoubtedly tending to the subversion 
of the fundamental principles of the British 
monarchy. 

In all the preliminary discussions of this 


* Napoleon’s return from Elba. — Ed. 


subject, the Noble Lord has naturally la¬ 
boured to excite prejudice against his op¬ 
ponents. He has made a liberal use of the 
common-places of every Administration, 
against every Opposition ; and he has as¬ 
sailed us chiefly through my Honourable 
Friend (Mr. Whitbread) with language more 
acrimonious and contumelious than is very 
consistent with his recommendations of de¬ 
corum and moderation. He speaks of our 
“ foul calumnies ; ” though calumniators do 
not call out as we did for inquiry and for 
trial. He tells us “ that our discussions in¬ 
flame nations more than they correct go¬ 
vernments ; ” — a pleasant antithesis, which 
I have no doubt contains the opinion en¬ 
tertained of all popular discussion by the 
sovereigns and ministers of absolute mon¬ 
archies, under whom he has lately studied 
constitutional principles. Indeed, Sir, I do 
not wonder that, on his return to this House, 
he should have been provoked into some 
forgetfulness of his usual moderation: — 
after long familiarity with the smooth and 
soft manners of diplomatists, it is natural 
that he should recoil from the turbulent 
freedom of a popular assembly. But let 
him remember, that to the uncourtly and 
fearless turbulence of this House, Great 
Britain owes a greatness and power so much 
above her natural resources, and that rank 
among nations which gave him ascendancy 
and authority in the deliberations of as¬ 
sembled Europe: — “ Sic fortis Etruria 
crevit! ” By that plainness and roughness 
of speech which wounded the nerves of 
courtiers, this House has forced kings and 
ministers to respect public liberty at home, 
and to observe public faith abroad. He 
complains that this should be the first place 
where the faith of this country is impugned: 
— I rejoice that it is. It is because the 
first approaches towards breach of faith are 
sure of being attacked here, that there is so 
little ground for specious attack on our faith 
in other places. It is the nature and essence 
of the House of Commons to be jealous and 
suspicious, even to excess, of the manner in 
which the conduct of the Executive Govern¬ 
ment may affect that dearest of national in- 











692 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


terests — the character of the nation for 
justice and faith. What is destroyed by 
the slightest speck of corruption can never 
be sincerely regarded unless it be watched 
with jealous vigilance. 

In questions of policy, where inconvenience 
is the worst consequence of error, and where 
much deference may be reasonably paid to 
superior information, there is much room for 
confidence beforehand and for indulgence 
afterwards: but confidence respecting a point 
of honour is a disregard of honour. Never, 
certainly, was there an occasion when these 
principles became of more urgent application 
than during the deliberations of the Congress 
of Vienna. Disposing, as they did, of rights 
and interests more momentous than were 
ever before placed at the disposal of a human 
assembly, is it fit that no channel should be 
left open by which they may learn the 
opinion of the public respecting their coun¬ 
cils, and the feelings which their measures 
have excited from Norway to Andalusia? 
Were these princes and ministers really de¬ 
sirous, in a situation of tremendous responsi¬ 
bility, to bereave themselves of the guidance, 
and release their judgments from the con¬ 
trol, which would arise from some know¬ 
ledge of the general sentiments of mankind? 
Were they so infatuated by absolute power 
as to wish they might never hear the public 
judgments till their system was unalterably 
established, and the knowledge could no 
longer be useful ? It seems so. There was 
only one assembly in Europe from whose 
free discussions they might have learnt the 
opinions of independent men, — only one in 
which the grievances of men and nations 
might have been published with any effect. 
The House of Commons was the only body 
which represented in some sort the public 
opinions of Europe; and the discussions 
which might have conveyed that opinion to 
the Sovereigns at Vienna seem, from the 
language of the Noble Lord, to have been 
odious and alarming to them. Even in that 
case we have one consolation : — those who 
hate advice most, always need it most. If 
our language was odious, it must in the very 
same proportion have been necessary; and, 


notwithstanding all the abuse thrown upon 
it, may have been partly effectual. Denial 
at least proves nothing; — we are very sure 
that if we had prevented any evil, we should 
only have been the more abused. 

Sir, I do not regret the obloquy with 
which we have been loaded during the pre¬ 
sent session: — it is a proof that we are fol¬ 
lowing, though with unequal steps, the great 
men who have filled the same benches before 
us. It was their lot to devote themselves to 
a life of toilsome, thankless, and often un¬ 
popular opposition, with no stronger allure¬ 
ment to ambition than a chance of a few 
months of office in half a century, and with 
no other inducement to virtue than the faint 
hope of limiting and mitigating evil,— always 
certain that the merit would never be ac¬ 
knowledged, and generally obliged to seek 
for the best proof of their services in the 
scurrility with which they were reviled. To 
represent them as partisans of a foreign 
nation, for whom they demanded justice, 
was always one of the most effectual modes 
of exciting a vulgar prejudice against them. 
When Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox exhorted 
Great Britain to be wise in relation to 
America, and just towards Ireland, they 
were called Americans and Irishmen. But 
they considered it as the greatest of all 
human calamities to be unjust; — they 
thought it worse to inflict than to suffer 
wrong: and they rightly thought themselves 
then most really Englishmen, when they 
most laboured to dissuade England from 
tyranny. Afterwards, when Mr. Burke, with 
equal disinterestedness as I firmly believe, 
and certainly with sufficient zeal, supported 
the administration of Mr. Pitt, and the war 
against the Revolution, he did not restrain 
the freedom which belonged to his generous 
character. Speaking of that very alliance 
on which all his hopes were founded, he 
spoke of it, as I might speak (if I had his 
power of language) of the Congress at 
Vienna : — “ There can be no tie of honour 
in a society for pillage.” He was perhaps 
blamed for indecorum; but no one ever 
made any other conclusion from his lan¬ 
guage, than that it proved the ardour of his 










ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 


attachment to that cause which he could not 
endure to see dishonoured. 

The Noble Lord has charged us, Sir, with 
a more than unusual interference in the 
functions of the monarchy and with the 
course of foreign negotiations. He has not 
indeed denied the right of this House to 
interfere: — he will not venture to deny 
“ that this House is not only an accuser of 
competence to criminate, but a council of 
weight and wisdom to advise.” * * * * § He in¬ 
cautiously, indeed, “ said that there was a 
necessary collision between the powers of 
this House and the prerogatives of the 
Crown.” It would have been more consti¬ 
tutional to have said that there was a lia¬ 
bility to collision, and that the deference of 
each for the other has produced mutual 
concession, compromise, and co-operation, 
instead of collision. It has been, in fact, by 
the exercise of the great Parliamentary 
function of counsel, that in the best times 
of our history the House of Commons has 
suspended the exercise of its extreme powers. 
Respect for its opinion has rendered the ex¬ 
ertion of its authority needless. It is not 
true that the interposition of its advice re¬ 
specting the conduct of negotiations, the 
conduct of war, or the terms of peace, has 
been more frequent of late than in former 
times: — the contrary is the truth. From 
the earliest periods, and during the most 
glorious reigns in our history, its counsel 
has been proffered and accepted on the 
highest questions of peace and war. The 
interposition was necessarily even more fre¬ 
quent and more rough in these early times, 
—when the boundaries of its authority were 
undefined, — when its principal occupation 
was a struggle to assert and fortify its rights, 
and when it was sometimes as important to 
establish the legality of a power by exercise 
as to exercise it well, — than in these more 
fortunate periods of defined and acknow¬ 
ledged right, when a mild and indirect in¬ 
timation of its opinion ought to preclude the 
necessity of resorting to those awful powers 


* Burke, A Representation to His Majesty, &c. 
— Ed. 


603 

with which it is wisely armed. But though 
these interpositions of Parliament were more 
frequent in ancient times, — partly from the 
necessity of asserting contested rights, — 
and more rare in recent periods, — partly 
from the more submissive character of the 
House, — they are wanting at no time in 
number enough to establish the grand prin¬ 
ciple of the constitution, that Parliament is 
the first council of the King in war as well 
as in peace. This great principle has been 
acted on by Parliament in the best times:— 
it has been reverenced by the Crown in the 
worst. A short time before the Revolution 
it marked a struggle for the establishment 
of liberty : — a short time after the Revo¬ 
lution it proved the secure enjoyment of 
liberty. The House of Commons did not 
suffer Charles II. to betray his honour and 
his country, without constitutional warning 
to choose a better course *: its first aid to 
William III. was by counsels relating to 
war.f When, under the influence of other 
feelings, the House rather thwarted than 
aided their great Deliverer, even the party 
in it most hostile to liberty carried the 
rights of Parliament as a political council to 
the utmost constitutional limit, when they 
censured the Treaty of Partition as having 
been passed under the Great Seal during 
the session of Parliament, and u without the 
advice of the same.” j During the War of 
the Succession, both Houses repeatedly 
counselled the Crown on the conduct of the 
war§, — on negotiation with our allies,— 
and even on the terms of peace with the 
enemy. But what needs any further enu¬ 
merations ? Did not the vote of this House 
put an end to the American War ? 

Even, Sir, if the right of Parliament to 
advise had not been as clearly established 


* Commons’ Addresses, 15th of March, 1627; 
29th of March, 1677; 25th of May, 1677; 30th of 
December, 1680. 

f 24th of April, 1689 (advising a declaration of 
war). 

X 21st of March, 1701. 

§ 27th of November, 1705; 22nd of December, 
1707; 3rd of March, 1709; 18th of February, 
1710. 









694 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


as the prerogative of the Crown to make war 
or peace, — if it had not been thus con¬ 
stantly exercised, — if the wisest and best 
men had not been the first to call it forth 
into action, we might reasonably have been ! 
more forward than our ancestors to exercise 
this great right, because we contemplate a 
system of political negotiation, such as our 
ancestors never saw. All former Congresses 
were assemblies of the ministers of belli¬ 
gerent Powers to terminate their differences 
by treaty, — to define the rights and decide 
on the pretensions which had given rise to 
war, or to make compensation for the in¬ 
juries which had been suffered in the course 
of it. The firm and secure system of Europe 
admitted no rapid, and few great changes of 
power and possession. A few fortresses in 
Flanders, a province on the frontiers of 
France and Germany, were generally the 
utmost cessions earned by the most vic¬ 
torious wars, and recovered by the most 
important treaties. Those who have lately 
compared the transactions at Vienna with 
the Treaty of Westphalia,—which formed 
the code of the Empire, and an era in diplo¬ 
matic history, — which terminated the civil 
wars of religion, not only in Germany, but 
throughout Christendom, — and which re¬ 
moved all that danger with which, for more 
than a century, the power of the House 
of Austria had threatened the liberties of 
Europe, — will perhaps feel some surprise 
when they are reminded that, except secu¬ 
larising a few Ecclesiastical principalities, 
that renowned and memorable treaty ceded 
only Alsace to France and part of Pomerania 
to Sweden, — that its stipulations did not 
change the political condition of half a million 
of men, — that it affected no pretension to 
dispose of any territory but that of those 
who were parties to it, — and that not an 
acre of land was ceded without the express 
and formal consent of its legal sovereign.* 

* This is certainly true respecting Pomerania 
and Alsace: whether the Ecclesiastical principali¬ 
ties were treated with so much ceremony may be 
more doubtful, and it would require more research 
to ascertain it than can now be applied to the 
object. 


Far other were the pretensions, and indeed 
the performances, of the ministers assembled 
in congress at Vienna. They met under the 
modest pretence of carrying into effect the 
thirty-second article of the Treaty of Paris *: 
but under colour of this humble language, 
they arrogated the power of doing that, in 
comparison with which the whole Treaty of 
Paris was a trivial convention, and which 
made the Treaty of Westphalia appear no 
more than an adjustment of parish bound¬ 
aries. They claimed the absolute disposal 
of every territory which had been occupied 
by France and her vassals, from Flanders to 
Livonia, and from the Baltic to the Po. 
Over these, the finest countries in the world, 
inhabited by twelve millions of mankind, — 
under pretence of delivering whom from 
a conqueror they had taken up arms, — 
they arrogated to themselves the harshest 
rights of conquest. It is true that of this vast 
territory they restored, or rather granted, a 
great part to its ancient sovereigns. But 
these sovereigns were always reminded by 
some new title, or by the disposal of some 
similarly circumstanced neighbouring terri¬ 
tory, that they owed their restoration to the 
generosity, or at most to the prudence of the 
Congress, and that they were not entitled to 
require it from its justice. They came in 
by a new tenure : — they were the feuda¬ 
tories of the new corporation of kings erected 
at Vienna, exercising joint power in effect 
over all Europe, consisting in form of eight 
or ten princes, but in substance of three 
great military Powers, — the spoilers of 
Poland, the original invaders of the Eu¬ 
ropean constitution, — sanctioned by the 
support of England, and checked, however 
feebly, by France alone. On these three 
Powers, whose reverence for national inde¬ 
pendence and title to public confidence were 
so firmly established by the partition of 
Poland, the dictatorship of Europe has fallen. 

* “ All the Powers engaged on either side in the 
present war shall, within the space of two months, 
send plenipotentiaries to Vienna for the purpose of 
regulating in general congress the arrangements 
which are to complete the provisions of the present 
treaty.” 









ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 695 


They agree that Germany shall have a fede¬ 
ral constitution, — that Switzerland shall 
govern herself, — that unhappy Italy shall, 
as they say, be composed of sovereign states : 
— but it is all by grant from these lords 
paramount. Their will-is the sole title to 
dominion, — the universal tenure of sove¬ 
reignty. A single acre granted on such a 
principle is, in truth, the signal of a mon¬ 
strous revolution in the system of Europe. 
Is the House of Commons to remain silent, 
when such a principle is applied in practice 
to a large part of the Continent, and pro¬ 
claimed in right over the whole ? Is it to 
remain silent when it has heard the King of 
Sardinia, at the moment when he received 
possession of Genoa from a British garrison, 
and when the British commander stated 
himself to have made the transfer in con¬ 
sequence of the decision at Vienna, proclaim 
to the Genoese, that he took possession of 
their territory “ in concurrence with the 
wishes of the principal Powers of Europe ? ” 

It is to this particular act of the Congress, 
Sir, that I now desire to call the attention 
of the House, not only on account of its 
own atrocity, but because it seems to repre¬ 
sent in miniature the whole system of that 
body,—to be a perfect specimen of their 
new public law, and to exemplify every 
principle of that code of partition which they 
are about to establish on the ruins of that 
ancient system of national independence and 
balanced power, which gradually raised the 
nations of Europe to the first rank of the 
human race. I contend that all the parties 
to this violent transfer, and more especially 
the British Government, have been guilty 
of perfidy, — have been guilty of injustice; 
and I shall also contend, that the danger of 
these violations of faith and justice is much 
increased, when they are considered as ex¬ 
amples of those principles by which the 
Congress of Vienna arrogate to themselves 
the right of regulating a considerable portion 
of Europe. 

To establish the breach of faith, I must 
first ask, — What did Lord William Ben- 
tinck promise, as commander-in-chief of His 
Majesty’s troops in Italy, by his Proclama¬ 


tions of the 14th of March and 26th of April, 
1814 ? The first is addressed to the people 
of Italy. It offers them the assistance of 
Great Britain to rescue them from the iron 
yoke of Buonaparte. It holds out the ex¬ 
ample of Spain, enabled, by the aid of Great 
Britain, to rescue her “ independence,” — 
of the neighbouring Sicily, “which hastens 
to resume her ancient splendour among in¬ 
dependent nations. . . Holland i3 about to 
obtain the same object. . . Warriors of Italy, 
you are invited to vindicate your own rights, 
and to be free! Italy, by our united efforts, 
shall become what she was in her most pro¬ 
sperous periods, and what Spain now is! ” 
Now, Sir, I do contend that all the powers 
of human ingenuity cannot give two senses 
to this Proclamation : I defy the wit of man 
to explain it away. Whether Lord William 
Bentinck had the power to promise is an 
after question: — what he did promise, can 
be no question at all. He promised the aid 
of England to obtain Italian independence. 
He promised to assist the Italians in throw¬ 
ing off a yoke, — in escaping from thraldom, 
— in establishing liberty, — in asserting 
rights, — in obtaining independence. Every 
term of emancipation known in human 
language is exhausted to impress his pur¬ 
pose on the heart of Italy. I do not now 
inquire whether the generous warmth of 
this language may not require in justice 
some understood limitation: — perhaps it 
may. But can independence mean a transfer 
to the yoke of the most hated of foreign 
masters ? Were the Genoese invited to spill 
their blood, not merely for a choice of 
tyrants, but to earn the right of wearing 
the chains of the rival and the enemy of 
two centuries ? Are the references to Spain, 
to Sicily, and to Holland mere frauds on 
the Italians, — “words full of sound and 
fury, signifying nothing ? ” If not, can they 
mean less than this, — that those countries 
of Italy which were independent before the 
war, shall be independent again? These 
words, therefore, were at least addressed to 
the Genoese; — suppose them to be limited, 
as to any other Italians; — suppose the 
Lombards, or, at that time, the Neapolitans, 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


696 

to be tacitly excluded. Addressed to the 
Genoese, they either had no meaning, or 
they meant their ancient independence. 

Did the Genoese act upon these pro¬ 
mises? What did they do in consequence 
of that first Proclamation of the 14th of 
March, from Leghorn, addressed to all the 
Italians, but applicable at least to the Ge¬ 
noese, and necessarily understood by that 
people as comprehending them? I admit 
that the promises were conditional; and to 
render them conclusive, it was necessary for 
the Genoese to fulfil the condition: — I 
contend that they did. I shall not attempt 
again to describe-the march of Lord William 
Bentinck from Leghorn to Genoa, which 
has already been painted by my Honourable 
and Learned Friend* with all the chaste 
beauties of his moral and philosophical 
eloquence: my duty confines me to the dry 
discussion of mere facts. The force with 
which Lord William Bentinck left Leghorn 
consisted of about three thousand English, 
supported by a motley band of perhaps five 
thousand Sicilians, Italians, and Greeks, the 
greater part of whom had scarcely ever seen 
a shot fired. At the head of this force, he 
undertook a long march through one of the 
most defensible countries of Europe, against 
a city garrisoned or defended by seven 
thousand French veterans, and which it 
would have required twenty-five thousand 
men to invest, according to the common 
rules of military prudence. Now, Sir, I 
assert, without fear of contradiction, that 
such an expedition would have been an act 
of frenzy, unless Lord William Bentinck 
had the fullest assurance of the good-will 
and active aid of the Genoese people. The 
fact sufficiently speaks for itself. I cannot 
here name the high military authority on 
which my assertion rests; but I defy the 
Right Honourable Gentlemen, with all their 
means of commanding military information, 
to contradict me. I know they will not 
venture. In the first place, then, I assume, 
that the British general would not have 
begun his advance without assurance of the 


* Mr. Horner. — Ed. 


friendship of the Genoese, and that he owes 
his secure and unmolested march to the in¬ 
fluence of the same friendship, — supplying 
his army, and deterring his enemies from 
attack. He therefore, in truth, owed his 
being before the walls of Genoa to Genoese 
co-operation. The city of Genoa, which, in 
1799, had been defended by Massena for 
three months, fell to Lord William Bentinck 
in two days. In two days seven thousand 
French veterans laid down their arms to 
three thousand British soldiers, encumbered 
rather than aided by the auxiliary rabble 
whom I have described. Does any man in 
his senses believe, that the French garrison 
could have been driven to such a surrender 
by any cause but their fear of the Genoese 
people? I have inquired, from the best 
military authorities accessible to me, what 
would be the smallest force with which the 
expedition might probably have been suc¬ 
cessful, if the population had been—I do 
not say enthusiastically — but commonly 
hostile to the invaders: — I have been as¬ 
sured, that it could not have been less than 
twenty-five thousand men. Here, again, I 
venture to challenge contradiction. If none 
can be given, must I not conclude that the 
known friendship of the Genoese towards 
the British, manifested after the issue of the 
Proclamation, and in no part created by it, 
was equivalent to an auxiliary force of 
seventeen thousand men? Were not the 
known wishes of the people, acting on the 
hopes of the British, and on the fears of the 
French, the chief cause of the expulsion of 
the French from the Genoese territory? 
Can Lord William Bentinck’s little army 
be considered as more than auxiliaries to 
the popular sentiment ? If a body of four 
thousand Genoese had joined Lord William, 
on the declared ground of his Proclamation, 
all mankind would have exclaimed that the 
condition was fulfilled, and the contract in¬ 
dissoluble. Is it not the height of absurdity 
to maintain that a manifestation of public 
sentiment, which produced as much benefit 
to him as four times that force, is not to 
have the same effect. A ship which is in 
sight of a capture is entitled to her share of 








ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 697 


the prize, though she neither had nor could 
have fired a shot, upon the plain principle 
that apprehension of her approach probably 
contributed to produce the surrender. If 
apprehension of Genoese hostility influenced 
the French garrison,—if assurance of Ge¬ 
noese friendship encouraged the British 
army, on what principle do you defraud the 
Genoese of their national independence,— 
the prize which you promised them, and 
which they thus helped to wrest from the 
enemy ? 

In fact, I am well informed, Sir, that 
there was a revolt in the city, which pro¬ 
duced the surrender, — that Buonaparte’s 
statue had been overthrown with every 
mark of indignity, — and that the French 
garrison was on the point of being expelled, 
even if the besiegers had not appeared. 
But I am not obliged to risk the case upon 
the accuracy of that information. Be it that 
the Genoese complied with Lord Wellesley’s 
wise instruction, to avoid premature revolt: 
I affirm that Lord William Bentinck’s ad¬ 
vance is positive evidence of an understand¬ 
ing with the Genoese leaders; that there 
would have been such evidence in the ad¬ 
vance of any judicious officer, but most pe¬ 
culiarly in his, who had been for three years 
negotiating in Upper Italy, and was well 
acquainted with the prevalent impatience of 
the French yoke. I conceive it to be self- 
evident, that if the Genoese had believed the 
English army to be advancing in order 
to sell them to Sardinia, they would not 
have favoured the advance. I think it de¬ 
monstrable, that to their favourable disposi¬ 
tion the expedition owed its success. And 
it needs no proof that they favoured the 
English, because the English promised them 
the restoration of independence. The 
English have, therefore, broken faith with 
them: the English have defrauded them of 
solemnly-promised independence : the Eng¬ 
lish have requited their co-operation, by 
forcibly subjecting them to the power of the 
most odious of foreign masters. On the 
whole, I shall close this part of the question 
with challenging all the powers of human 
ingenuity to interpret the Proclamation as 


any thing but a promise of independence to 
such Italian nations as were formerly inde¬ 
pendent, and would now co-operate for the 
recovery of their rights. I leave to the 
Gentlemen on the other side the task of con¬ 
vincing the House that the conduct of the 
Genoese did not co-operate towards success, 
though without it success was impossible. 

But we have been told that Lord William 
Bentinck was not authorised to make such a 
promise. It is needless for me to repeat my 
assent to a truth so trivial, as that no poli¬ 
tical negotiation is naturally within the pro¬ 
vince of a military commander, and that for 
such negotiations he must have special au¬ 
thority. At the same time I must observe, 
that Lord William Bentinck was not solely 
a military commander, and could not be 
considered by the Italians in that light. In 
Sicily his political functions had been more 
important than his military command. From 
1811 to 1814 he had, with the approbation 
of his Government, performed the highest 
acts of political authority in that island ; and 
he had, during the same period, carried on 
the secret negotiations of the British Govern¬ 
ment with all Italians disaffected to France. 
To the Italians, then, he appeared as a 
plenipotentiary: and they had a right to 
expect that his Government would ratify 
his acts and fulfil his engagements. In fact, 
his special authority was full and explicit. 
Lord Wellesley’s Instructions of the 21st of 
October and 27th of December, 1811, speak 
with the manly firmness which distinguishes 
that great statesman as much as his com¬ 
manding character and splendid talents. 
His meaning is always precisely expressed: 
— he leaves himself no retreat from his en¬ 
gagements in the ambiguity and perplexity 
of an unintelligible style. The principal 
object of these masterly despatches is to in¬ 
struct Lord William Bentinck respecting his 
support of any eventual effort of the Italian 
states to rescue Italy. They remind him of 
the desire of the Prince Regent to afford 
every practicable assistance to the people of 
Italy in any such effort. They convey so 
large a discretion, that it is thought necessary 
to say, — “ In all arrangements respecting 













MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


698 


the expulsion of the enemy, your Lordship 
will not fail to give due consideration to 
our engagements with the courts of Sicily 
and Sardinia. Lord William Bentinck had 
therefore powers which would have ex¬ 
tended to Naples and Piedmont, unless they 
had been specially excepted. On the 19th 
of May, 1812, Lord Castlereagh virtually 
confirms the same extensive and confidential 
powers. On the 4th of March preceding, 
Lord Liverpool had, indeed, instructed Lord 
William Bentinck to employ a part of his 
force in a diversion in favour of Lord Wel¬ 
lington, by a descent on the eastern coast of 
Spain. This diversion doubtless suspended 
the negotiations with the patriotic Italians, 
and precluded for a time the possibility of 
affording them aid. But so far from with¬ 
drawing Lord William Bentinck’s political 
power in Italy, they expressly contemplate 
their revival: — “ This operation would leave 
the question respecting Italy open for further 
consideration, if circumstances should subse¬ 
quently render the prospect, there more in¬ 
viting.” The despatches of Lord Bathurst, 
from March 1812 to December 1813, treat 
Lord William Bentinck as still in possession 
of those extensive powers originally vested 
in him by the despatch of Lord Wellesley. 
Every question of policy is discussed in 
these despatches, not as with a mere general, 
— not even as with a mere ambassador, but 
as with a confidential minister for the 
Italian Department. The last despatch is 
that which closes with the remarkable sen¬ 
tence, which is, in my opinion, decisive of 
this whole question : — “ Provided it be 
clearly with the entire concurrence of the 
inhabitants, you may take possession of 
Genoa in the name of His Sardinian Ma¬ 
jesty.” Now this is, in effect, tantamount 
to an instruction not to transfer Genoa to 
Sardinia without the concurrence of the 
inhabitants. It is a virtual instruction to 
consider the wishes of the people of Genoa 
as the rule and measure of his conduct: it is 
more — it is a declaration that he had no 
need of any instruction to re-establish 
Genoa, if the Genoese desired it. That re¬ 
establishment was provided for by his ori¬ 


ginal instructions: only the new project of a 
transfer to a foreign sovereign required new 
ones. Under his original instructions, then, 
thus ratified by a long series of succeeding 
despatches from a succession of ministers, 
did Lord William Bentinck issue the Pro¬ 
clamation of the 14th of March. 

Limitations there were in the original in¬ 
structions : — Sicily and Sardinia were ex¬ 
cepted. New exceptions undoubtedly arose, 
in the course of events, so plainly within the 
principle of the original exceptions as to 
require no specification. Every Italian 
province of a sovereign with whom Great 
Britain had subsequently contracted an al¬ 
liance was, doubtless, as much to be ex¬ 
cepted out of general projects of revolt for 
Italian independence as those which had 
been subject to the Allied Sovereigns in 
1811. A British minister needed no ex¬ 
press instructions to comprehend that he 
was to aid no revolt against the Austrian 
Government in their former province of 
Lombardy. The change of circumstances 
sufficiently instructed him. But in what 
respect were circumstances changed re¬ 
specting Genoa ? The circumstances of Ge¬ 
noa were the same as at the time of Lord 
Wellesley’s instructions. The very last 
despatches (those of Lord Bathurst, of the 
28th of December, 1813) had pointed to 
the Genoese territory as the scene of military 
operations, without any intimation that the 
original project was not still applicable 
there, unless the Genoese nation should 
agree to submit to the King of Sardinia. I 
contend, therefore, that the original instruc¬ 
tion of Lord Wellesley, which authorised 
the promise of independence to every part 
of the Italian peninsula except Naples and 
Piedmont, was still in force, wherever it was 
not manifestly limited by subsequent en¬ 
gagements with the sovereigns of other 
countries, similar to our engagements with 
the sovereigns of Naples and Piedmont,— 
that no such engagement existed respecting 
the Genoese authority, — and that to the 
Genoese people the instruction of Lord 
Wellesley was as applicable as on the day 
when that instruction was issued. 











ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA, 699 


The Noble Lord may then talk as he 
pleases of “disentangling from the present 
question the question of Italy,” to which 
on a former occasion he applied a phrase¬ 
ology so singular. He cannot “ disentangle 
these questions : ” — they are inseparably 
blended. The Instructions of 1811 au¬ 
thorised the promise of independence to 
all Italians, except the people of Naples 
and Piedmont. The Proclamation of the 
14th of March 1814 promised independ¬ 
ence to all Italians, with the manifestly 
implied exception of those who had been 
the subjects of Powers who had now be¬ 
come the allies of Great Britain. A British 
general, fully authorised, promised inde¬ 
pendence to those Italians who, like the 
Genoese, had not been previously the sub¬ 
jects of an ally of Britain, and by that 
promise, so authorised, his Government is 
inviolably bound. 

But these direct instructions were not all. 
He was indirectly authorised by the acts 
and language of his own Government and 
of the other great Powers of Europe. He 
was authorised to re-establish the republic 
of Genoa, because the British Government 
in the Treaty of Amiens had refused to 
acknowledge its destruction. He was au¬ 
thorised to believe that Austria desired the 
re-establishment of a republic whose de¬ 
struction that Government in 1808 had 
represented as a cause of war. He was 
surely authorised to consider that re-estab¬ 
lishment as conformable to the sentiments 
of the Emperor Alexander, who at the same 
time had, on account of the annexation of 
Genoa to France, refused even at the re¬ 
quest of Great Britain to continue his medi¬ 
ation between her and a Power capable of 
such an outrage on the rights of independent 
nations. Where was Lord William Ben- 
tinck to learn the latest opinions of the 
Allied Powers ? If he read the celebrated 
Declaration of Frankfort, he there found 
an alliance announced of which the object 
was the restoration of Europe. Did re¬ 
storation mean destruction ? Perhaps before 
the 14th of March, — certainly before the 
26th of April, — he had seen the first article 


of the Treaty of Chaumont, concluded on 
the 1st of March,— 

“ Dum curse ambiguae, dum spes incerta futuri,” *— 

in which he found the object of the war de¬ 
clared by the assembled majesty of con¬ 
federated Europe to be “ a general peace 
under which the rights and liberties of all 
nations may be secured ”— words eternally 
honourable to their authors if they were to 
be observed — more memorable still if they 
were to be openly and perpetually violated ! 
Before the 26th of April he had certainly 
perused these words, which no time will efface 
from the records of history ; for he evidently 
adverts to them in the preamble of his 
Proclamation, and justly considers them as 
a sufficient authority, if he had no other, 
to warrant its provisions:—“Considering,” 
says he, “ that the general desire of the 
Genoese nation seems to be, to return to 
their ancient government, and considering 
that the desire seems to be conformable to 
the principles recognised by the High Allied 
Powers of restoring to all their ancient 
rights and privileges.” In the work of my 
celebrated friend, Mr. Gentz, of whom I 
can never speak without regard and admir¬ 
ation, On the Balance of Power, he would 
have found the incorporation of Genoa justly 
reprobated as one of the most unprincipled 
acts of French tyranny ; and he would have 
most reasonably believed the sentiments of 
the Allied Powers to have been spoken by 
that eminent person — now, if I am not 
misinformed, the Secretary of that Congress, 
on whose measures his writings are the most 
severe censure. 

But that Lord William Bentinck did be¬ 
lieve himself to have offered independence 
to the Genoese, — that he thought himself 
directly and indirectly authorised to make 
such an offer, — and that he was satisfied 
that the Genoese had by their co-operation 
performed their part of the compact, are 
facts which rest upon the positive and pre¬ 
cise testimony of Lord William Bentinck 
himself. I call upon him as the best inter- 

* iEneid, lib. viii. — Ed. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


700 


preter of his own language, and the most 
unexceptionable witness to prove the co¬ 
operation of the Genoese. Let his Pro¬ 
clamation of the 26th of April be examined: 

— it is the clearest commentary on that of 
the 14th of March. It is the most decisive 
testimony to the active aid of the Genoese 
people. On the 26th of April he bestows 
on the people of Genoa that independence 
which he had promised to all the nations of 
Italy (with the implied exception, already 
often enough mentioned), on condition of 
their aiding to expel the oppressor. He, 
therefore, understood his own Proclamation 
to be such a promise of independence : he 
could not doubt but that he was authorised 
to make it: and he believed that the Genoese 
were entitled to claim the benefit of it by 
their performance of its condition. 

This brings me to the consideration of 
this Proclamation, on which I should have 
thought all observation unnecessary, unless 
I had heard some attempts made by the 
Noble Lord to explain it away, and to re¬ 
present it as nothing but the establishment 
of a provisional government. I call on any 
member of the House to read that Pro¬ 
clamation, and to say whether he can in 
common honour assent to such an interpret¬ 
ation. The Proclamation, beyond all doubt, 
provides for two perfectly distinct objects: 

— the establishment of a provisional govern¬ 
ment till the 1st of January 1815, and the 
re-establishment of the ancient constitution 
of the republic, with certain reforms and 
modifications, from and after that period. 
Three-fourths of the Proclamation have no 
reference whatever to a provisional govern¬ 
ment ; — the first sentence of the preamble, 
and the third and fourth articles only, refer 
to that object: but the larger paragraph of 
the preamble, and four articles of the enact¬ 
ing part, relate to the re-establishment of 
the ancient constitution alone. “ The desire 
of the Genoese nation was to return to their 
ancient government, under which they had 
enjoyed independence —was this relating 
to a provisional government? Did “the 
principles recognised by the High Allied 
Powers ” contemplate only the establishment 


of provisional governments ? Did pro¬ 
visional governments imply “ restoring to 
all their ancient rights and privileges ? ” 
Why should the ancient constitution be 
re-established — the very constitution given 
by Andrew Doria when he delivered his 
country from a foreign yoke, — if nothing 
was meant but a provisional government, 
preparatory to foreign slavery ? Why was 
the government to be modified accord¬ 
ing to the general wish, the public good, 
and the spirit of Doria’s constitution, if 
nothing was meant beyond a temporary 
administration, till the Allied Powers could 
decide on what vassal they were to bestow 
Genoa? But I may have been at first 
mistaken, and time may have rendered my 
mistake incorrigible. Let every Gentle¬ 
man, before he votes on this question, calmly 
peruse the Proclamation of the 26 th of 
April, and determine for himself whether it 
admits of any but one construction. Does 
it not provide for a provisional government 
immediately, and for the establishment of 
the ancient constitution hereafter ; — the 
provisional government till the 1st of Janu¬ 
ary, 1815, the constitution from the 1st of 
January, 1815? The provisional govern¬ 
ment is in its nature temporary, and a limit 
is fixed to it. The constitution of the re¬ 
public is permanent, and no term or limit 
is prescribed beyond which it is not to en¬ 
dure. It is not the object of the Proclam¬ 
ation to establish the ancient constitution 
as a provisional government. On the con¬ 
trary, the ancient constitution is not to be 
established till the provisional government 
ceases to exist. So distinct are they, that 
the mode of appointment to the supreme 
powers most materially differs. Lord Wil¬ 
liam Bentinck nominates the two colleges, 
who compose the provisional government. 
The two colleges who are afterwards to 
compose the permanent government of the 
republic, are to be nominated agreeably to 
the ancient constitution. Can it be main¬ 
tained that Jke intention was to establish 
two successive provisional governments ? 
For what conceivable reason? Even in 
that case, why engage in the laborious and 






ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 701 


arduous task of reforming an ancient con¬ 
stitution for the sake of a second provisional 
government which might not last three 
weeks? And what constitution was more 
unfit for a provisional government, — what 
was more likely to indispose the people to 
all farther change, and, above all, to a sacri¬ 
fice of their independence, than the ancient 
constitution of the republic, which revived 
all their feelings of national dignity, and 
seemed to be a pledge that they were once 
more to be Genoese ? In short, Sir, I am 
rather fearful that I shall be thought to 
have overlaboured a point so extremely 
clear. But if I have dwelt too long upon 
this Proclamation, and examined it too 
minutely, it is not because I think it dif¬ 
ficult, but because I consider it is decisive 
of the whole question. If Lord William 
Bentinck in that Proclamation bestowed on 
the people of Genoa their place among 
nations, and the government of their fore¬ 
fathers, it must have been because he 
deemed himself authorised to make that 
establishment by the repeated instructions 
of the British Government, and by the 
avowed principles and solemn acts of the 
Allied Powers, and because he felt bound to 
make it by his own Proclamation of the 14th 
of March, combined with the acts done by 
the Genoese nation, in consequence of that 
Proclamation. I think I have proved that 
he did so,— that he believed himself to 
have done so, and that the people of Genoa 
believed it likewise. 

Perhaps, however, if Lord William Ben¬ 
tinck had mistaken his instructions, and had 
acted without authority, he might have been 
disavowed, and his acts might have been 
annulled ? I doubt whether, in such a case, 
any disavowal would have been sufficient. 
Wherever another people, in consequence of 
the acts of our agent whom they had good 
reason to trust, have done acts which they 
cannot recall, I do not conceive the possi¬ 
bility of a just disavowal of such an agent’s 
acts. Where one party has innocently and 
reasonably advanced too far to recede, jus¬ 
tice cuts off the other also from retreat. 
But, at all events, the disavowal, to be 


effectual, must have been prompt, clear, and 
public. Where is the disavowal here ? 
Where is the public notice to the Genoese, 
that they were deceived? Did their mis¬ 
take deserve no correction, even on the 
ground of compassion ? I look in vain 
through these Papers for any such act. The 
Noble Lord’s letter of the 30th of March 
was the first intimation which Lord William 
Bentinck received of any change of system 
beyond Lombardy. It contains only a cau¬ 
tion as to future conduct; and it does not 
hint an intention to cancel any act done on 
the faith of the Proclamation of the 14th 
of March. The allusion to the same sub¬ 
ject in the letter of the 3rd of April, is 
liable to the very same observation, and 
being inserted at the instance of the Duke 
of Campochiaro, was evidently intended 
only to prevent the prevalence of such ideas 
of Italian liberty as were inconsistent with 
the accession then proposed to the territory 
of Naples. It certainly could not have been 
supposed by Lord William Bentinck to apply 
to Genoa; for Genoa was in his possession on 
the 26th, when he issued the Proclamation, 
which he never could have published if he 
had understood the despatch in that sense. 

The Noble Lord’s despatch on the 6th of 
May is, Sir, in my opinion, fatal to his 
argument. It evidently betrays a feeling 
that acts had been done, to create in the 
Genoese a hope of independence : yet it 
does not direct these acts to be disavowed; 
— it contains no order speedily to unde¬ 
ceive the people. It implies that a decep¬ 
tion had been practised; and instead of an 
attempt to repair it, there is only an injunc¬ 
tion not to repeat the fault. No expressions 
are to be used which may prejudge the fate 
of Genoa. Even then that fate remained 
doubtful. So far from disavowal, the Noble 
Lord proposes the re-establishment of Genoa, 
though with some curtailment of territory, 
to M. Pareto, who maintained the interests 
of his country with an ability and dignity 
worthy of happier success. 

And the Treaty of Paris itself, far from a 
disavowal, is, on every principle of rational 
construction, a ratification and adoption of 













702 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


the act of Lord William Bentinck. The 
6 th article of that Treaty provides that 
“ Italy, beyond the limits of the country 
which is to revert to Austria, shall be com¬ 
posed of sovereign states.” Now, Sir, I 
desire to know the meaning of this pro¬ 
vision. I can conceive only three possible 
constructions. Either that every country 
shall have some sovereign, or, in other words, 
some government: — it will not be said that 
so trivial a proposition required a solemn 
stipulation. Or that there is to be more 
than one sovereign: — that was absolutely 
unnecessary: Naples, the States of the 
Church, and Tuscany, already existed. Or, 
thirdly, that the ancient sovereign states 
shall be re-established, except the country 
which reverts to Austria:—this, and this 
only, was an intelligible and important ob¬ 
ject of stipulation. It is the most reasonable 
of the only three possible constructions of 
these words. The phrase “sovereign states” 
seems to have been preferred to that of 
“ sovereigns,” because it comprehended re¬ 
publics as well as monarchies. According 
to this article, thus understood, the Powers 
of Europe had by the Treaty of Paris (to 
speak cautiously) given new hopes to the 
Genoese that they were again to be a nation. 

But, according to every principle of jus¬ 
tice, it is unnecessary to carry the argument 
so far. The act of an agent, if not dis¬ 
avowed in reasonable time, becomes the act 
of the principal. When a pledge is made to 
a people — such as was contained in the 
Proclamations of the 14th of March and 
26th of April — it can be recalled only by 
a disavowal equally public. 

On the policy of annexing Genoa to 
Piedmont, Sir, I have very little to say. 
That it was a compulsory, and therefore an 
unjust union, is, in my view of the subject, 
the circumstance which renders it most im¬ 
politic. It seems a bad means of securing 
Italy against France, to render a consider¬ 
able part of the garrison of the Alps so 
dissatisfied with their condition, that they 
must consider every invader as a deliverer. 
But even if the annexation had been just, I 
should have doubted whether it was desir¬ 


able. In former times, the House of Savoy 
might have been the guardians of the Alps: 

— at present, to treat them as such, seems 
to be putting the keys of Italy into hands 
too weak to hold them. Formerly the con¬ 
quest of Genoa and Piedmont were two 
distinct operations : — Genoa did not neces¬ 
sarily follow the fate of Turin. In the state 
of things created by the Congress, a French 
army has no need of separately acting against 
the Genoese territory:—it must fall with 
Piedmont. And, what is still more strange, 
it is bound to the destinies of Piedmont by 
the same Congress which has wantonly 
stripped Piedmont of its natural defences. 
The House of Sardinia is stripped of great 
part of its ancient patrimony: — a part of 
Savoy is, for no conceivable reason, given to 
France. The French are put in possession 
of the approaches and outposts of the passes 
of Mont Cenis: they are brought a cam¬ 
paign nearer to Italy. At this very moment 
they have assembled an army at Chambery, 
which, unless Savoy had been wantonly 
thrown to them, they must have assembled 
at Lyons. You impose on the House of 
Savoy the defence of a longer line of Alps 
with one hand, and you weaken the defence 
of that part of the line which covers their 
capital with the other. But it is perfectly 
sufficient for me, in the present case, if the 
policy is only doubtful, or the interests only 
slight. The laxest moralist will not, pub¬ 
licly at least, deny, that more advantage is 
lost by the loss of a character for good faith 
than can be gained by a small improvement 
in the distribution of territory. Perhaps, 
indeed, this annexation of Genoa is the only 
instance recorded in history of great Powers 
having (to say no more) brought their faith 
and honour into question without any of the 
higher temptations of ambition, — with no 
better inducement than a doubtful advantage 
in distributing territory more conveniently, 

— unless, indeed, it can be supposed that 
they are allured by the pleasures of a triumph 
over the ancient principles of justice, and of 
a parade of the new maxims of convenience 
which are to regulate Europe in their stead. 

I have hitherto argued this case as if the 






ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 703 


immorality of the annexation had arisen 
solely from the pledge made to the Genoese 
nation. I have argued it as if the Pro¬ 
clamation of Lord William Bentinck had 
been addressed to a French province, on 
which there could be no obligation to confer 
independence, if there were no promise to 
do so. For the sake of distinctness, I have 
hitherto kept out of view that important 
circumstance, which would, as I contend, 
without any promise, have of itself rendered 
a compulsory annexation unjust. Anterior 
to all promise, independent of all pledged 
faith, I conceive that Great Britain could 
not morally treat the Genoese territory as a 
mere conquest, which she might hold as a 
province, or cede to another power, at her 
pleasure. In the year 1797, when Genoa 
was conquered by France (then at war with 
England), under pretence of being revo¬ 
lutionised, the Genoese republic was at peace 
with Great Britain; and consequently, in 
the language of the law of nations, they were 
“friendly states.” Neither the substantial 
conquest in 1797, nor the formal union of 
1805, had ever been recognised by this king¬ 
dom. When the British commander, there¬ 
fore, entered the Genoese territory in 1814, 
he entered the territory of a friend in the 
possession of an enemy. Supposing him, by 
his own unaided force, to have conquered it 
from the enemy, can it be inferred that he 
conquered it from the Genoese people ? He 
had rights of conquest against the French : 
but what right of conquest would accrue 
from their expulsion, against the Genoese ? 
How could we be at war with the Genoese ? 
—not as with the ancient republic of Genoa, 
which fell when in a state of amity with us,— 
not as subjects of France, because we had 
never legally and formally acknowledged 
their subjection to that Power. There could 
be no right of conquest against them, be¬ 
cause there was neither the state of war, nor 
the right of war. Perhaps the Powers of 
the Continent, which had either expressly or 
tacitly recognised the annexation of Genoa in 
their treaties with France, might consistently 
treat the Genoese people as mere French 
subjects, and consequently the Genoese terri¬ 


tory as a French province, conquered from 
the French government, which as regarded 
them had become the sovereign of Genoa. 
But England stood in no such position :— in 
her eye the republic of Genoa still of right 
subsisted. She had done no act which im¬ 
plied the legal destruction of a common¬ 
wealth, with which she had had no war, nor 
cause of war. Genoa ought to have been re¬ 
garded by England as a friendly state, op¬ 
pressed for a time by the common enemy, 
and entitled to reassume the exercise of her 
sovereign rights as soon as that enemy was 
driven from her territory by a friendly 
force. Voluntary, much more cheerful, 
union, — zealous co-operation, — even long 
submission, — might have altered the state 
of belligerent rights : — none of these are 
here pretended. In such a case, I contend, 
that, according to the law of nations, an¬ 
terior to all promises, and independent of 
all pledged faith, the republic of Genoa was 
restored to the exercise of her sovereignty 
which, in our eyes, she had never lost, by 
the expulsion of the French from her soil. 

These, Sir, are no reasonings of mine : I 
read them in the most accredited works on 
public law, delivered long before any events 
of our time were in contemplation, and yet 
as applicable to this transaction, as if they 
had been contrived for it. Vattel, in the 
thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of his 
third book, has stated fully and clearly those 
principles respecting the application of the 
jus postliminii to the case of states, which he 
had taken from his eminent predecessors, or 
rather which they and he had discovered to 
be agreeable to the plainest dictates of 
reason, and which they have transcribed 
from the usage of civilised nations. I shall 
not trouble the House with the passages * 


* “ When a nation, a people, a state, has been 
entirely subjugated, whether a revolution can give 
it the right of Postliminium ? To which we an¬ 
swer, that if the conquered state has not assented 
to the new subjection, if it did not yield volunta¬ 
rily, if it only ceased to resist from inability, if 
the conqueror has not yet sheathed the sword 
to wield the sceptre of a pacific sovereign, — 
such a state is only conquered and oppressed, 















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


704 

unless I see some attempt to reconcile them 
with the annexation of Genoa. I venture 
to predict no such attempts will be hazarded. 
It is not my disposition to overrate the 
authority of this class of writers, or to con¬ 
sider authority in any case as a substitute 
for reason. But these eminent writers were 
at least necessarily impartial. Their weight, 
as bearing testimony to general sentiment 
and civilised usage, receives a new accession 
from every statesman who appeals to their 
writings, and from every year in which no 
contrary practice is established or hostile 
principles avowed. Their works are thus 
attested by successive generations to be 
records of the customs of the best times, 
and depositories of the deliberate and per¬ 
manent judgments of the more enlightened 
part of mankind. Add to this, that their 
authority is usually invoked by the feeble, 
and despised by those who are strong enough 
to need no aid from moral sentiment, and to 
bid defiance to justice. I have never heard 
their principles questioned, but by those 


and when the arms of an ally deliver it, returns 
without doubt to its first state. Its ally cannot 
become its conqueror; he is a deliverer, who can 
have a right only to compensation for his services.” 
. . . . “ If the last conqueror, not being an ally of 
the state, claims a right to retain it under his au¬ 
thority as the prize of victory, he puts himself in 
the place of the conqueror, and becomes the enemy 
of the oppressed state. That .state may legiti¬ 
mately resist him, and avail herself of a favourable 
occasion to recover her liberty. A state unjustly 
oppressed ought to be re-established in her rights 
by the conqueror who delivers her from the op¬ 
pressor.” Whoever carefully considers the above 
passage will observe, that it is intended to be ap¬ 
plicable to two very distinct cases; — that of de¬ 
liverance by an ally, where the duty of restoration 
is strict and precise, — and that of deliverance by 
a state unallied, but not hostile, where in the 
opinion of the writer the re-establishment of the 
oppressed nation is at least the moral duty of the 
conqueror, though arising only from our common 
humanity, and from the amicable relation which 
subsists between all men and all communities, till 
dissolved by wrongful oppression. It is to the 
latter case that the strong language in the second 
part of the above quotation is applied. It seems very 
difficult, and it has not hitherto been attempted, 
to resist the application to the case of Genoa. 


whose flagitious policy they had by anticipa¬ 
tion condemned. 

Here, Sir, let me for a moment lower the 
claims of my argument, and abandon some 
part of the ground which I think it prac¬ 
ticable to maintain. If I were to admit 
that the pledge here is not so strong, nor the 
duty of re-establishing a rescued friend so 
imperious as I have represented, still it must 
be admitted to me, that it was a promise, 
though perhaps not unequivocal, to perform 
that which was moral and right, whether 
within the sphere of strict duty or not. 
Either the doubtful promise, or the imper¬ 
fect duty, might singly have been insuffi¬ 
cient : but, combined, they reciprocally 
strengthen each other. The slightest pro¬ 
mise to do what was before a duty, becomes 
as binding as much stronger words to do an 
indifferent act: — strong assurances that a 
man will do what it is right for him to do 
are not required. A slight declaration to 
such an effect is believed by those to whom 
it is addressed, and therefore obligatory on 
those by whom it is uttered. Was it not 
natural and reasonable for the people of 
Genoa to believe, on the slenderest pledges, 
that such a country as England, with which 
they had never had a difference, would avail 
herself of a victory, due at least in part to 
their friendly sentiments, in order to restore 
them to that independence of which they 
had been robbed by her enemy and theirs,— 
by the general oppressor of Europe. 

I shall not presume to define on invariable 
principles the limits of the right of conquest. 
It is founded, like every right of war, on a 
regard to security, — the object of all just 
war. The modes in which national safety 
may be provided for, — by reparation for 
insult, — by compensation for injury, — by 
cessions and by indemnifications, — vary in 
such important respects, according to the 
circumstances of various cases, that it is 
perhaps impossible to limit them by an uni¬ 
versal principle. In the case of Norway*, 


* On Mr. Charles Wynn’s motion (May 12th, 
1814) condemnatory of its forced annexation to 
Sweden. — Ed. 














ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 


I did not pretend to argue the question upon 
grounds so high as those which were taken 
by some writers on public law. These 
writers, who for two centuries have been 
quoted as authorities in all the controversies 
of Europe, with the moderate and pacific 
Grotius at their head, have all concurred in 
treating it as a fundamental principle, that 
a defeated sovereign may indeed cede part of 
his dominions to the conqueror, but that he 
thereby only abdicates his own sovereignty 
over the ceded dominion, — that the consent 
of the people is necessary to make them 
morally subject to the authority of the con¬ 
queror. Without renouncing this limitation 
of the rights of conquest, founded on prin¬ 
ciples so generous, and so agreeable to the 
dignity of human nature, I was content to 
argue the cession of Norway, — as I am 
content to argue the cession of Genoa,— 
on lower and humbler, but perhaps safer 
grounds. Let me waive the odious term 

o 

“rights,” — let me waive the necessity of 
any consent of a people, express or implied, 
to legitimate the cession of their territory : 
at least this will not be denied, — that to 
unite a people by force to a nation against 
whom they entertain a strong antipathy, is 
the most probable means of rendering the 
community unhappy, — of making the people 
discontented, and the sovereign tyrannical. 
But there can be no right in any governor, 
whether he derives his power from conquest, 
or from any other source, to make the go¬ 
verned unhappy : — all the rights of all 
governors exist only to make the governed 
happy. It may be disputed among some, 
whether the rights of government be from 
the people; but no man can doubt that they 
are/or the people. Such a forcible union is 
an immoral and cruel exercise of the con¬ 
queror’s power; and as soon as that con¬ 
cession is made, it is not worth while to 
discuss whether it be within his right, — in 
other words, whether he be forbidden by 
any law to make it. 

But if every cession of a territory against 
the deliberate and manifest sense of its in¬ 
habitants be a harsh and reprehensible abuse 
of conquest, it is most of all culpable, — it 


705 

becomes altogether atrocious and inhuman, 
where the antipathy was not the feeling of 
the moment, or the prejudice of the day, 
but a profound sentiment of hereditary re¬ 
pugnance and aversion, which has descended 
from generation to generation,—has mingled 
with every part of thought and action,— and 
has become part of patriotism itself. Such 
is the repugnance of the Genoese to a union 
with Piedmont: and such is commonly the 
peculiar horror which high-minded nations 
feel of the yoke of their immediate neigh¬ 
bours. The feelings of Norway towards 
Sweden, — of Portugal towards Spain, — 
and in former and less happy times of Scot¬ 
land towards England, — are a few out of 
innumerable examples. There is nothing 
either unreasonable or unnatural in this 
state of national feelings. With neighbours 
there are most occasions of quarrel; with 
them there have been most wars; from them 
there has been most suffering : — of them 
there is most fear. The resentment of 
wrongs, and the remembrance of victory, 
strengthen our repugnance to those who are 
most usually our enemies. It is not from 
illiberal prejudice, but from the constitution 
of human nature, that an Englishman ani¬ 
mates his patriotic affections, and supports 
his national pride, by now looking back on 
victories over Frenchmen, — on Crecy and 
Agincourt, on Blenheim and Minden, — as 
our posterity will one day look back on 
Salamanca and Vittoria. The defensive 
principle ought to be the strongest where 
the danger is likely most frequently to arise. 
What, then, will the House decide concern¬ 
ing the morality of compelling Genoa to 
submit to the yoke of Piedmont, — a state 
which the Genoese have constantly dreaded 
and hated, and against which their hatred 
was sharpened by continual apprehensions 
for their independence? Whatever con¬ 
struction may be attempted of Lord William 
Bentinek’s Proclamations, — whatever so¬ 
phistry may be used successfully, to persuade 
you that Genoa was disposable as a con¬ 
quered territory, will you affirm that the dis¬ 
posal of it to Piedmont was a just and humane 
exercise of your power as a conqueror ? 

ZZ 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


706 


It is for this reason, among others, that I 
detest and execrate the modern doctrine of 
rounding territory, and following natural 
boundaries, and melting down small states 
into masses, and substituting lines of de¬ 
fence, and right and left flanks, instead of 
justice and the law of nations, and ancient 
possession and national feeling, — the system 
of Louis XIV. and Napoleon, of the spoilers 
of Poland, and of the spoilers of Norway and 
Genoa, — the system which the Noble Lord, 
when newly arrived from the Congress, and 
deeply imbued with its doctrines, in the 
course of his ample and elaborate invective 
against the memory and principles of ancient 
Europe, defined in two phrases so charac¬ 
teristic of his reverence for the rights of 
nations, and his tenderness for their feelings, 
that they ought not easily to be forgotten,— 
when he told us, speaking of this very an¬ 
tipathy of Genoa to Piedmont, “ that great 
questions are not to be influenced by popular 
impressions,” and “ that a people may be 
happy without independence.” The princi¬ 
pal feature of this new system is the in¬ 
corporation of neighbouring, and therefore 
hostile communities. The system of justice 
reverenced the union of men who had long 
been members of the same commonwealth, 
because they had all the attachments and 
antipathies which grow out of that fellow¬ 
ship : — the system of rapine tears asunder 
those whom nature has joined, and compels 
those to unite whom the contests of ages 
have rendered irreconcileable. 

And if all this had been less evident, 
would no aggravation of this act have arisen 
from the peculiar nature of the general war 
of Europe against France ? It was a war 
in which not only the Italians, but every 
people in Europe, were called by their sove¬ 
reigns to rise for the recovery of their inde¬ 
pendence. It was a revolt of the people 
against Napoleon. It owed its success to the 
spirit of popular insurrection. The principle 
of a war for the restoration of independence, 
was a pledge that each people was to be 
restored to its ancient territory. The na¬ 
tions of Europe accepted the pledge, and 
shook off the French yoke. But was it for 


a change of masters ? Was it that three 
Foreign Ministers at Paris might dispose of 
the Genoese territory ? — was it for this that 
the youth of Europe had risen in arms from 
Moscow to the Rhine ? 

“Ergo pari voto gessisti bella juventus? 

Tu quoque pro dominis et Pompeiana fuisti 

Non Romana manus! ” * 

The people of Europe were, it seems, 
roused to war, not to overthrow tyranny, 
but to shift it into new hands, — not to 
re-establish the independence and restore 
the ancient institutions of nations, but to 
strengthen the right flank of one great mili¬ 
tary power, and to cover the left flank of 
another. This, at least, was not the war for 
the success of which I offered my most 
ardent prayers. I prayed for the deliver¬ 
ance of Europe, not for its transfer to other 
lords, — for the restoration of Europe, by 
which all men must have understood at least 
the re-establishment of that ancient system, 
and of those wise principles, under which it 
had become great and prosperous. I ex¬ 
pected the re-establishment of every people 
in those territories, of which the sovereignty 
had been lost by recent usurpation, — of 
every people who had been an ancient mem¬ 
ber of the family of Europe, — of every 
people who had preserved the spirit and 
feelings which constitute a nation, — and, 
above all, of every people who had lost their 
territory or their independence under the 
tyranny which the Allies had taken up arms 
to overthrow. I expected a reverence for 
ancient boundaries, — a respect for ancient 
institutions, — certainly without excluding a 
prudent regard to the new interests and 
opinions which had taken so deep a root 
that they could not be torn up without in¬ 
curring the guilt and the mischief of the 
most violent innovation. 

The very same reasons, indeed, both of 
morality and policy (since I must comply so 
far with vulgar usage as to distinguish what 
cannot be separated) bound the Allied So¬ 
vereigns to respect the ancient institutions, 


* Pharsalia, lib. ix. — Ed. 







ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 707 


and to regard the new opinions and interests 
of nations. The art of all government, not 
tyrannical, whatever may be its form, is to 
conduct mankind by their feelings. It is 
immoral to disregard the feelings of the 
governed, because it renders them miserable. 
It is, and it ought to be, dangerous to dis¬ 
regard these feelings, because bold and in¬ 
telligent men will always consider it as a 
mere question of prudence, whether they 
ought to obey governments which counteract 
the only purpose for which they all exist. 
The feelings of men are most generally 
wounded by any violence to those ancient 
institutions under which these feelings have 
been formed, the national character has been 
moulded, and to which all the habits and 
expectations of life are adapted. It was 
well said by Mr. Fox, that as ancient insti¬ 
tutions have been sanctioned by a far greater 
concurrence of human judgments than mo¬ 
dern laws can be, they are, upon democratic 
principles, more respectable. But new opin¬ 
ions and new interests, and a new arrange¬ 
ment of society, which has given rise to 
other habits and hopes, also excite the 
strongest feelings, which, in proportion to 
their force and extent, claim the regard of 
all moral policy. 

As it was doubtless the policy of the Allies 
to consider the claims of ancient possession 
as sacred, as far as the irrevocable changes 
of the political system would allow, the con¬ 
siderate part of mankind did, I believe, hope 
that they would hail the long-continued and 
recently-lost sovereignty of a territory as 
generally an inviolable right, and that, as 
they could not be supposed wanting in zeal 
for restoring the sovereignty of ancient 
reigning families, so they would guard that 
re-establishment, and render it respectable 
in the eyes of the world, by the impartiality 
with which they re-established also those 
ancient and legitimate governments of a re¬ 
publican form, which had fallen in the gene¬ 
ral slavery of nations. We remembered that 
republics and monarchies were alike called 
to join in the war against the French Revo¬ 
lution, not for forms of government, but for 
the existence of social order. We hoped 


that Austria— to select a striking example — 
would not pollute her title to her ancient 
dominion of Lombardy, by blending it with 
the faithless and lawless seizure of Venice. 
So little republican territory was to be re¬ 
stored, that the act of justice was to be 
performed, and the character of impartiality 
gained, at little expense; — even if such ex¬ 
pense be measured by the meanest calcu¬ 
lations of the most vulgar politics. Other 
vacant territory remained at the disposal of 
the Congress to satisfy the demands of policy. 
The sovereignty of the Ecclesiastical terri¬ 
tories might be fairly considered as lapsed: 
no reigning family could have any interest 
in it; — no people could be attached to such 
a rule of nomination to supreme power. 
And in fact, these Principalities had lost all 
pride of independence and all consciousness 
of national existence. Several other terri¬ 
tories of Europe had been reduced to a like 
condition. Ceded, perhaps, at first ques¬ 
tionably, they had been transferred so often 
from master to master, — they had been so 
long in a state of provincial degradation, 
that no violence could be offered to their 
feelings by any new transfer or partition. 
They were, as it were, a sort of splinters 
thrown off from nations in the shocks of 
warfare during two centuries ; and they lay 
like stakes on the board, to be played for at 
the terrible game which had detached them, 
and to satisfy the exchanges and cessions by 
which it is usually closed. 

Perhaps the existence of such detached 
members is necessary in the European sys¬ 
tem ; but they are in themselves great evils. 
They are amputated and lifeless members, 
which, as soon as they lose the vital prin¬ 
ciple of national spirit, no longer contribute 
aught to the vigour and safety of the whole 
living system. From them is to be ex¬ 
pected no struggle against invasion, — no 
resistance to the designs of ambition, — no 
defence of their country. Individuals, but 
no longer a nation, they are the ready prey 
of every candidate for universal monarchy, 
who soon compels their passive inhabitants 
to fight for his ambition, as they would not 
fight against it, and to employ in enslaving 


ZZ 2 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


708 


other nations, that courage which they had 
no noble interest to exert in defence of their 
own. Why should I seek examples of this 
truth in former times ? What opened 
Europe to the first inroads of the French 
armies ? — not, I will venture to say, the 
mere smallness of the neighbouring states ; 
for if every one of them had displayed as 
much national spirit in 1794, as the smallest 
states of Switzerland did in 1798, no French 
army could ever have left the territory of 
France, — but the unhappy course of 
events, which had deprived Flanders, and 
the Electorates, and Lombardy, of all na¬ 
tional spirit. Extinguished as this spirit 
was by the form of government in some of 
these countries, and crushed by a foreign 
yoke in others, — without the pride of 
liberty, which bestows the highest national 
spirit on the smallest nations, or the pride 
of power, which sometimes supplies its place 
in mighty empires, or the consciousness of 
self-dependence, without which there is no 
nationality, — they first became the prey of 
France, and afterwards supplied the arms 
with which she almost conquered the world. 
To. enlarge this dead part of Europe,—to 
enrich it by the accession of countries re¬ 
nowned for their public feelings, — to throw 
Genoa into the same grave with Poland, 
with Venice, with Finland, and with Nor¬ 
way, — is not the policy of those who would 
be the preservers or restorers of the Euro¬ 
pean commonwealth. 

It is not the principle of the Balance of 
Power, but one precisely opposite. The 
system of preserving some equilibrium of 
power, — of preventing any state from be¬ 
coming too great for her neighbours, is a 
system purely defensive, and directed to¬ 
wards the object of universal preservation. 
It is a system which provides for the se¬ 
curity of all states by balancing the force 
and opposing the interests of great ones. 
The independence of nations is the end, the 
balance of power is only the means. To 
destroy independent nations, in order to 
strengthen the balance of power, is a most 
extravagant sacrifice of the end to the 
means. This inversion of all the principles 


of the ancient and beautiful system of 
Europe, is the fundamental maxim of what 
the Noble Lord, enriching our language 
with foreign phrases as well as doctrines, 
calls “ a repartition of power.” In the new 
system, small states are annihilated by a 
combination of great ones: — in the old, 
small states were secured by the mutual 
jealousy of the great. 

The Noble Lord very consistently treats 
the re-establishment of small states as an 
absurdity. This single tenet betrays the 
school in which he has studied. Undoubt¬ 
edly, small communities are an absurdity, 
or rather their permanent existence is an 
impossibility, on his new system. They 
could have had no existence in the con¬ 
tinual conquests of Asia; — they were soon 
destroyed amidst the turbulence of the 
Grecian confederacy : — they must be sa¬ 
crificed on the system of rapine established 
at Vienna. Nations powerful enough to 
defend themselves, may subsist securely in 
most tolerable conditions of society: but 
states too small to be safe by their own 
strength, can exist only where they are 
guarded by the equilibrium of force, and 
the vigilance which watches over its pre¬ 
servation. When the Noble Lord repre¬ 
sents small states as incapable of self-de¬ 
fence, he in truth avows that he is returned 
in triumph from the destruction of that 
system of the Balance of Power, of which 
indeed great empires were the guardians, 
but of which the perfect action was indi¬ 
cated by the security of feebler common¬ 
wealths. Under this system, no great 
violation of national independence had 
occurred from the first civilisation of the 
European states till the partition of Poland. 
The safety of the feeblest states, under the 
authority of justice, was so great, that there 
seemed little exaggeration in calling such 
a society the “ commonwealth ” of Europe. 
Principles, which stood in the stead of laws 
and magistrates, provided for the security 
of defenceless communities, as perfectly as 
the safety of the humblest individual is 
maintained in a well-ordered commonwealth. 
Europe can no longer be called a common- 







ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 709 | 


wealth, when her members have no safety 
but in their strength. 

In truth, the Balancing system is itself 
only a secondary guard of national inde¬ 
pendence. The paramount principle — the 
moving power, without which all such ma¬ 
chinery would be perfectly inert, is national 
spirit. The, love of country, the attachment 
to laws and government, and even to soil 
and scenery, the feelings of national glory 
in arms and arts, the remembrances of com¬ 
mon triumph and common suffering, with 
the mitigated but not obliterated recollec¬ 
tion of common enmity, and the jealousy of 
dangerous neighbours, — all are instruments 
employed by nature to draw more closely 
the bands of affection that bind us to our 
country and to each other. This is the only 
principle by which sovereigns can, in the 
hour of danger, rouse the minds of their 
subjects:—without it the policy of the 
Balancing system would be impotent. 

The Congress of Vienna seems, indeed, 
to have adopted every part of the French 
system, except that they have transferred 
the dictatorship of Europe from an indi¬ 
vidual to a triumvirate. One of the grand 
and parent errors of the French Revolution 
was the fatal opinion that it was possible for 
human skill to make a government. It was 
an error too generally prevalent, not to be 
excusable. The American Revolution had 
given it a fallacious semblance of support; 
though no event in history more clearly 
showed its falsehood. The system of laws, 
and the frame of society in North America, 
remained after the Revolution, and remain 
to this day, fundamentally the same as they 
ever were. The change in America, like 
the change in 1688, was made in defence of 
legal right, not in pursuit of political im¬ 
provement ; and it was limited by the ne¬ 
cessity of self-defence which produced it. 
The whole internal order remained, which 
had always been essentially republican. 
The somewhat slender tie which loosely 
joined these republics to a monarchy, was 
easily and without violence divided. But 
the error of the French Revolutionists was, 
in 1789, the error of Europe. From that 


error we have been long reclaimed by fatal 
experience. We know, or rather we have 
seen and felt, that a government is not, like 
a machine or a building, the work of man; 
that it is the work of nature, like the nobler 
productions of the vegetable and animal 
world, which man may improve, and da¬ 
mage, and even destroy, but which he can¬ 
not create. We have long learned to despise 
the ignorance or the hypocrisy of those who 
speak of giving a free constitution to a 
people, and to exclaim with a great living 
poet — 

“ A gift of that which never can be given 
By all the blended powers of earth and heaven!” 

We have, perhaps, — as usual, — gone too 
near to the opposite error, and we do not 
make sufficient allowances for those dreadful 
cases — though we must not call them de¬ 
sperate, — where, in long enslaved countries, 
we must either humbly and cautiously labour 
to lay some foundations from which the 
fabric of liberty may slowly rise, or acquiesce 
in the doom of perpetual bondage. 

But though we no longer dream of making 
governments, the confederacy of kings seem 
to feel no doubt of their own power to make 
nations. Yet the only reason why it is im¬ 
possible to make a government is, because it 
is impossible to make a nation. A govern¬ 
ment cannot be made, because its whole 
spirit and principles arise from the character 
of the nation. There would be no difficulty 
in framing a government, if the habits of a 
people could be changed by a lawgiver; — 
if he could obliterate their recollections, 
transfer their attachment and reverence, ex¬ 
tinguish their animosities, and correct those 
sentiments which, being at variance with his 
opinions of public interest, he calls pre¬ 
judices. Now, this is precisely the power 
which our statesmen at Vienna have arro¬ 
gated to themselves. They not only form 
nations, but they compose them of elements 
apparently the most irreconcileable. They 
made one nation out of Norway and Sweden: 
they tried to make another out of Prussia 
and Saxony. They have, in the present case, 
forced together Piedmont and Genoa to form 











710 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


a nation which is to guard the avenues of 
Italy, and to be one of the main securities of 
Europe against universal monarchy. 

It was not the pretension of the ancient 
system to form states, — to divide territory 
according to speculations of military con¬ 
venience, — and to unite and dissolve nations 
better than the course of events had done 
before. It was owned to be still more diffi¬ 
cult to give a new constitution to Europe, 
than to form a new constitution for a single 
state. The great statesmen of former times 
did not speak of their measures as the Noble 
Lord did about the incorporation of Belgium 
with Holland (against which I say nothing), 
“ as a great improvement in the system of 
Europe.” That is the language only of those 
who revolutionise that system by a partition 
like that of Poland, by the establishment of 
the Federation of the Rhine at Paris, or by 
the creation of new states at Vienna. The 
ancient principle was to preserve all those 
states which had been founded by time and 
nature, — which were animated by national 
spirit, and distinguished by the diversity of 
character which^ave scope to every variety 
of talent and virtue, — whose character had 
been often preserved, and whose nationality 
had been even created, by those very irregu¬ 
larities of frontier and inequalities of strength, 
of which a shallow policy complains; — to 
preserve all those states, down to the smallest, 
first, by their own national spirit, and, se¬ 
condly, by that mutual jealousy which made 
every great power the opponent of the dan¬ 
gerous ambition of every other. Its object 
was to preserve nations, as living bodies pro¬ 
duced by the hand of nature, — not to form 
artificial dead machines, called “ states,” by 
the words and parchment of a diplomatic act. 
Under this ancient system, which secured 
the weak by the jealousy of the strong, pro¬ 
vision was made alike for the permanency of 
civil institutions, the stability of govern¬ 
ments, the progressive reformation of laws 
and constitutions,—for combining the general 
quiet with the highest activity and energy of 
the human mind, — for uniting the benefits 
both of rivalship and'of friendship between 
nations, — for cultivating the moral senti¬ 


ments of men, by the noble spectacle of the 
long triumph of justice in the security of the 
defenceless, — and, finally, for maintaining 
uniform civilisation by the struggle as well 
as union of all the moral and intellectual 
combinations which compose that vast and 
various mass. It effected these noble pur¬ 
poses, not merely by securing Europe against 
one master, but by securing her against any 
union or conspiracy of sovereignty, which, as 
long as it lasts, is in no respect better than 
the domination of an individual. The object 
of the new system is to crush the weak by 
the combination of the strong, — to subject 
Europe, in the first place, to an oligarchy of 
sovereigns, and ultimately to swallow it up 
in the gulf of universal monarchy, in which 
civilisation has always perished, with freedom 
of thought, with controlled power, with na¬ 
tional character and spirit, with patriotism 
and emulation, — in a word, with all its 
characteristic attributes, and with all its 
guardian principles. 

I am content, Sir, that these observations 
should be thought wholly unreasonable by 
those new masters of civil wisdom, who tell 
us that the whole policy of Europe consists 
in strengthening the right flank of Prussia, 
and the left flank of Austria, — who see in 
that wise and venerable system, long the 
boast and the safeguard of Europe, only the 
millions of souls to be given to one Power, 
or the thousands of square miles to be given 
to another, — who consider the frontier of a 
river as a better protection for a country 
than the love of its inhabitants, — and who 
provide for the safety of their states by 
wounding the pride and mortifying the 
patriotic affection of a people, in order to 
fortify a line of military posts. To such 
statesmen I will apply the words of the 
great philosophical orator, who so long 
vainly laboured to inculcate wisdom in this 
House : — “ All this, I know well enough, 
will sound wild and chimerical to the pro¬ 
fane herd of those vulgar and mechanical 
politicians who have no place among us; a 
sort of people who think that nothing exists 
but what is gross and material; and who, 
therefore, far from being qualified to be 









ON THE ANNEXATION OF GENOA. 711 

directors of the great movement of empire, 
are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. 
But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, 
these ruling and master principles, which, in 
the opinion of such men as I have men¬ 
tioned, have no substantial existence, are in 
truth every thing, and all in all.” This 
great man, in the latter part of his life, and 
when his opinions were less popular, was 
often justly celebrated for that spirit of phi¬ 
losophical prophecy which enabled him early 
to discern in their causes all the misfortunes 
which the leaders of the French Revolution 
were to bring on the world by their erroneous 
principles of reformation, — “ quod ille pene 
solus Romanorum animo vidit, ingenio corn- 
plexus est, eloquentia illuminavit: ” but it 
has not been remembered, that his foresight 
was not limited to one party or to one source 
of evil. In one of his immortal writings*, 
— of which he has somewhat concealed the 
durable instruction by the temporary title,— 
he clearly enough points out the first scene 
of partition and rapine — the indemnifica¬ 
tions granted out of the spoils of Germany 
in 1802 : — “I see, indeed, a fund from 
whence equivalents will be proposed. It 
opens another Iliad of woes to Europe.” 

The policy of a conqueror is to demolish, 
to erect on new foundations, to bestow new 
names on authority, and to render every 
power around him as new as his own. The 
policy of a restorer is to re-establish, to 
strengthen, cautiously to improve, and to 
seem to recognise and confirm even that 
which necessity compels him to establish 
anew. But, in our times, the policy of the 
avowed conqueror has been adopted by the 
pretended restorers. The most minute par¬ 
ticulars of the system of Napoleon are re¬ 
vived in the acts of those who overthrew his 
power. Even English officers, when they 
are compelled to carry such orders into 
execution, become infected by the spirit of 
the system of which they are doomed to be 
the ministers. I cannot read without pain 
and shame the language of Sir John Dal- 
rymple’s Despatch, — language which I la- 

ment as inconsistent with the feelings of a 
British officer, and with the natural preju¬ 
dices of a Scotch gentleman. I wish that 
he had not adopted the very technical lan¬ 
guage of Jacobin conquest, — “the downfall 
of the aristocracy,” and “ the irritation of 
the priests.” I do not think it very decent 
to talk with levity of the destruction of a 
sovereignty exercised for six centuries by 
one of the most ancient and illustrious bodies 
of nobility in Europe. 

Italy is, perhaps, of all civilised countries, 
that which affords the most signal example 
of the debasing power of provincial de¬ 
pendence, and of a foreign yoke. With in¬ 
dependence, and with national spirit, they 
have lost, if not talent, at least the moral and 
dignified use of talent, which constitutes its 
only worth. Italy alone seemed to derive 
some hope of independence from those con¬ 
vulsions which had destroyed that of other 
nations. The restoration of Europe annihi¬ 
lated the hopes of Italy :—the emancipation 
of other countries announced her bondage. 
Stern necessity compelled us to suffer the 
re-establishment of foreign masters in the 
greater part of that renowned and humiliated 
country. But as to Genoa, our hands were 
unfettered; we were at liberty to be just, 
or, if you will, to be generous. We had in 
our hands the destiny of the last of that 
great body of republics which united the 
ancient and the modern world,— the children 
and heirs of Roman civilisation, who spread 
commerce, and with it refinement, liberty, 
and humanity over Western Europe, and 
whose history has lately been rescued from 
oblivion, and disclosed to our times, by the 
greatest of living historians.* I hope I 
shall not be thought fanciful when I say 
that Genoa, whose greatness was founded 
on naval power, and which, in the earliest 
ages, gave the almost solitary example of 
a commercial gentry, — Genoa, the remnant 
of Italian liberty, and the only remaining 
hope of Italian independence, had peculiar 
claims — to say no more—on the generosity 
of the British nation. How have these 

* Second Letter on a Regicide Peace. — Ed. 

* 8ismondi. 














MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


712 

claims been satisfied? She has been sacri¬ 
ficed to a frivolous, a doubtful, perhaps an 
imaginary, speculation of convenience. The 
most odious of foreign yokes has been im¬ 
posed upon her by a free state,—by a people 
whom she never injured,—after she had 
been mocked by the re-appearance of her 
ancient government, and by all the ensigns 
and badges of her past glory. And after 
all this, she has been told to be grateful for 
the interest which the Government of Eng¬ 
land has taken in her fate. By this con¬ 
fiscation of the only Italian territory which 
was at the disposal of justice, the doors of 
hope have been barred on Italy for ever. 
No English general can ever again deceive 
Italians. 

Will the House deeide that all this is 
right? —That is the question which you 
have now to decide. To vote with me, it is 
not necessary to adopt my opinions in their 
full extent. All who think that the national 
faith has been brought into question,—all 
who think that tljere has been an unpre¬ 
cedented extension, or an ungenerous ex¬ 
ercise of the rights of conquest,—are, I 
humbly conceive, bound to express their 
disapprobation by their votes. We are on 
the eve of a new war,—perhaps only the 
first of a long series, — in which there must 
be conquests and cessions, and there may be 
hard and doubtful exertions of rights in 
their best state sufficiently odious : — I call 
upon the House to interpose their counsel 
for the future in the form of an opinion 


regarding the past. I hope that I do not 
yield to any illusive feelings of national 
vanity, when I say that this House is quali¬ 
fied to speak the sentiments of mankind, and 
to convey them with authority to cabinets 
and thrones. Single among representative 
assemblies, this House is now in the seventh 
century of its recorded existence. It ap¬ 
peared with the first dawn of legal govern¬ 
ment. It exercised the highest powers under 
the most glorious princes. It survived the 
change of a religion, and the extinction of a 
nobility, — the fall of Royal Houses, and an 
age of civil war. Depressed for a moment 
by the tyrannical power which is the usual 
growth of civil confusions, it revived with 
the first glimpse of tranquillity, — gathered 
strength from the intrepidity of religious 
reformation, — grew with the knowledge, 
and flourished with the progressive wealth 
of the people. After having experienced 
the excesses of the spirit of liberty during 
the Civil War, and of the spirit of loyalty at 
the Restoration, it was at length finally esta¬ 
blished at the glorious era of the Revolution; 
and although since that immortal event it 
has experienced little change in its formal 
constitution, and perhaps no accession of 
legal power, it has gradually cast its roots 
deep and wide, blending itself with every 
branch of the government, and every in¬ 
stitution of society, and has, at length, be¬ 
come the grandest example ever seen among 
men of a solid and durable representation 
of the people of a mighty empire. 







SPEECH 

ON MOVING TOR A COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO 

THE STATE OF THE CRIMINAL LAW,* 

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, ON THE 2ND MARCH, 1819. 


Mr. Speaker, 

I now rise, in pursuance of the notice 
which I gave, to bring before the House a 
motion for the appointment of a Select Com¬ 
mittee “to consider of so much of the 
Criminal Laws as relates to Capital Punish¬ 
ment in Felonies, and to report their ob¬ 
servations and opinions thereon to the 
House.” And I should have immediately 
proceeded to explain the grounds and ob¬ 
jects of such a motion, which is almost 
verbatim the same as a resolution entered on 
the Journals in the year 1770, when autho¬ 
rity was delegated to a committee for the 
same purpose, — I should have proceeded, I 
say, to state at once why I think such an 
inquiry necessary, had it not been for some 
concessions made by the Noble Lord j* last 
night, which tend much to narrow the 
grounds of difference between us, and to 
simplify the question before the House. If 
I considered the only subject of discussion 
to be that which exists between the Noble 
Lord and myself, it would be reduced to 
this narrow compass; —namely, whether the 
Noble Lord’s proposal or mine be the more 
convenient for the conduct of the same in¬ 
quiry ; but as every member in this House 
is a party to the question, I must make an 


* This speech marks an epoch in the progress 
of the reformation of the Criminal Law, inasmuch 
as the motion with which it concluded, though 
opposed by Lord Castlereagh with all the force 
of the Government, under cover of a professed en¬ 
largement of its principle, was carried by a ma¬ 
jority of nineteen in a House of two hundred and 
seventy-five members. — Ed. 
j- Viscount Castlereagh. — Ed. 


observation or two on the Noble Lord’s 
statements. 

If I understood him rightly, he confesses 
that the growth of crime, and the state of 
the Criminal Law in this country, call for 
investigation, and proposes that these sub¬ 
jects shall be investigated by a Select Com¬ 
mittee;— this I also admit to be the most 
expedient course. He expressly asserts also 
his disposition to make the inquiry as ex¬ 
tensive as I wish it to be. As far, therefore, 
as he is concerned, I am relieved from the 
necessity of proving that an inquiry is ne¬ 
cessary, that the appointment of a Select 
Committee is the proper course of pro¬ 
ceeding in it, and that such inquiry ought 
to be extensive. I am thus brought to the 
narrower question, Whether the committee 
of the Noble Lord, or that which I propose, 
be the more convenient instrument for con¬ 
ducting an inquiry into the special subject 
to which my motion refers? I shall en¬ 
deavour briefly to show, that the mode of 
proceeding proposed by him, although em¬ 
bracing another and very fit subject of in¬ 
quiry, must be considered as precluding an 
inquiry into that part of the Criminal Law 
which forms the subject of my motion, for 
two reasons. 

In the first place, Sir, it is physically 
impossibleand, having stated that, I may 
perhaps dispense with the necessity of adding 
more. We have heard from an Honourable 
Friend of mine*, whose authority is the 
highest that can be resorted to on this sub- 
ject, that an inquiry into the state of two 


* The Honourable Henry Grey Bennet. — Ed. 
















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


714 


or three gaols occupied a committee during 
a whole session. My Honourable Friend*, 
a magistrate of the city, has stated that an 
inquiry into the state of the prisons of the 
metropolis, occupied during a whole ses¬ 
sion the assiduous committee over which he 
presided. When, therefore, the Noble Lord 
refers to one committee not only the state 
of the Criminal Law, but that of the gaols, 
of transportation, and of that little ad¬ 
junct the hulks, he refers to it an in¬ 
quiry which it can never conduct to an 
end; — he proposes, as my Honourable 
Friend | has said, to institute an investiga¬ 
tion which must outlive a Parliament. The 
Noble Lord has in fact acknowledged, by 
his proposed subdivision, that it would be 
impossible for one committee to inquire into 
all the subjects which he would refer to it. 
And this impossibility he would evade by 
an unconstitutional violation of the usages 
of the House; as you, Sir, with the autho¬ 
rity due to your opinions, have declared the 
proposition for subdividing a committee to 
be. I, on the other hand, in accordance 
with ancient usage, propose that the House 
shall itself nominate these separate com¬ 
mittees. 

My second objection is, Sir, that the Noble 
Lord’s notice, and the order made by the 
House yesterday upon it, do not embrace 
the purpose which I have in view. To prove 
this, I might content myself with a reference 
to the very words of the instruction under 
which his proposed committee is to proceed. 
It is directed “ to inquire into the state and 
description of gaols, and other places of con¬ 
finement, and into the best method of pro¬ 
viding for the reformation, as well as for the 
safe custody and punishment of offenders.” 
Now, what is the plain meaning of those ex¬ 
pressions ? Are they not the same offenders, 
whose punishment as well as whose reforma¬ 
tion and safe custody is contemplated ? And 
does not the instruction thus directly ex¬ 
clude the subject of Capital Punishment? 
The matter is too plain to be insisted on ; 


* Alderman Waithman. — Ed. 
f Mr. Bennet. — Ed. 


but must not the meaning, in any fair and 
liberal construction, be taken to be that the 
committee is to consider the reformation and 
safe custody of those offenders of whom im¬ 
prisonment forms the whole or the greatest 
part of the punishment ? It would be absurd 
to suppose that the question of Capital 
Punishment should be made an inferior 
branch of the secondary question of im¬ 
prisonments, and that the great subject of 
Criminal Law should skulk into the com¬ 
mittee under the cover of one vague and 
equivocal word. On these grounds, Sir, I 
have a right to say that there is no com¬ 
parison as to the convenience or the efficacy 
of the two modes of proceeding. 

Let us now see whether my proposition 
casts a greater censure on the existing laws 
than his. Every motion for inquiry assumes 
that inquiry is necessary, — that some evil 
exists, which may be remedied. The motion 
of the Noble Lord assumes thus much: mine 
assumes no more; it casts no reflection on 
the law, or on the magistrates by whom it 
is administered. 

With respect to the question whether 
Secondary Punishments should be inquired 
into before we dispose of the Primary, I have 
to say, that in proposing the present investi¬ 
gation, I have not been guided by my own 
feelings, nor have I trusted entirely to my 
own judgment. My steps have been directed 
and assured by former examples. 

The first of these is the notable one in 
1750, when, in consequence of the alarm 
created by the increase of some species of 
crimes, a committee was appointed “ to ex¬ 
amine into and consider the state of the 
laAvs relating to felonies, and to report to 
the House their opinion as to the defects of 
those laws, and as to the propriety of 
amending or repealing them.” What does 
the Noble Lord say to this large reference, 
— this ample delegation, — this attack on the 
laws of our ancestors ? Was it made in bad 
times, by men of no note, and of indifferent 
principles ? I will mention the persons of 
whom the committee was composed: — they 
were, Mr. Pelham, then Chancellor of the 
Exchequer; Mr. Pitt, afterwards Lord 











ON THE STATE OF THE CRIMINAL LAW. 


Chatham; Mr. George Grenville, afterwards 
Lord Grenville; Mr. Littleton and Mr. 
Charles Townshend, afterwards Secretaries 
of State; and Sir Dudley Ryder, the At¬ 
torney-General, afterwards Chief justice of 
England. Those great lawyers and states¬ 
men will, at least, not be accused of having 
been rash theorists, or, according to the 
new word, “ ultra-philosophers.” But it will 
be thought remarkable that those great 
men, who were, in liberality, as superior to 
some statesmen of the present day, as in 
practical wisdom they were not inferior to 
them, found two sessions necessary for the 
inquiry into which they had entered. The 
first resolution to which those eminent and 
enlightened individuals agreed was, “ that 
it was reasonable to exchange the punish¬ 
ment of death for some other adequate 
punishment.” Such a resolution is a little 
more general and extensive than that which 
I shall venture to propose ; — such a resolu¬ 
tion, however, did that committee, vested 
with the powers which I have already de¬ 
scribed, recommend to the adoption of the 
House. One circumstance, not necessarily 
connected with my present motion, I will 
take the liberty of mentioning: — to that 
committee the credit is due of having first 
denounced the Poor Laws as the nursery of 
crime. In this country pauperism and crime 
have always advanced in parallel lines, and 
with equal steps. That committee imputed 
much evil to the divisions among parishes on 
account of the maintenance of the poor. 
That committee too, composed of practical 
men as it was, made a statement which some 
practical statesmen of the present day will 
no doubt condemn as too large; — namely, 
“ that the increase of crime was in a great 
measure to be attributed to the neglect of 
the education of the children of the poor.” 
A bill was brought in, founded on the reso¬ 
lutions of the committee, and passed this 
House. It was however negatived in the 
House of Lords, although not opposed by 
any of the great names of that day, — by 
any of the luminaries of that House. Lord 
Hardwicke, for instance, did not oppose a 
bill, the principal object of which was the 


715 

substitution of hard labour and imprison¬ 
ment for the punishment of death. 

In 1770, another alarm, occasioned by 
the increase of a certain species of crime, 
led to the appointment, on the 27 th of No¬ 
vember in that year, of another committee of 
the same kind, of which Sir Charles Saville, 
Sir William Meredith, Mr. Fox, Mr. Ser¬ 
jeant Glynn, Sir Charles Bunbury, and 
others, were members. To that committee 
the reference was nearly the same as that 
which I am now proposing, though mine be 
the more contracted one. That committee 
was occupied for two years with the branch 
of the general inquiry which the Noble 
Lord proposes to add to the already exces¬ 
sive labours of an existing committee. In 
the second session they brought their report 
to maturity; and, on that report, a bill was 
introduced for the repeal of eight or ten 
statutes, which bill passed the House of 
Commons without opposition. I do not 
mean to enter into the minute history of 
that bill, which was thrown out in the 
House of Lords. It met with no hostility 
from the great ornaments of the House 
of Lords of that day, Lord Camden and 
Lord Mansfield ; but it was necessarily op¬ 
posed by others, whom I will not name, and 
whose names will be unknown to posterity. 

Sir, it is upon these precedents that I 
have formed, and that I bring forward my 
motion. I have shown, that the step I pro¬ 
posed to take accords with the usage of 
Parliament in the best of times, but that if 
we follow the plan recommended by the 
Noble Lord, we cannot effect the purpose 
which we have in view without evading or 
violating the usage of Parliament. Ac¬ 
cepting, therefore, his concession, that a 
committee ought to be appointed for this 
investigation, here I might take my stand, 
and challenge him to drive me from this 
ground, which, with all his talents, he would 
find some difficulty in doing. But I feel 
that there is a great difference between our 
respective situations; and that although he 
last night contented himself with stating the 
evils which exist, without adverting to the 
other essential part of my proposal for a 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


716 

Parliamentary inquiry, — namely, the pro¬ 
bability of a remedy, — I must take a dif¬ 
ferent course. Although I cannot say that 
I agree with my Honourable Friend, who 
says that a Select Committee is not the 
proper mode of investigating this subject, 
yet I agree with him that there are two 
things necessary to justify an investigation, 
whether by a committee, or in any other 
manner:—the first is, the existence of an 
evil; the second is, the probability of a 
remedy. Far, therefore, from treating the 
sacred fabric reared by our ancestors more 
lightly, I approach it more reverently than 
does the Noble Lord. I should not have 
dared, merely on account of the number of 
offences, to institute an inquiry into the 
state of the Criminal Law, unless, while I 
saw the defects, I had also within view, not 
the certainty of a remedy (for that would be 
too much to assert), but some strong proba¬ 
bility, that the law may be rendered more 
efficient, and a check be given to that 
which has alarmed all good men, — the in¬ 
crease of crime. While I do what I think 
it was the bounden duty of the Noble Lord 
to have done, I trust I shall not be told that 
I am a rash speculator, — that I am holding 
out impunity to criminals, or foreshadowing 
what he is pleased to call “ a golden age for 
crime.” Sir Dudley Ryder, at the head of 
the criminal jurisprudence of the country, 
and Serjeant Glynn, the Recorder of Lon¬ 
don, — an office that unhappily has the most 
extensive experience of the administration of 
Criminal Law in the world, — both believed 
a remedy to the evil in question to be prac¬ 
ticable, and recommended it as necessary; 
and under any general reprobation which 
the Noble Lord may apply to such men, 
I shall not be ashamed to be included. 

I must now, Sir, mention what my object 
is not, in order to obviate the misapprehen¬ 
sions of over-zealous supporters, and the 
misrepresentations of desperate opponents. 
I do not propose to form a new criminal 
code. Altogether to abolish a system of 
law, admirable in its principle, interwoven 
with the habits of the English people, and 
under which they have long and happily 


lived, is a proposition very remote from my 
notions of legislation, and would be too ex¬ 
travagant and ridiculous to be for a moment 
listened to. Neither is it my intention to 
propose the abolition of the punishment of 
death. I hold the right of inflicting that 
punishment to be a part of the rights of 
self-defence, with which society as well as 
individuals are endowed. I hold it to be, 
like all other punishments, an evil when un¬ 
necessary, but, like any other evil employed 
to remedy a greater evil, capable of becom¬ 
ing a good. Nor do I wish to take away 
the right of pardon from the Crown. On 
the contrary, my object is, to restore to the 
Crown the practical use of that right, of 
which the usage of modern times has nearly 
deprived it. 

The declaration may appear singular, but 
I do not aim at realising any universal prin¬ 
ciple. My object is, to bring the letter of 
the law more near to its practice,—to make 
the execution of the law form the rule, and 
the remission of its penalties the exception. 
Although I do not expect that a system of 
law can be so graduated, that it can be 
applied to every case without the interven¬ 
tion of a discretionary power, I hope to see 
an effect produced on the vicious, by the 
steady manner in which the law shall be 
enforced. The main part of the reform 
which I should propose would be, to trans¬ 
fer to the statute book the improvements 
which the wisdom of modern times has in¬ 
troduced into the practice of the law. But 
I must add, that even in the case of some of 
that practice with which the feelings of good 
men are not in unison, I should propose 
such a reform as would correct that anomaly. 
It is one of the greatest evils which can 
befall a country when the Criminal Law and 
the virtuous feeling of the community are 
in hostility to each other. They cannot be 
long at variance without injury to one, — 
perhaps to both. One of my objects is to 
approximate them; — to make good men the 
anxious supporters of the Criminal Law; 
and to restore, if it has been injured, that 
zealous attachment to the law in general, 
which, even in the most tempestuous times 











ON THE STATE OF THE CRIMINAL LAW. 717 


of our history, has distinguished the people 
of England among the nations of the world. 

Having made these few general remarks, 
I will now, Sir, enter into a few illustrative 
details. It is not my intention to follow 
the Noble Lord in his inquiry into the 
causes of the increase of crimes. I think 
that his statement last night was in the main 
just and candid. I agree with him, that it 
is consolatory to remark, that the crimes in 
which so rapid an increase has been observ¬ 
able, are not those of the blackest dye, or of 
the most ferocious character; that they are 
not those which would the most deeply stain 
and dishonour the ancient moral character 
of Englishmen ; that they are crimes against 
property alone, and are to be viewed as the 
result of the distresses, rather than of the 
depravity of the community. I also firmly 
believe, that some of the causes of increased 
crime are temporary. But the Noble Lord 
and I, while we agree in this proposition, 
are thus whimsically situated: — he does not 
think that some of these causes are tem¬ 
porary which I conceive to be so ; while, on 
the other hand, he sets down some as tem¬ 
porary, which I believe to be permanent. 
As to the increase of forgery, for example 
(which I mention only by way of illustra¬ 
tion), I had hoped that when cash payments 
should be restored, that crime would be 
diminished. But the Noble Lord has taken 
pains to dissipate that delusion, by asserting 
that the withdrawal of such a mass of paper 
from circulation would be attended with no 
such beneficial consequences. According to 
him, the progress of the country in manufac¬ 
tures and wealth, is one of the principal 
causes of crime. But is our progress in 
manufactures and wealth to be arrested? 
Does the Noble Lord imagine, that there 
exists a permanent and augmenting cause of 
crime,—at once increasing with our pros¬ 
perity, and undermining it through its effects 
on the morals of the people ? According to 
him, the increase of great cities would form 
another cause of crime. This cause, at least, 
cannot diminish, for great cities are the 
natural consequences of manufacturing and 
commercial greatness. In speaking, how¬ 


ever, of the population of London, he has 
fallen into an error. Although London is 
positively larger now than it was in 1700, 
it is relatively smaller:—although it-has 
since that time become the greatest com¬ 
mercial city in Europe, — the capital of an 
empire whose colonies extend over every 
quarter of the world, — London is not so 
populous now, with reference to the popu¬ 
lation of the whole kingdom, as it was in 
the reign of William III. 

It is principally to those causes of crime, 
which arise out of errors in policy or legis¬ 
lation, that I wish to draw the attention of 
Parliament. Among other subjects, it may 
be a question whether the laws for the pro¬ 
tection of the property called “ game,” have 
not created a clandestine traffic highly in¬ 
jurious to the morals of the labouring 
classes. I am happy to find that that sub¬ 
ject is to be taken up by my Honourable 
Friend the Member for Hertfordshire *, 
who will draw to it the attention which 
every proposition of his deserves. A smug¬ 
gling traffic of another species, although 
attended with nearly the same effects, has 
been fostered by some of the existing laws 
relating to the revenue. I would propose 
no diminution of revenue, for unfortunately 
we can spare none: but there are some 
taxes which produce no revenue, and which 
were never intended to produce any, but 
which are, nevertheless, very detrimental. 
The cumbrous system of drawbacks, and 
protecting duties, is only a bounty on smug¬ 
gling. Poachers and smugglers are the two 
bodies from which malefactors are prin¬ 
cipally recruited. The state which does 
not seek to remedy these diseases, is guilty 
of its own destruction. 

Another subject I must mention: for, 
viewing it as I do, it would be unpardonable 
to omit it. On examining the summary of 
crimes which has been laid on the table, it 
appears that it was in 1808 that the great 
increase of crime took place. The number 
of crimes since that time has never fallen 
below the number of that year; although 


* The Honourable Thomas Brand. — Ed. 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


718 


subsequent years have varied among one 
another. But it is extremely remarkable, 
and is, indeed, a most serious and alarming 
fact, that the year 1808 was precisely the 
period when the great issues of the Bank of 
England began. As it has been observed 
in the “ Letter to the Right Honourable 
Member for the University of Oxford a 
work which has been already mentioned in 
this House (the author | of which, although 
he has concealed his name, cannot conceal 
his talents, and his singular union of ancient 
learning with modern science), it was at 
that time that pauperism and poor rates 
increased. Pauperism and crime, as I have 
before said, go hand in hand. Both were 
propelled by the immense issues of Bank 
paper in 1808. By those issues the value 
of the one-pound note was reduced to 
fourteen shillings. Every labourer, by he 
knew not what mysterious power,—by causes 
which he could not discover or comprehend, 
— found his wages diminished at least in the 
proportion of a third. No enemy had ra¬ 
vaged the country; no inclement season had 
blasted the produce of the soil; but his com¬ 
forts were curtailed, and his enjoyments 
destroyed by the operation of the paper 
system, — which was to him like the work¬ 
ings of a malignant fiend, that could be 
traced only in their effects. Can any one 
doubt that this diminution of the income of 
so many individuals, from the highest to the 
lowest classes of society, was one of the 
chief sources of, the increase of crime ? 

There is one other secondary cause of 
crime, which I hope we have at length seri¬ 
ously determined to remove ; — I mean the 
state of our prisons. They never were 
fitted for reformation by a wise system of 
discipline : but that is now become an in¬ 
ferior subject of complaint. Since the 
number of criminals have outgrown the 
size of our prisons, comparatively small 
offenders have been trained in them to the 
contemplation of atrocious crime. Happily 


* The Right Honourable Robert Peel. — Ed. 
f The Rev. Edward .Copleston (now Bishop of 
Llandaff). — Ed. 


this terrible source of evil is more than any 
other within our reach. Prison discipline 
may fail in reforming offenders : but it is 
our own fault if it further corrupts them. 

But the main ground which I take is this, 
—that the Criminal Law is not so efficacious 
as it might be, if temperate and prudent 
alterations in it were made. It is well known 
that there are two hundred capital felonies 
on the statute book; but it may not be so 
familiar to the House, that by the Returns 
for London and Middlesex, it appears that 
from 1749 to 1819, a term of seventy years, 
there are only twenty-five sorts of felonies 
for which any individuals have been ex¬ 
ecuted. So that there are a hundred and 
seventy-five capital felonies respecting which 
the punishment ordained by various sta¬ 
tutes has not been inflicted. In the thirteen 
years since 1805, it appears that there are 
only thirty descriptions of felonies on which 
there have been any capital convictions 
throughout England and Wales. So that 
there are a hundred and seventy felonies 
created by law, on which not one capital 
conviction has taken place. This rapidly 
increasing discordance between the letter 
and the practice of the Criminal Law, arose 
in the best times of our history, and, in my 
opinion, out of one of its most glorious and 
happy events. As I take it, the most im¬ 
portant consequence of the Revolution of 
1688, was the establishment in this country 
of a Parliamentary government. That event, 
however, has been attended by one incon¬ 
venience — the unhappy facility afforded to 
legislation. Every Member of Parliament 
has had it in his power to indulge his whims 
and caprices on that subject; and if he 
could not do any thing else, he could create 
a capital felony! The anecdotes which I 
have heard of this shameful and injurious 
facility, I am almost ashamed to repeat. 
Mr. Burke once told me, that on a certain 
occasion, when he was leaving the House, 
one of the messengers called him back, and 
on his saying that he was going on urgent 
business, replied, “ Oh! it will not keep 
you a single moment; it is only a felony 
without benefit of clergy! ” He also as- 







ON THE STATE OF THE CRIMINAL LAW. 719 


sured me, that although, as may be ima¬ 
gined, from his political career, he was not 
often entitled to ask favour from the mi¬ 
nistry of the day, he was persuaded that 
his interest was at any time good enough to 
obtain their assent to the creation of a felony 
without benefit of clergy. This facility of 
granting an increase of the severity of the 
law to every proposer, with the most im¬ 
partial disregard of political considerations, 

— this unfortunate facility, arose at a time 
when the humane feelings of the country 
were only yet ripening amidst the diffusion 
of knowledge. Hence originated the final 
separation between the letter and the prac¬ 
tice of the law ; for both the government 
and the nation revolted from the execution 
of laws which were regarded, not as the 
results of calm deliberation or consummate 
wisdom, but rather as the fruit of a series of 
perverse and malignant accidents, impelling 
the adoption of temporary and short-sighted/ 
expedients. The reverence, therefore, ge¬ 
nerally due to old establishments, cannot 
belong to such laws. 

This most singular, and most injurious 
opposition of the legislative enactments and 
their judicial enforcement, has repeatedly 
attracted the attention of a distinguished 
individual, who unites in himself every qua¬ 
lity that could render him one of the great¬ 
est ornaments of this House, and whom, as 
he is no longer a member, I may be per¬ 
mitted to name,—I mean Sir William Grant, 

— a man who can never be mentioned by 
those who know him without the expression 
of their admiration — a man who is an honour, 
not merely to the profession which he has 
adorned, but to the age in which he lives — 
a man who is at once the greatest master of 
reason and of the power of enforcing it, — 
whose sound judgment is accompanied by 
the most perspicuous comprehension,—whose 
views, especially on all subjects connected 
with legislation, or the administration of the 
law, are directed by the profoundest wisdom, 

— whom no one ever approaches without 
feeling his superiority,—who only wants the 
two vices of ostentation and ambition (vices 
contemned by the retiring simplicity and 


noble modesty of his nature) to render his 
high talents and attainments more popu¬ 
larly attractive. We have his authority for 
the assertion, that the principle of the Cri¬ 
minal Law is diametrically opposite to its 
practice. On one occasion particularly, when 
his attention was called to the subject, he 
declared it to be impossible “ that both the 
law and the practice could be right; that 
the toleration of such discord was an anomaly 
that ought to be removed; and that, as the 
law might be brought to an accordance with 
the practice, but the practice could never be 
brought to an accordance with the law, the 
law ought to be altered for a wiser and more 
humane system.” At another time, the same 
eminent individual used the remarkable ex¬ 
pression, “ that, during the last century, there 
had been a general confederacy of prose¬ 
cutors, witnesses, counsel, juries, judges, and 
the advisers of the Crown, to prevent the 
execution of the Criminal Law.” Is it 
fitting that a system should continue which 
the whole body of the intelligent community 
combine to resist, as a disgrace to our nature 
and nation ? 

Sir, I feel that I already owe much to the 
indulgence of the House, and I assure you 
that I shall be as concise as the circum¬ 
stances of the case, important as it con¬ 
fessedly is, will allow; and more especially 
in the details attendant upon it. The Noble 
Lord last night dwelt much upon the con¬ 
sequences of a transition from war to peace 
in the multiplication of crimes; but, upon 
consulting experience, I do not find that his 
position is borne out. It is not true that 
crime always diminishes during a state of 
war, or that it always increases after its 
conclusion. In the Seven-Years’ War, in¬ 
deed, the number of crimes was augmented, 
— decreasing after its termination. They 
were more numerous in the seven years pre¬ 
ceding the American War, and continued to 
advance, not only during those hostilities, 
but, I am ready to admit, after the restoration 
of peace. It is, however, quite correct to 
state, that there was no augmentation of 
crime which much outran the progress of 
population until within about the last 







# 


720 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


twenty, and more especially within the last 
ten years; and that the augmentation which 
has taken place is capable of being accounted 
for, without any disparagement to the an¬ 
cient and peculiar probity of the British 
character. 

As to the variations which have taken 
place in the administration of the law, with 
respect to the proportion of the executions 
to the convictions, some of them have cer¬ 
tainly been remarkable. Under the various 
administrations of the supreme office of the 
law, down to the time of Lord Thurlow, the 
proportion of executions to convictions was 
for the most part uniform. Lord Rosslyn 
was the first Chancellor under whose ad¬ 
ministration a great diminution of exe¬ 
cutions, as compared with convictions, is to 
be remarked; and this I must impute, not 
only to the gentle disposition of that distin¬ 
guished lawyer, but to the liberality of those 
principles which, however unfashionable they 
may now have become, were entertained by 
his early connexions. Under Lord Rosslyn’s 
administration of the law, the proportion of 
executions was diminished to one in eight, 
one in nine, and finally as low as one in 
eleven. 

But, Sir, to the Noble Lord’s argument, 
grounded on the diminution in the number 
of executions, I wish to say a few words. If 
we divide crimes into various sorts, separating 
the higher from the inferior offences, we shall 
find, that with respect to the smaller felonies, 
the proportion of executions to convictions 
has been one in twenty, one in thirty, and in 
one year, only one in sixty. In the higher 
felonies (with the exception of burglary and 
robbery, which are peculiarly circumstanced) 
the law has been uniformly executed. The 
Noble Lord’s statement, therefore, is ap¬ 
plicable only to the first-mentioned class; 
and a delusion would be the result of its 
being applied unqualifiedly to the whole 
criminal code. 

For the sake of clearness, I will divide 
the crimes against which our penal code 
denounces capital punishments into three 
classes. In the first of these I include 
murder, and murderous offences, or such 


offences as are likely to lead to murder, such 
as shooting or stabbing, with a view to the 
malicious destruction of human life : — in 
these cases the law is invariably executed. 
In the second class appear arson, highway 
robbery, piracy, and other offences, to the 
number of nine or ten, which it is not ne¬ 
cessary, and which it would be painful, to 
specify: — on these, at present, the law is 
carried into effect in a great many instances. 
In these two first divisions I will admit, for 
the present, that it would be unsafe to pro¬ 
pose any alteration. Many of the crimes 
comprehended in them ought to be punished 
with death. Whatever attacks the life or 
the dwelling of man deserves such a punish¬ 
ment ; and I am persuaded that a patient 
and calm investigation would remove the 
objections of a number of well-meaning 
persons who are of a contrary opinion.* 

But looking from these offences at the 
head of the criminal code to the other ex¬ 
tremity of it, I there find a third class of 
offences, — some connected with frauds of 
various kinds, but others of the most frivo¬ 
lous and fantastic description, — amounting 
in number to about one hundred and fifty, 
against which the punishment of death is 
still denounced by the law, although never 
carried into effect. Indeed, it would be most 
absurd to suppose that an execution would 
in such cases be now tolerated, when one or 
two instances even in former times excited 
the disgust and horror of all good men. 
There can be no doubt — even the Noble 
Lord, I apprehend, will not dispute — that 
such capital felonies should be expunged 
from our Statute Book as a disgrace to it. 
Can any man think, for instance, that such 
an offence as that of cutting down a hop 
vine or a young tree in a gentleman’s plea¬ 
sure ground should remain punishable with 
death ? The “ Black Act,” as it is called, 
alone created about twenty-one capital 
felonies, — some of them of the most absurd 


* This passage is lefj; intact on account of the 
momentous nature of its subject-matter, but the 
speaker has evidently been here too loosely re¬ 
ported. — Ed. 








ON THE STATE OF THE CRIMINAL LAW. 721 

description. Bearing particular weapons,— 
having the face blackened at night, — and 
being found disguised upon the high road, — 
were some of them. So that if a gentleman 
is going to a masquerade, and is obliged to 
pass along a highway, he is liable, if detected, 
to be hanged without benefit of clergy! 
Who, again, can endure the idea that a man 
is exposed to the punishment of death for 
such an offence as cutting the head of a 
fish-pond ? Sir, there are many more capi¬ 
tal felonies of a similar nature, which are the 
relics of barbarous times, and which are 
disgraceful to the character of a thinking 
and enlightened people. For such offences 
punishments quite adequate and sufficiently 
numerous would remain. It is undoubtedly 
true, that for the last seventy years no capi¬ 
tal punishment has been inflicted for such 
offences; the statutes denouncing them are 
therefore needless. And I trust I shall 
never live to see the day when any member 
of this House will rise and maintain that a 
punishment avowedly needless ought to be 
continued. 

The debateable ground on this subject is 
afforded by a sort of middle class of offences, 
consisting of larcenies and frauds of a 
heinous kind, although not accompanied 
with violence and terror. It is no part of 
my proposal to take away the discretion 
which is reposed in the judicial authorities 
respecting these offences. Nothing in my 
mind would be more imprudent than to 
establish an undeviating rule of law, — a 
rule that in many cases would have a more 
injurious and unjust operation than can 
easily be imagined. I do not, therefore, 
propose in any degree to interfere with the 
discretion of the judges, in cases in which 
the punishment of death ought, under cer¬ 
tain aggravated circumstances, to attach, 
but only to examine whether or not it is fit 
that death should remain as the punishment 
expressly directed by the law for offences, 
which in its administration are never, even 
under circumstances of the greatest aggra¬ 
vation, more severely punished than with 
various periods of transportation. 

It is impossible to advert to the necessity 

of reforming this part of the law, without 
calling to mind the efforts of that highly 
distinguished and universally lamented in¬ 
dividual, by whom the attention of Parlia¬ 
ment was so often roused to the subject of 
our penal code. Towards that excellent 
man I felt all the regard which a friendship 
of twenty years’ duration naturally in¬ 
spired, combined with the respect which his 
eminently superior understanding irresistibly 
claimed. But I need not describe his merits; 
to them ample justice has been already done 
by the unanimous voice of the Empire, 
seconded by the opinion of all the good 
men of all nations,—and especially by the 
eulogium of the Honourable Member for 
Bramber *, whose kindred virtues and 
kindred eloquence enable him justly to ap¬ 
preciate the qualities of active philanthropy 
and profound wisdom. I trust the House 
will bear with me if, while touching on this 
subject, I cannot restrain myself from feebly 
expressing my admiration for the individual 
by whose benevolent exertions it has been 
consecrated. There was, it is well known, 
an extraordinary degree of original sensi¬ 
bility belonging to the character of my 
lamented Friend, combined with the great¬ 
est moral purity, and inflexibility of public 
principle; but yet, with these elements, it is 
indisputably true, that his conduct as a 
statesman was always controlled by a sound 
judgment, duly and deliberately weighing 
every consideration of legislative expediency 
and practical policy. This was remarkably 
shown in his exertions respecting the crimi¬ 
nal code. In his endeavours to rescue his 
country from the disgrace arising out of the 
character of that code, he never indulged in 
any visionary views; — he was at once 
humane and just, — generous and wise. 
With all that ardour of temperament with 
which he unceasingly pursued the public 
good, never was there a reformer more 
circumspect in his means, — more prudent 
in his end; — and yet all his propositions 
were opposed. In one thing, however, he 
succeeded, — he redeemed his country from 

* Mr. Wilberforce. — Ed. 


3 A 












722 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


a great disgrace, by putting a stop to that 
career of improvident and cruel legislation, 
which, from session to session, was multi¬ 
plying capital felonies. Sir, while private 
virtue and public worth are distinguished 
among men, the memory of Sir Samuel 
Romilly will remain consecrated in the his¬ 
tory of humanity. According to the views 
of my lamented Friend, the punishment of 
death ought not to attach by law to any of 
those offences for which transportation is a 
sufficient punishment, and for which, in the 
ordinary administration of the law by the 
judges, transportation alone is inflicted. In 
that view I entirely concur. 

I will not now enter into any discussion 
of the doctrine of Dr. Paley with respect to 
the expediency of investing judges with the 
power of inflicting death even for minor 
offences, where, in consequence of the cha¬ 
racter of the offence and of the offender, 
some particular good may appear to be pro¬ 
mised from the example of such a punish¬ 
ment on a mischievous individual. The 
question is, whether the general good de¬ 
rived by society from the existence of such 
a state of the law is so great as to exceed 
the evil. And I may venture to express 
my conviction, that the result of such an 
inquiry as that which I propose will be to 
show, that the balance of advantage is de¬ 
cidedly against the continuance of the ex¬ 
isting system. The late Lord Chief Justice 
of the Common Pleas*, whose authority is 
undoubtedly entitled to great consideration 
in discussing this question, expressed an 
opinion, that if the punishment of death for 
certain crimes were inflicted only in one 
case out of sixty, yet that the chance of 
having to undergo such a punishment must 
serve to impose an additional terror on the 
ill-disposed, and so operate to prevent the 
commission of crime. But I, on the con¬ 
trary, maintain that such a terror is not 
likely to arise out of this mode of admi¬ 
nistering the law. I am persuaded that a 
different result must ensue; because this 
difference in the punishment of the same 


* Sir Vicary Gibbs. — Ed. 


offence must naturally encourage a calcu¬ 
lation in the mind of a person disposed to 
commit crime, of the manifold chances of 
escaping its penalties. It must also operate 
on a malefactor’s mind in diminution of the 
terrors of transportation. Exulting at his 
escape from the more dreadful infliction, 
joy and triumph must absorb his faculties, 
eclipsing and obscuring those apprehensions 
and regrets with which he would otherwise 
have contemplated the lesser penalty, and 
inducing him, like Cicero, to consider exile 
as a refuge rather than as a punishment. 
In support of this opinion I will quote the 
authority of one who, if I cannot describe 
him as an eminent lawyer, all will agree was 
a man deeply skilled in human nature, as 
well as a most active and experienced ma¬ 
gistrate,— I allude to the celebrated Henry 
Fielding. In a work of his, published at 
the period when the first Parliamentary in¬ 
quiry of this nature was in progress, inti¬ 
tuled “ A Treatise on the Causes of Crime,” 
there is this observation: — “A single pardon 
excites a greater degree of hope in the 
minds of criminals than twenty executions 
excite of fear.” Now this argument I con¬ 
sider to be quite analogous to that which I 
have just used with reference to the opi¬ 
nion of the late Chief Justice of the Com¬ 
mon Pleas, because the chance of escape 
from death, in either case, is but too apt 
to dislodge all thought of the inferior 
punishments. 

But, Sir, another most important con¬ 
sideration is, the effect which the existing 
system of law has in deterring injured per¬ 
sons from commencing prosecutions, and 
witnesses from coming forward in support 
of them. The chances of escape are thus 
multiplied by a system which, while it dis¬ 
courages the prosecutor, increases the tempt¬ 
ations of the offender. The better part of 
mankind, in those grave and reflecting mo¬ 
ments which the prosecution for a capital 
offence must always bring with it, frequently 
shrink from the task imposed on them. The 
indisposition to prosecute while the laws 
continue so severe is matter of public noto¬ 
riety. This has been evinced in various 








ON THE STATE OF THE CRIMINAL LAW. 723 


cases. It is not long since an act of George 
II., for preserving bleaching-grounds from 
depredation, was repealed on the proposition 
of Sir Samuel Romilly, backed by a petition 
from the proprietors of those grounds, who 
expressed their unwillingness to prosecute 
while the law continued so severe, and who 
represented that by the impunity thus given 
to offenders, their property was left com¬ 
paratively unprotected. An eminent city 
banker has also been very recently heard to 
declare in this House, that bankers fre¬ 
quently declined to prosecute for the for¬ 
gery of their notes in consequence of the 
law which denounced the punishment of 
death against such an offence. It is noto¬ 
rious that the concealment of a bankrupt’s 
effects is very seldom prosecuted, because 
the law pronounces that to be a capital 
offence: it is undoubtedly, however, a great 
crime, and would not be allowed to enjoy 
such comparative impunity were the law 
less severe. 

There is another strong fact on this sub¬ 
ject, to which I may refer, as illustrating 
the general impression respecting the Cri¬ 
minal Law; — I mean the Act which was 
passed in 1812, by which all previous enact¬ 
ments of capital punishments for offences 
against the revenue not specified in it were 
repealed. That Act I understand was in¬ 
troduced at the instance of certain officers 
of the revenue. And why ? — but because 
from the excessive severity of the then 
existing revenue laws, the collectors of the 
revenue themselves found that they were 
utterly inefficient. But I have the highest 
official authority to sustain my view of the 
criminal code. I have the authority of the 
late Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir 
Archibald Macdonald, who, when he held 
the office of Attorney-General, which he 
discharged with so much honour to himself, 
and advantage to the country, distinctly 
expressed his concurrence in the opinion of 
Lord Bacon, that great penalties deadened 
the force of the laws. 

The House will still bear in mind, that I 
do not call for the entire abolition of the 
punishment of death, but only for its abo¬ 


lition in those cases in which it is very 
rarely, and ought never to be, carried into 
effect. In those cases I propose to institute 
other, milder, but more invariable punish¬ 
ments. The courts of law should, in some 
cases, be armed with the awful authority of 
taking away life: but in order to render 
that authority fully impressive, I am con¬ 
vinced that the punishment of death should 
be abolished where inferior punishments are 
not only applicable, but are usually applied. 
Nothing indeed can, in my opinion, be more 
injurious than the frequency with which 
the sentence of death is at the present time 
pronounced from the judgment-seat, with 
all the solemnities prescribed on such an 
occasion, when it is evident, even to those 
against whom it is denounced, that it will 
never be carried into effect. Whenever 
that awful authority,—the jurisdiction over 
life and death,—is disarmed of its terrors by 
such a formality, the law is deprived of its 
beneficent energy, and society of its needful 
defence. 

Sir William Grant, in a report of one of 
his speeches which I have seen, observes, 
“ that the great utility of the punishment 
of death consists in the horror which it is 
naturally calculated to excite against the 
criminal; and that all penal laws ought to 
be in unison with the public feeling; for 
that when they are not so, and especially 
when they are too severe, the influence of 
example is lost, sympathy being excited 
towards the criminal, while horror prevails 
against the law.” Such indeed was also 
the impression of Sir William Blackstone, 
of Mr. Fox, and of Mr. Pitt. It is also the 
opinion of Lord Grenville, expressed in a 
speech* as distinguished for forcible rea¬ 
soning, profound wisdom, and magnificent 
eloquence, as any that I have ever heard. 

It must undoubtedly happen, even in the 
best regulated conditions of society, that 
the laws will be sometimes at variance with 
the opinions and feelings of good men. But 
that, in a country like Great Britain, they 


* Since published by Mr. Basil Montague, in his 
Collections On the Punishment of Death. — Ed. 


3 A 2 














724 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


should remain permanently in a state not 
less inconsistent with obvious policy than 
with the sentiments of all the enlightened 
and respectable classes of the community, 
is indeed scarcely credible. I should not 
be an advocate for the repeal of any law 
because it happened to be in opposition to 
temporary prejudices: but I object to the 
laws to which I have alluded, because they 
are inconsistent with the deliberate and 
permanent opinion of the public. In all 
nations an agreement between the laws 
and the general feeling of those who are 
subject to them is essential to their efficacy : 
but this agreement becomes of unspeakable 
importance in a country in which the charge 
of executing the laws is committed in a 
great measure to the people themselves. 

I know not how to contemplate, without 
serious apprehension, the consequences that 
may attend the prolongation of a system like 
the present. It is my anxious desire to 
remove, before they become insuperable, 
the impediments that are already in the way 
of our civil government. My object is to 
make the laws popular, — to reconcile them 
with public opinion, and thus to redeem 
their character. It is to render the execu¬ 
tion of them easy, — the terror of them 
overwhelming, — the efficacy of them com¬ 
plete,—that I implore the House to give to 
this subject their most grave consideration. 
I beg leave to remind them, that Sir Wil¬ 
liam Blackstone has already pointed out the 
indispensable necessity under which juries 
frequently labour of committing, in esti¬ 
mating the value of stolen property, what 
he calls “pious perjuries.” The resort to 
this practice in one of the wisest institutions 
of the country, so clearly indicates the pub¬ 
lic feeling, that to every wise statesman it 
must afford an instructive lesson. The just 
and faithful administration of the law in all 
its branches is the great bond of society,— 
the point at which authority and obedience 
meet most nearly. If those who hold the 
reins of government, instead of attempting 
a remedy, content themselves with vain 
lamentations at the growth of crime, — if 
they refuse to conform the laws to the 


opinions and dispositions of the public mind, 
that growth must continue to spread among 
us a just alarm. 

With respect to petitions upon this sub¬ 
ject, I have reason to believe that, in a few 
days, many will be presented from a body 
of men intimately connected with the ad¬ 
ministration of the Criminal Law, — I mean 
the magistracy of the country, — praying 
for its revision. Among that body I under¬ 
stand that but little difference of opinion 
prevails, and that when their petitions shall 
be presented, they will be found subscribed 
by many of the most respectable individuals 
in the empire as to moral character, en¬ 
lightened talent, and general consideration. 
I did not, however, think it right to post¬ 
pone my motion for an inquiry so important 
until those petitions should be actually laid 
on the table. I should, indeed, have felt 
extreme regret if the consideration of this 
question had been preceded by petitions 
drawn up and agreed to at popular and tu¬ 
multuary assemblies. No one can be more 
unwilling than myself to see any proceeding 
that can in the slightest degree interfere 
with the calm, deliberate, and dignified con¬ 
sideration of Parliament, more especially on 
a subject of this nature. 

The Petition from the City of London, 
however, ought to be considered in another 
light, and is entitled to peculiar attention. 
It proceeds from magistrates accustomed to 
administer justice in a populous metropolis, 
and who necessarily possess very great ex¬ 
perience. It proceeds from a body of most 
respectable traders — men peculiarly ex¬ 
posed to those depredations against which 
Capital Punishment is denounced. An 
assembly so composed, is one of weight and 
dignity; and its representations on this sub¬ 
ject are entitled to the greater deference, 
inasmuch as the results of its experience 
appear to be in direct opposition to its 
strongest prejudices. The first impulse of 
men whose property is attacked, is to de¬ 
stroy those by whom the attack is made: 
but the enlightened traders of London per¬ 
ceive, that the weapon of destruction which 
our penal code affords, is ineffective for its 







ON THE STATE OF THE CRIMINAL LAW. 725 


purpose; they, therefore, disabusing them¬ 
selves of vulgar prejudice, call for the re¬ 
vision of that code. 

Another Petition has been presented to 
the House which I cannot pass over without 
notice: I allude to one from that highly 
meritorious and exemplary body of men — 
the Quakers. It has, I think, been rather 
hardly dealt by; and has been described as 
containing very extravagant recommend¬ 
ations : although the prayer with which it 
concludes is merely for such a change in the 
Criminal Law as may be consistent with the 
ends of justice. The body of the Petition 
certainly deviates into a speculation as to 
the future existence of some happier con¬ 
dition of society, in which mutual good-will 
may render severe punishments unnecessary. 
But this is a speculation in which, however 
unsanctioned by experience, virtuous and 
philosophical men have in all ages indulged 
themselves, and by it have felt consoled for 
the evils by which they have been sur¬ 
rounded. The hope thus expressed, has 
exposed these respectable Petitioners to be 
treated with levity : but they are much too 
enlightened not to know that with such 
questions statesmen and lawyers, whose 
arrangements and regulations must be 
limited by the actual state and the neces¬ 
sary wants of a community, have no con¬ 


cern. And while I make these remarks, I 
cannot but request the House to recollect 
what description of people it is to whom I 
apply them, — a people who alone of all the 
population of the kingdom send neither 
paupers to your parishes, nor criminals to 
your gaols, — a people who think a spirit of 
benevolence an adequate security to man¬ 
kind (a spirit which certainly wants but the 
possibility of its being universal to constitute 
the perfection of our nature) — a people 
who have ever been foremost in undertaking 
and promoting every great and good work, 
— who were among the first to engage in 
the abolition of the slave trade, and who, 
by their firm yet modest perseverance, 
paved the way for the accomplishment of 
that incalculable benefit to humanity. Re¬ 
collecting all this, and recollecting the 
channel through which this Petition was 
presented to the House*, I consider it to 
be entitled to anything but disrespect. The 
aid of such a body must always be a source 
of encouragement to those who are aiming 
at any amelioration of the condition of 
human beings; and on this occasion it in¬ 
spires me, not only with perfect confidence 
in the goodness of my cause, but with the 
greatest hopes of its success. 


* It had been presented by Mr. Wilberforce.—E d. 



















SPEECH 

ON MR. BROUGHAM’S MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO TnE CROWN, WITH REFERENCE TO 

THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION OF 

THE REV. JOHN SMITH, OF DEMERARA,* 

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, ON THE 1ST OF JUNE, 1824. 


Mr. Speaker, 

Even if I had not been loudly called upon, 
and directly challenged by the Honour- 


* The Rev. John Smith, an Independent minis¬ 
ter, had been sent out to Demerara in the year 
1816 by the London Missionary Society. The 
exemplary discharge of his sacred functions on the 
eastern shore of that colony for six years, amid 
difficulties which are said to have distinguished 
Demerara even among all her sister slave colonies, 
had so far impaired his health, that he was, by 
medical advice, on the point of leaving the country 
for a more salubrious climate, when, in the month 
of August, 1823, a partial insurrection of the ne¬ 
groes in his neighbourhood proved the means of 
putting a period alike to his labours and his life. 
The rising was not of an extensive or organised 
character, and was, in fact, suppressed imme¬ 
diately, with little loss of life or property. Its 
suppression was, however, immediately followed 
by the establishment of martial law, and the arrest 
of Mr. Smith as privy beforehand to the plot. As 
the evidence in support of this charge had neces¬ 
sarily to be extracted for the most part from pri¬ 
soners trembling for their own lives, incurable 
suspicion would seem to attach to the whole of it; 
though candour must admit, on a careful consider¬ 
ation of the whole circumstances, including the 
sensitive feelings and ardent temperament of the 
accused, that it was not impossible that he had 
been made the involuntary depositary of the con¬ 
fidence of his flock. It was not till he had been in 
prison for nearly two months that Mr. Smith, on 
the 14th of October, was brought to trial before a 
court-martial. After proceedings abounding in 
irregularities, which lasted for six weeks, he was 
found guilty, and sentenced to death, but was re¬ 
commended to the mercy of the Crown. He died 
in prison on the 6th of February following, await¬ 
ing the result. Sir James Mackintosh had pre¬ 
sented, at an earlier period of the session, the appeal 


able Gentleman f, — even if bis accusa¬ 
tions, now repeated after full consider¬ 
ation, did not make it my duty to vindi¬ 
cate the Petition which I had the honour to 
present from unjust reproach, I own that I 
should have been anxious to address the 
House on this occasion ; not to strengthen a 
case already invincible, but to bear my 
solemn testimony against the most unjust 
and cruel abuse of power, under a false pre¬ 
tence of law, that has in our times dis¬ 
honoured any portion of the British empire. 
I am sorry that the Honourable Gentleman, 
after so long an interval for reflection, 
should have this night repeated those charges 
against the London Missionary Society, 
which when he first made them I thought 
rash, and which I am now entitled to treat 
as utterly groundless. I should regret to be 
detained by them for a moment, from the 
great question of humanity and justice be¬ 
fore us, if I did not feel that they excite a 
prejudice against the case of Mr. Smith, and 
that the short discussion sufficient to put 
them aside, leads directly to the vindication 
of the memory of that oppressed man. 

The Honourable Gentleman calls the Lon¬ 
don Missionary Society “ bad philosophers,” 
— by which, I presume, he means bad rea- 
soners, — because they ascribe the insur- 


of the London Missionary Society on behalf of his 
memory and his widow. The present speech was 
delivered in support of Mr. Brougham’s motion 
for an Address to the Crown on the subject.—E d. 

f Mr.Wilmot Horton, who conducted the de¬ 
fence of the authorities at Demerara. — Ed. 








CASE OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 


727 


rection partly “ to the long and inexplicable 
delay of the government of Demerara in 
promulgating the instructions favourable 
to the slave population; ” and because he, 
adopting one of the arguments of that speech 
by which the deputy-judge-advocate dis¬ 
graced his office, contends that a partial 
revolt cannot have arisen from a general 
cause of discontent, — a position belied by 
the whole course of history, and which is 
founded upon the absurd assumption, that 
one part of a people, from circumstances 
sometimes easy, sometimes very hard to be 
discovered, may not be more provoked than 
others by grievances common to all. So in¬ 
consistent, indeed, is the defence of the ru¬ 
lers of Demerara with itself, that in another 
part of the case they represent a project 
for an universal insurrection as having been 
formed, and ascribe its being, in fact, con¬ 
fined to the east coast, to unaccountable 
accidents. Paris, the ringleader, in what is 
called his “ confession ” (to be found in the 
Demerara Papers, No. II., p. 21.) says, 
“ The whole colony was to have risen on 
Monday ; and I cannot account for the rea¬ 
sons why only the east coast rose at the 
time appointed.” So that, according to this 
part of their own evidence, they must aban¬ 
don their argument, and own the discontent 
to have been as general as the grievance. 

Another argument against the Society’s 
Petition, is transplanted from the same 
nursery of weeds. It is said that cruelty 
cannot have contributed to this insurrection, 
because the leaders of the revolt were per¬ 
sons little likely to have been cruelly used, 
being among the most trusted of the slaves. 
Those who employ so gross a fallacy, must 
be content to be called worse reasoners than 
the London Missionary Society. It is, in¬ 
deed, one of the usual common-places in all 
cases of discontent and tumult; but it is one 
of the most futile. The moving cause of 
most insurrections, and in the opinion of 
two great men (Sully and Burke) of all, is 
the distress of the great body of insurgents; 
but the ringleaders are generally, and al¬ 
most necessarily, individuals who, being 
more highly endowed or more happily situ¬ 


ated, are raised above the distress which is 
suffered by those of whom they take the 
command. 

But the Honourable Gentleman’s princi¬ 
pal charge against the Petition, is the alle¬ 
gation contained in it, “ that the life of no 
white man was voluntarily taken away by 
the slaves.” When I heard the confidence 
with which a confutation of this averment 
was announced, I own I trembled for the 
accuracy of the Petition. But what was 
my astonishment, when I heard the attempt 
at confutation made! In the Demerara 
Papers, No. II., there is an elaborate nar¬ 
rative of an attack on the house of Mrs. 
Walrand, by the insurgents, made by that 
lady, or for her, — a caution in statements 
which the subsequent parts of these pro¬ 
ceedings prove to be necessary in Demerara. 
The Honourable Gentleman has read the 
narrative, to show that two lives were un¬ 
happily lost in this skirmish ; and this he 
seriously quotes as proving the inaccuracy 
of the Petition. Does he believe, — can he 
hope to persuade the House, that the Peti¬ 
tioners meant to say, that there was an 
insurrection without fighting, or skirmishes 
without death ? The attack and defence of 
houses and posts are a necessary part of all 
revolts; and deaths are the natural conse¬ 
quences of that, as well as of every species 
of warfare. The revolt in this case was, 
doubtless, an offence; the attack on the 
house was a part of that offence : the de¬ 
fence was brave and praiseworthy. The 
loss of lives is deeply to be deplored ; but it 
was inseparable from all such unhappy 
scenes: it could not be the “ voluntary 
killing,” intended to be denied in the Pe¬ 
tition. The Governor of Demerara, in a 
despatch to Lord Bathurst, makes the same 
statement with the Petition : — “I have 
not,” he says, “ heard of one white who was 
deliberately murdered: ” yet he was per¬ 
fectly aware of the fact which has been 
so triumphantly displayed to the House. 
“At plantation Nabaclis, where the whites 
were on their guard, two out of three were 
killed in the defence of their habitations.” 
The defence was legitimate, and the deaths 






728 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


lamentable: but, as the Governor distin¬ 
guishes them from murder, so do the So¬ 
ciety. They deny that there was any killing 
in cold blood. They did not mean to deny, 
— any more than to affirm — (for the Papers 
which mention the fact were printed since 
their Petition was drawn up), that there 
was killing in battle, when each party were 
openly struggling to destroy their antago¬ 
nists and to preserve themselves. The So¬ 
ciety only denies that this insurrection was 
dishonoured by those murders of the un¬ 
offending or of the vanquished, which too 
frequently attend the revolts of slaves. The 
Governor of Demerara agrees with them; 
the whole facts of the case support them; 
and the quotation of the Honourable Gentle¬ 
man leaves their denial untouched. The 
revolt was absolutely unstained by excess. 
The killing of whites, even in action, was so 
small as not to appear in the trial of Mr. 
Smith, or in the first accounts laid before 
us. I will not stop to inquire whether 
“killing in action” may not, in a strictly 
philosophical sense, be called “ voluntary.” 
It is enough for me, that no man will call it 
calm, needless, or deliberate. 

This is quite sufficient to justify even the 
words of the Petition. The substance of it 
is now more than abundantly justified by 
the general spirit of humanity which per¬ 
vaded the unhappy insurgents, — by the 
unparalleled forbearance and moderation 
which characterised the insurrection. On 
this part of the subject, so important to the 
general question, as well as to the character 
of the Petition for accuracy, the London 
Missionary Society appeal to the highest 
authority, that of the Reverend Mr. Austin, 
not a missionary or a methodist, but the 
chaplain of the colony, a minister of the 
Church of England, who has done honour 
even to that Church, so illustrious through 
the genius and learning and virtue of many 
of her clergy, by his Christian charity, — by 
his inflexible principles of justice, — by his 
I intrepid defence of innocence against all the 
j power of a government, and against the still 
i more formidable prejudices of an alarmed 
and incensed community. No man ever did 


himself more honour by the admirable com¬ 
bination of strength of character with sense 
of duty ; which needed nothing but a larger 
and more elevated theatre to place him 
among those who will be in all ages regarded 
by mankind as models for imitation and ob¬ 
jects of reverence. That excellent person, 
—speaking of Mr. Smith, a person with whom 
he was previously unacquainted, a minister 
of a different persuasion, a missionary, con¬ 
sidered by many of the established clergy as 
a rival, if not an enemy, a man then odious 
to the body of the colonists, whose good-will 
must have been so important to Mr. Austin’s 
comfort, — after declaring his conviction of 
the perfect innocence and extraordinary 
merit of the persecuted missionary, proceeds 
to bear testimony to the moderation of the 
insurgents, and to the beneficent influence 
of Mr. Smith, in producing that moderation, 
in language, far warmer and bolder than 
that of the Petition. “ I feel no hesitation 
in declaring,” says he, “ from the intimate 
knowledge which my most anxious inquiries 
have obtained, that in the late scourge which 
the hand of an all-wise Creator has inflicted 
on this ill-fated country, nothing but those 
religious impressions which, under Pro¬ 
vidence, Mr. Smith has been instrumental 
in fixing, — nothing but those principles of 
the Gospel of Peace, which he had been pro¬ 
claiming, could have prevented a dreadful 
effusion of blood here, and saved the lives 
of those very persons who are now, I shud¬ 
der to write it, seeking his life.” 

And here I beg the House to weigh this 
testimony. It is not only valuable from the 
integrity, impartiality, and understanding of 
the witness, but from his opportunities of 
acquiring that intimate knowledge of facts 
on which he rests his opinion. He was a 
member of the Secret Commission of Inquiry 
established on this occasion, which was armed 
with all the authority of government, and 
which received much evidence relating to 
this insurrection not produced on the trial 
of Mr. Smith. 

This circumstance immediately brings me 
to the consideration of the hearsay evidence 
illegally received against Mr. Smith. I do 











CASE OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 729 


not merely or chiefly object to it on grounds 
purely technical, or as being inadmissible by 
the law of England. I abstain from taking 
any part in the discussions of lawyers or 
philosophers, with respect to the wisdom of 
our rules of evidence ; though I think that 
there is more to be said for them than the 
ingenious objectors are aware of. What I 
complain of is, the admission of hearsay, of 
the vaguest sort, under circumstances where 
such an admission was utterly abominable. 
In what I am about to say, I shall not quote 
from the Society’s edition of the Trial, but 
from that which is officially before the 
House: so that I may lay aside all that has 
been said on the superior authority of the 
latter. Mr. Austin, when examined in chief, 
stated, that though originally prepossessed 
against Mr. Smith, yet, in the course of 
numerous inquiries, he could not see any 
circumstances which led to a belief that Mr. 
Smith had been, in any degree, instrumental 
in the insurrection ; but that, on the con¬ 
trary, when he (Mr. Austin) said to the 
slaves, that bloodshed had not marked the 
progress of their insurrection, their answer 
was: — “It is contrary to the religion we 
profess” (which had been taught to them by 
Mr. Smith) ; — “we cannot give life, and 
therefore we will not take it.” This evidence 
of the innocence of Mr. Smith, and of the 
humanity of the slaves, appears to have 
alarmed the impartial judge-advocate; and 
he proceeded, in his cross-examination, to 
ask Mr. Austin whether any of the negroes 
had ever insinuated, that their misfortunes 
were occasioned by the prisoner’s influence 
over them, or- by the doctrines he taught 
them ? Mr. Austin, understanding this 
question to refer to what passed before the 
Committee, appears to have respectfully 
hesitated about the propriety of disclosing 
these proceedings; upon which the Court, 
in a tone of discourtesy and displeasure, 
which a reputable advocate for a prisoner 
would not have used towards such a witness 
in this country, addressed the following 
illegal and indecent question to Mr. Austin: 
— “ Can you take it upon yourself to swear 
that you do not recollect any insinuations of 


that sort at the Board of Evidence ? ” How 
that question came to be waived, does not 
appear in the official copy. It is almost 
certain, however, from the purport of the 
next question, that the Society’s Report is 
correct in supplying this defect, and that 
Mr. Austin still doubted its substantial pro¬ 
priety, and continued to resent its insolent 
form. He was actually asked, “ whether he 
heard , before the Board of Evidence, any 
negro imputing the cause of revolt to the 
prisoner ?” He answered, “ Yes — and 
the inquiry is pursued no further. I again 
request the House to bear in mind, that this 
question and answer rest on the authority of 
the official copy; and I repeat, that I disdain 
to press the legal objection of its being hear¬ 
say evidence, and to contend, that to put 
such a question and receive such an answer, 
were acts of mere usurpation in any English 
tribunal. 

Much higher matter arises on this part of 
the evidence. Fortunately for the interests 
of truth, we are now in possession of the 
testimony of the negroes before the Board 
of Inquiry which is adverted to in this 
question, and which, be it observed, was 
wholly unknown to the unfortunate Mr. 
Smith. We naturally ask, why these negroes 
themselves were not produced as witnesses, 
if they were alive; or, if they were executed, 
how it happened that none of the men who 
gave such important evidence before the 
Board of Inquiry were preserved to bear 
testimony against him before the Court- 
martial ? Why were they content with the 
much weaker evidence actually produced ? 
Why were they driven to the necessity of 
illegally obtaining, through Mr. Austin, what 
they might have obtained from his inform¬ 
ants ? The r eason is plain: — they disbe¬ 
lieved the evidence of the negroes, who 
threw out the “ insinuations,” or “ imputa¬ 
tions.” That might have been nothing; but 
they knew that all mankind would have re¬ 
jected that pretended evidence with horror. 
They knew that the negroes, to whom their 
question adverted, had told a tale to the 
Board of Evidence, in comparison with which 
the story of Titus Oates was a model of pro- 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


730 


bability, candour, and truth. One of them 
(Sandy) said, that Mr. Smith told him, 
though not a member of his congregation, 
nor even a Christian, “ that a good thing was 
come for the negroes, and that if they did 
not seek for it now, the whites would trample 
upon them, and upon their sons and daugh¬ 
ters, to eternity.”* Another (Paris) says, 
“ that all the male whites (except the doctors 
and missionaries) were to be murdered, and 
all the females distributed among the in¬ 
surgents ; that one of their leaders was to 
be a king, another to be a governor, and Mr. 
Smith to be emperorf; that on Sunday, the 
17th of August, Mr. Smith administered the 
sacrament to several leading negroes, and to 
Mr. Hamilton, the European overseer of the 
estate Le Ressouvenir; that he swore the 
former on the Bible to do him no harm when 
they had conquered the country, and after¬ 
wards blessed their revolt, saying, “ Go ; as 
you have begun in Christ, you must end in 
Christ! ” J All this the prosecutor concealed, 
with the knowledge of the Court. While 
they asked, whether Mr. Austin had heard 
statements made against Mr. Smith before 
the Board of Evidence, they studiously con¬ 
cealed all those incredible, monstrous, im¬ 
possible fictions which accompanied these 
statements, and which would have anni¬ 
hilated their credit. Whether the question 
was intended to discredit Mr. Austin, or to 
prejudice Mr. Smith, it was, in either case, 
an atrocious attempt to take advantage of 
the stories told by the negroes, and at the 
same time to screen them from scrutiny, 
contradiction, disbelief, and abhorrence. If 
these men could have been believed, would 
they not have been produced on the trial ? 
Paris, indeed, the author of this horrible 
fabrication, charges Bristol, Manuel, and 
Azor, three of the witnesses afterwards ex¬ 
amined on the trial of Mr. Smith, with hav¬ 
ing been parties to the dire and execrable 
oath: not one of them alludes to such hor¬ 
rors; all virtually contradict them. Yet this 


* Demerara Papers, No. II. p. 26. 
f Ibid. p. 30. | Ibid. p. 41. 


Court-martial sought to injure Mr. Austin, 
or to contribute to the destruction of Mr. 
Smith, by receiving as evidence a general 
statement of what was said by those whom 
they could not believe, whom they durst not 
produce, and who were contradicted by their 
own principal witnesses,—who, if their whole 
tale had been brought into view, would have 
been driven out of any court with shouts of 
execration. 

I cannot yet leave this part of the sub¬ 
ject. It deeply affects the character of the 
whole transaction. It shows the general 
terror, which was so powerful as to sti¬ 
mulate the slaves to the invention of such 
monstrous falsehoods. It throws light on 
that species of skill with which the prose¬ 
cutors kept back the absolutely incredible 
witnesses, and brought forward only those 
who were discreet enough to tell a more 
plausible story, and on the effect which the 
circulation of the fictions, which were too 
absurd to be avowed, must have had in ex¬ 
citing the body of the colonists to the most 
relentless animosity against the unfortunate 
Mr. Smith. It teaches us to view with the 
utmost jealousy the more guarded testi¬ 
mony actually produced against him, which 
could not be exempt from the influence of 
the same fears and prejudices. It authorises 
me to lay a much more than ordinary stress 
on every defect of the evidence; because, 
in such circumstances, I am warranted in 
affirming that whatever was not proved, 
could not have been proved. 

But in answer to all this, we are asked by 
the Honourable Gentleman, “Would Pre¬ 
sident Wray have been a party to the ad¬ 
mission of improper evidence?” Now, 
Sir, I wish to say nothing disrespectful of 
Mr. Wray; and the rather, because he is 
well spoken of by those whose good opinion 
is to be respected. We do not know that 
he may not have dissented from every act 
of this Court-martial. I should heartily 
rejoice to hear that it was so: but I am 
aware we can never know whether he did 
or not. The Honourable Gentleman un¬ 
warily asks, — “ Would not Mr. Wray have 
publicly protested against illegal questions ? ” 












CASE OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 


Does he not know, or has he forgotten, that 
every member of a court-martial is bound 
by oath not to disclose its proceedings ? 
But really, Sir, I must say that the cha¬ 
racter of no man can avail against facts: — 
“ Tolle e causa nomen Catonis.” Let cha¬ 
racter protect accused men, when there is 
any defect in the evidence of their guilt: let 
it continue to yield to them that protection 
which Mr. Smith, in his hour of danger, did 
not receive from the tenor of his blameless 
and virtuous life : let it be used for mercy, 
not for severity. Let it never be allowed 
to aid a prosecutor, or to strengthen the 
case of an accuser. Let it be a shield to 
cover the accused : but let it never be con¬ 
verted into a dagger, by which he is to be 
stabbed to the heart. Above all, let it not 
be used to destroy his good name, after his 
life has been taken away. 

The question is, as has been stated by 
the Honourable Gentleman, whether, on a 
review of the whole evidence, Mr. Smith 
can be pronounced to be guilty of the crimes 
charged against him, and for which he was 
condemned to death. That is the fact on 
which issue is to be joined. In trying it, I 
can lay my hand on my heart, and solemnly 
declare, upon my honour, or whatever more 
sacred sanction there be, that I believe him 
to have been an innocent and virtuous man, 
— illegally tried, unjustly condemned to 
death, and treated in a manner which would 
be disgraceful to a civilised government in 
the case of the worst criminal. I heartily 
rejoice that the Honourable Gentleman has 
been manly enough directly to dissent from 
my Honourable Friend’s motion, — that the 
case is to be fairly brought to a decision, — 
and that no attempt is to be made to evade 
a determination, by moving the previous 
question. That, of all modes of proceeding, 
I should most lament. Some may think 
Mr. Smith guilty; others will agree with 
me in thinking him innocent: but no one 
can doubt that it would be dishonourable 
to the Grand Jury of the Empire, to declare 
that they will not decide, when a grave case 
is brought before them, whether a British 
subject has been lawfully or unlawfully con- 


731 

demned to death. We still observe that 
usage of our forefathers, according to which 
the House of Commons, at the commence¬ 
ment of every session of Parliament, nomi¬ 
nates a grand committee of justice ; and if, 
in ordinary cases, other modes of proceeding 
have been substituted in practice for this 
ancient institution, we may at least respect 
it as a remembrancer of our duty, which 
points out one of the chief objects of the 
original establishment. All evasion is here 
refusal; and a denial of justice in Parlia¬ 
ment, more especially in an inquest for 
blood, would be a fatal and irreparable 
breach in the English constitution. 

The question before us resolves itself into 
several questions, relating to every branch 
and stage of the proceedings against Mr. 
Smith : — Whether the Court-martial had 
jurisdiction ? whether the evidence against 
him was warranted by law, or sufficient in 
fact ? whether the sentence was just, or the 
punishment legal ? These questions are so 
extensive and important, that I cannot help 
wishing they had not been still further en¬ 
larged and embroiled by the introduction of 
matter wholly impertinent to any of them. 

To what purpose has the Honourable 
Gentleman so often told us that Mr. Smith 
was an “ enthusiast ? ” It would have been 
well if he had given us some explanation of 
the sense in which he uses so vague a term. 
If he meant by it to denote the prevalence 
of those disorderly passions, which, what¬ 
ever be their source or their object, always 
disturb the understanding, and often per¬ 
vert the moral sentiments, we have clear 
proof that it did not exist in Mr. Smith, so 
far as to produce the first of these unfor¬ 
tunate effects : and it is begging the whole 
question in dispute, to assert that it mani¬ 
fested itself in him by the second and still 
more fatal symptom. There is, indeed, 
another temper of mind called enthusiasm, 
which, though rejecting the authority neither 
of reason nor of virtue, triumphs over all 
the vulgar infirmities of men, contemns their 
ordinary pursuits, braves danger, and de¬ 
spises obloquy, — which is the parent of 
heroic acts and apostolical sacrifices, — 






732 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


which devotes the ease, the pleasure, the 
interest, the ambition, the life of the gene¬ 
rous enthusiast, to the service of his fellow- 
men. If Mr. Smith had not been supported 
by an ardent zeal for the cause of God and 
man, he would have been ill qualified for a 
task so surrounded by disgust, by calumny, 
by peril, as that of attempting to pour in¬ 
struction into the minds of unhappy slaves. 
Much of this excellent quality was doubt¬ 
less necessary for so long enduring the 
climate and the government of Demerara. 

I am sorry that the Honourable Gentle¬ 
man should have deigned to notice any 
part of the impertinent absurdities with 
which the Court have suffered their mi¬ 
nutes to be encumbered, and which have no 
more to do with this insurrection than with 
the Popish Plot. What is it to us that a 
misunderstanding occurred, three or four 
years ago, between Mr. Smith and a person 
called Captain or Doctor Macturk, whom he 
had the misfortune to have for a neighbour, 
— a misunderstanding long antecedent to 
this revolt, and utterly unconnected with 
any part of it? It was inadmissible evi¬ 
dence; and if it had been otherwise, it 
proved nothing but the character of the 
witness, — of the generous Macturk; who, 
having had a trifling difference with his 
neighbour five years ago, called it to mind 
at the moment when that neighbour’s life 
was in danger. Such is the chivalrous 
magnanimity of Dr. Macturk ! If I were 
infected by classical superstition, I should 
forbid such a man to embark in the same 
vessel with me. I leave him to those from 
whom, if we may trust his name or his man¬ 
ners, he may be descended; and I cannot 
help thinking that he deserves as well as 
they, to be excluded from the territory of 
Christians. 

I very sincerely regret, Sir, that the 
Honourable Gentleman, by quotations from 
Mr. Smith’s manuscript journal, should ap¬ 
pear to give any countenance or sanction to 
the detestable violation of all law, humanity, 
and decency, by which that manuscript was 
produced in evidence against the writer. I 
am sure that, when his official zeal has 


somewhat subsided, he will himself regret 
that he appealed to such a document. That 
which is unlawfully obtained cannot be 
fairly quoted. The production of a paper in 
evidence, containing general reflections and 
reasonings, or narratives of fact, not re¬ 
lating to any design, or composed to compass 
any end, is precisely the iniquity perpe¬ 
trated by Jeffreys, in the case of Sidney, 
which has since been reprobated by all 
lawyers, and wh : ch has been solemnly con¬ 
demned by the legislature itself. I deny, 
without fear of contradiction from any one 
of the learned lawyers who differ from me 
in this debate, that such a paper has been 
received in evidence, since that abominable 
trial, by any body of men calling themselves 
a court of j ustice. Is there a single line in 
the extracts produced which could have 
been written to forward the insurrection? 
I defy any man to point it out. Could it be 
admissible evidence on any other ground? 
I defy any lawyer to maintain it; for, if it 
were to be said that it manifests opinions 
and feelings favourable to negro insurrec¬ 
tion, and which rendered probable the par¬ 
ticipation of Mr. Smith in this revolt (having 
first denied the fact), I should point to the 
statute reversing the attainder of Sidney, 
against whom the like evidence was pro¬ 
duced precisely under the same pretence. 
Nothing can be more decisive on this point 
than the authority of a great judge and 
an excellent writer. “ Had the papers 
found in Sidney’s closets,” says Mr. Justice 
Foster, “ been plainly relative to the other 
treasonable practices charged in the indict¬ 
ment, they might have been read in evidence 
against him, though not published. The 
papers found on Lord Preston were written 
in prosecution of certain determined pur¬ 
poses which were treasonable, and then 
(namely, at the time of writing) in the con¬ 
templation of the offenders.” But the ini¬ 
quity in the case of Sidney vanishes, in 
comparison with that of this trial. Sidney’s 
manuscript was intended for publication : it 
could not be said that its tendency, when 
published, was not to excite dispositions 
hostile to the bad government which then 











CASE OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 733 


existed; it was perhaps in strictness indict¬ 
able as a seditious libel. The journal of 
Air. Smith was meant for no human eyes: it 
was seen by none; only extracts of it had 
been sent to his employers in England, — as 
inoffensive, doubtless, as their excellent in¬ 
structions required. In the midst of con¬ 
jugal affection and confidence, it was with¬ 
held even from his wife. It consisted of his 
communings with his own mind, or the 
breathings of his thoughts towards his Cre¬ 
ator ; it was neither addressed nor commu¬ 
nicated to any created being. That such a 
journal should have been dragged from its 
sacred secrecy is an atrocity — I repeat it — 
to which I know no parallel in the annals of 
any court that has professed to observe a 
semblance of justice. 

I dwell on this circumstance, because the 
Honourable Gentleman, by his quotation, 
has compelled me to do so, and because the 
admission of this evidence shows the temper 
of the Court. For I think the extracts pro¬ 
duced are, in truth, favourable to Mr. Smith; 
and I am entitled to presume that the whole 
journal, withheld as it is from us, — with¬ 
held from the Colonial Office, though cir¬ 
culated through the Court to excite West 
Indian prejudices against Mr. Smith, — 
would, in the eyes of impartial men, have 
been still more decisively advantageous to 
his cause. How, indeed, can I think other¬ 
wise ? What, in the opinion of the judge- 
advocate, is the capital crime of this journal ? 
It is, that in it the prisoner “ awows he feels 
an aversion to slavery !! ” He was so de¬ 
praved, as to be an enemy of that admirable 
institution! He was so lost to all sense of 
morality, as to be dissatisfied with the per¬ 
petual and unlimited subjection of millions 
of reasonable creatures to the will, and 
caprice, and passions of other men! This 
opinion, it is true, Mr. Smith shared with 
the King, Parliament, and people of Great 
Britain, — with all wise and good men, in all 
ages and nations : still, it is stated by the 
judge-advocate as if it were some immoral 
paradox, which it required the utmost ef¬ 
frontery to “avow.” One of the passages 
produced in evidence, and therefore thought 


either to be criminal in itself, or a proof of 
criminal intention, well deserves attention: 
— “ While writing this, my very heart 
flutters at the almost incessant cracking of 
the whip! ” As the date of this part of the 
journal is the 22nd of March, 1819, more 
than four years before the insurrection, it 
cannot be so distorted by human ingenuity 
as to be brought to bear on the specific 
charges which the Court had to try. What, 
therefore, is the purpose for which it is pro¬ 
duced ? They overheard, as it were, a man 
secretly complaining to himself of the agi¬ 
tation produced in his bodily frame by the 
horrible noise of a whip constantly re¬ 
sounding on the torn and bloody backs of 
his fellow-creatures. As he does not dare 
to utter them to any other, they must have 
been unaffected, undesigning, almost invo¬ 
luntary ejaculations of feeling. The disco¬ 
very of them might have recalled unhardened 
men from practices of which they had thus 
casually perceived the impression upon an 
uncorrupted heart. It could hardly have 
been supposed that the most practised negro- 
driver could have blamed them more se¬ 
verely than by calling them effusions of 
weak and womanish feelings. But it seemed 
good to the prosecutors of Mr. Smith to 
view these complaints in another light. They 
regard “the fluttering of his heart at the 
incessant cracking of the whip,” as an overt 
act of the treason of “ abhorring slavery.” 
They treat natural compassion, and even its 
involuntary effects on the bodily frame, as an 
offence. Such is the system of their society, 
that they consider every man who feels pity 
for sufferings, or indignation against cruelty, 
as their irreconcileable enemy. Nay, they 
receive a secret expression of those feelings 
as evidence against a man on trial for his 
life, in what they call a court of justice. 
My Right Honourable Friend* has, on a 
former occasion, happily characterised the 
resistance, which has not been obscurely 
threatened, against all measures for miti¬ 
gating the evils of slavery, as a “ rebellion 
for the whip.” In the present instance we 


* Mr. Canning. — Ed. 








734 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


see how sacred that instrument is held,— 
how the right to use it is prized as one 
of the dearest of privileges, — and in what 
manner the most private murmur against its 
severest inflictions is brought forward as a 
proof, that he who breathes it must be pre¬ 
pared to plunge into violence and blood. 

In the same spirit, conversations are given 
in evidence, long before the revolt, wholly 
unconnected with it, and held with ignorant 
men, who might easily misunderstand or 
misremember them; in which Mr. Smith is 
supposed to have expressed a general and 
speculative opinion, that slavery never could 
be mitigated, and that it must die a violent 
death. These opinions the Honourable 
Gentleman calls “ fanatical.” Does he think 
Dr. Johnson a fanatic, or a sectary, or a 
methodist, or an enemy of established au¬ 
thority ? But he must know from the most 
amusing of books, that Johnson, when on a 
visit to Oxford, perhaps when enjoying let¬ 
tered hospitality at the table of the Master 
of University College *, proposed as a toast, 
“ Success to the first revolt of negroes in the 
West Indies! ” He neither meant to make 
a jest of such matters, nor to express a de¬ 
liberate wish for an event so full of horror, 
but merely to express in the strongest man¬ 
ner his honest hatred of slavery. For no 
man ever more detested actual oppression ; 
though his Tory prejudices hindered him 
from seeing the value of those liberal insti¬ 
tutions which alone secure society from op¬ 
pression. This justice will be universally 
done to the aged moralist, who knew slavery 
only as a distant evil, — whose ears were 
never wounded by the cracking of the whip. 
Yet all the casual expressions of the unfor¬ 
tunate Mr. Smith, in the midst of dispute, or 
when he was fresh from the sight of suf¬ 
fering, rise up against him as legal proof of 
settled purposes and deliberate designs. 

On the legality of the trial, Sir, the im¬ 
pregnable speech of my Learned Friend f 
has left me little if any thing to say. The 
only principle on which the law of England 


* Dr. Wetherell, father of the Solicitor-General, 
f Mr. Brougham. — Ed. 


tolerates what is called “ martial law,” is 
necessity; its introduction can be justified 
only by necessity; its continuance requires 
precisely the same justification of necessity; 
and if it survives the necessity, in which 
alone it rests, for a single minute, it becomes 
instantly a mere exercise of lawless violence^ 
When foreign invasion or civil war renders 
it impossible for courts of law to sit, or to 
enforce the execution of their judgments, 
it becomes necessary to find some rude sub¬ 
stitute for them, and to employ for that 
purpose the military, which is the only re¬ 
maining force in the community./ 1 While 
the laws are silenced by the noise of arms, 
the rulers of the armed force must punish, 
as equitably as they can, those crimes which 
threaten their own safety and that of so¬ 
ciety ; but no longer ; — every moment be¬ 
yond is usurpation. As soon as the laws 
can act, every other mode of punishing 
supposed crimes is itself an enormous crime. 
If argument be not enough on this subject, 
— if, indeed, the mere statement be not the 
evidence of its own truth, I appeal to the 
highest and most venerable authority known 
to our law/"“Martial law,” says Sir Matthew 
Hale, “ Is not a law, but something indulged 
rather than allowed, as a law. The necessity 
of government, order, and discipline in an 
army, is that only which can give it counten¬ 
ance. 4 Necessitas enim, quod cogit, de- 
fendit.’ Secondly, this indulged law is only 
to extend to members of the army, or to 
those of the opposite army, and never may 
be so much indulged as to be exercised or 
executed upon others. Thirdly, the exer¬ 
cise of martial law may not be permitted in 
time of peace, when the king’s courts are” 
(or may be) 44 open.” * The illustrious Judge 
on this occasion appeals to the Petition of 
Right, which, fifty years before, had de¬ 
clared all proceedings by martial law, in 
time of peace, to be illegal. He carries the 
principle back to the cradle of English 
liberty, and quotes the famous reversal of 
the attainder of the Earl of Kent} in the 
first year of Edward III., as decisive of the 


* History of the Common Law, chap. xi. 










CASE OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 735 

principle, that nothing but the necessity 
arising from the absolute interruption of 
civil judicature by arms, can warrant the 
exercise of what is called martial law. 
Wherever, and whenever, they are so in¬ 
terrupted, and as long as the interruption 
continues, necessity justifies it. 

•^"’~No other doctrine has ever been main¬ 
tained in this country, since the solemn 
Parliamentary condemnation of the usurp¬ 
ations of Charles I., which he was himself 
compelled to sanction in the Petition of 
Right. In none of the revolutions or re¬ 
bellions which have since occurred has 
martial law been exercised, however much, 
in some of them, the necessity might seem 
to exist. Even in those most deplorable of 
all commotions, which tore Ireland in pieces, 
in the last years of the eighteenth century, — 
in the midst of ferocious revolt and cruel 
punishment, — at the very moment of legal¬ 
ising these martial jurisdictions in 1799, the 
very Irish statute, which was passed for that 
purpose, did homage to the ancient and 
fundamental principles of the law, in the 
very act of departing from them. The Irish 
statute 39 Geo. III. C.&, after reciting “ that 
martial law had been successfully exercised 
to the restoration of peace, so far as to per¬ 
mit the course of the common law partially 
to take place, but that the rebellion con¬ 
tinued to rage in considerable parts of the 
kingdom, whereby it has become necessary 
for Parliament to interpose,” goes on to 

.^enable the Lord Lieutenant “to punish 
rebels by courts-martial.” This statute is 
the most positive declaration, that where 
the common law can be exercised in some 
parts of the country, martial law cannot be 
established in others, though rebellion ac¬ 
tually prevails in those others, without an 
extraordinary interposition of the supreme 
legislative authority itself. 

— I have already quoted from Sir Matthew 
Hale his position respecting the two-fold 
operation of martial law; — as it affects the 
army of the power which exercises it, and 
as it acts against the army of the enemy. 
That great Judge, happily unused to stand¬ 
ing armies, and reasonably prejudiced 

against military jurisdiction, does not pur¬ 
sue his distinction through all its conse¬ 
quences, and assigns a ground for the whole, 
which will support only one of its parts. 
“The necessity of order and discipline in 
an army ” is, according to him, the reason 
why the law tolerates this departure from 
its most valuable rules; but this necessity 
only justifies the exercise of martial law 
over the army of our own state. One part 
of it has since been annually taken out of 
the common law, and provided for by the 
Mutiny Act, which subjects the military 
offences of soldiers only to punishment by 
military courts, even in time of peace. 
Hence we may now be said annually to 
legalise military law; which, however, dif¬ 
fers essentially from martial law, in being 
confined to offences against military disci¬ 
pline, and in not extending to any persons 
but those who are members of the army. 

Martial law exercised against enemies or 
rebels, cannot depend on the same principle; 
for it is certainly not intended to enforce or 
preserve discipline among them. It seems 
to me to be only a more regular and con¬ 
venient mode of exercising the right to kill 
in war,— a right originating in self-defence, 
and limited to those cases where such killing 
is necessary, as the means of insuring that 
end. Martial law put in force against 
rebels, can only be excused as a mode of 
more deliberately and equitably selecting 
the persons from whom quarter ought to be 
withheld, in a case where all have forfeited 
their claim to it. It is nothing more than a 
sort of better regulated decimation, founded 
upon choice, instead of chance, in order to 
provide for the safety of the conquerors, 
without the horrors of undistinguished 
slaughter: it is justifiable only where it is an 
act of mercy. Thus the matter stands by 
the law of nations. But by the law of Eng¬ 
land, it cannot be exercised except where 
the jurisdiction of courts of justice is inter¬ 
rupted by violence. / Did this necessity exist 
at Demarara on the 13th of October, 1823. 
Was it on that day impossible for the courts 
of law to try offences ? It is clear that, if 
the case be tried by the law of England, 


5 






MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


736 

and unless an affirmative answer can be 
given to these questions of fact, the Court- 
martial had no legal power to try Mr. 
Smithj/ 

Now, Sir, I must in the first place remark, 
that General Murray has himself expressly 
waived the plea of necessity, and takes merit 
to himself for having brought Mr. Smith to 
trial before a court-martial, as the most pro¬ 
bable mode of securing impartial justice, — 
a statement which would be clearly an at¬ 
tempt to obtain commendation under false 
pretences, if he had no choice, and was 
compelled by absolute necessity to recur to 
martial law : — “In bringing this man (Mr. 
Smith) to trial, under present circumstances, 
I have endeavoured to secure to him the 
advantage of the most cool and dispassionate 
consideration, by framing a court entirely of 
officers of the army, who, having no interests 
in the country, are without the bias of pub¬ 
lic opinion, which is at present so violent 
against Mr. Smith.” * This paragraph I 
conceive to be an admission, and almost a 
boast, that the trial by court-martial was a 
matter of choice, and therefore not of ne¬ 
cessity ; and I shall at present say nothing 
more on it, than earnestly to beseech the 
House to remark the evidence which it 
affords of the temper of the colonists, and 
to bear in mind the inevitable influence of 
that furious temper on the prosecutors who 
conducted the accusation, — on the witnesses 
who supported it by their testimony, — on 
the officers of the Court-martial, who could 
have no other associates or friends but 
among these prejudiced and exasperated 
colonists. With what suspicion and jealousy 
ought we not to regard such proceedings ? 
What deductions ought to be made from 
the evidence ? How little can we trust the 
fairness of the prosecutors, or the impar¬ 
tiality of the judges ? What hope of ac¬ 
quittal could the most innocent prisoner 
entertain? Such, says in substance Go¬ 
vernor Murray, was the rage of the inhabit¬ 
ants of Demerara against the unfortunate 


* General Murray (Governor of Demerara) to 
Earl Bathurst, 21st of October, 1823. 


Mr. Smith, that his only chance of impar¬ 
tial trial required him to be deprived of all 
the safeguards wliich are the birthright of 
British subjects, and to be tried by a judi¬ 
cature which the laws and feelings of his 


country alike abhor. 

But the admission of Governor Murray, 
though conclusive against him, is not ne^ 
cessary to the argument; for/myNLearned 
Friend has already demonstrated that, in 
fact, there was no necessity for a court- 
martial on the 13th of October. From the 
31st of August, it appears by General Mur¬ 
ray’s letters, that no impediment existed to 
the ordinary course of law; “ no negroes 
were in arms; no war or battle’s sound was 
heard ” through the colony. There remained, 
indeed, a few runaways in the forests be¬ 
hind ; but we know, from the best autho¬ 
rities *, that the forests were never free from 
bodies of these wretched and desperate men 
in those unhappy settlements in Guiana, — 
where, under every government, rebellion 
has as uniformly sprung from cruelty, as 
pestilence has arisen from the marshes. Be¬ 
fore the 4th of September, even the detach¬ 
ment which pursued the deserters into, the 
forest had returned into the colony. fTor 
six weeks, then, before the Court-martial 
was assembled, and for twelve weeks before 
that Court pronounced sentence of death on 
Mr. Smith, all hostility had ceased, no ne¬ 
cessity for their existence can be pretended, 
and every act which they did was an open 
and deliberate defiance of the law of 
England. 


Where, then, are we to look for any colour 
of law in these proceedings ? Do they de¬ 
rive it from the Dutch law ? I have dili¬ 
gently examined the Roman law, which is 
the foundation of that system, and the writ¬ 
ings of those most eminent jurists who have 
contributed so much to the reputation of 
Holland: — I can find in them no trace of 
any such principle as martial law. Military 
law, indeed, is clearly defined; and provi¬ 
sion is made for the punishment by military 
judges of the purely military offences of 


* See Steelman, Bolingbroke, &c. 













CASE OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 


737 


soldiers. But to any power of extending 
military jurisdiction over those who are not 
soldiers, there is not an allusion. I will not 
furnish a subject for the pleasantries of my 
Right Honourable Friend, or tempt him into 
a repetition of his former innumerable blun¬ 
ders, by naming the greatest of these jurists *; 
lest his date, his occupation, and his rank 
might be again mistaken; and the venerable 
President of the Supreme Court of Holland 
might be once more called a “ clerk pf the 
States-General.” “ Persecutio militis,” says 
that learned person, “ pertinet ad judicem 
militarem quando delictum sit militare, et 
ad judicem communem quando delictum sit 
commune.” Far from supposing it to be 
possible, that those who were not soldiers 
could ever be triable by military courts for 
crimes not military, he expressly declares 
the law and practice of the United Provinces 
to be, that even soldiers are amenable, for 
ordinary offences against society, to the 
court of Holland and Friesland, of which 
he was long the chief. The law of Holland, 
therefore, does not justify this trial by 
martial law. 

Nothing remains but some law of the 
colony itself. Where is it ? It is not al¬ 
leged or alluded to in any part of this trial. 
We have heard nothing of it this evening. 
So unwilling was I to believe that this 
Court-martial would dare to act without 
some pretence of legal authority, that I 
suspected an authority for martial law would 
be dug out of some dark corner of a Guiana 
ordinance. I knew it was neither in the law 
of England, nor in that of Holland; and I 
now believe that it does not exist even in 
the law of Demerara. The silence of those 
who are interested in producing it, is not my 
only reason for this belief. I happen to have 
seen the instructions of the States-General 
to their Governor of Demerara, in Novem¬ 
ber, 1792, — probably the last ever issued 
to such an officer by that illustrious and 
memorable assembly. They speak at large 
of councils of war, both for consultation and 


* Bynkershoek, — of whose professional rank 
Mr. Canning had professed ignorance. — Ed. 


for judicature. They authorise these coun¬ 
cils to try the military offences of soldiers ; 
and therefore, by an inference which is 
stronger than silence, authorise us to con¬ 
clude that the governor had no power to 
subject those who were not soldiers to their 
authority. 

The result, then, is, that the law of Hol¬ 
land does not allow what is called “ martial 
law” in any case ; and that the law of Eng¬ 
land does not allow it without a necessity, 
which did not exist in the case of Mr. Smith. 
If, then, martial law is not to be justified by 
the law of England, or by the law of Hol¬ 
land, or by the law of Demerara, what is 
there to hinder me from affirming, that the 
members of this pretended court had no 
more right to try Mr. Smith than any other 
fifteen men on the face of the earth, — that 
their acts were nullities, and their meeting 
a conspiracy, — that their sentence was a 
direction to commit a crime, — that, if it 
had been obeyed, it would not have been an 
execution, but a murder, — and that they, 
and all other parties engaged in it, must have 
answered for it with their lives. 

I hope, Sir, no man will, in this House, 
undervalue that part of the case which re¬ 
lates to the illegality of the trial. I should 
be sorry to hear any man represent it as an 
inferior question, whether we are to be go¬ 
verned by law or by will. Every breach of 
law, under pretence of attaining what is 
called “ substantial justice,” is a step towards 
reducing society under the authority of ar¬ 
bitrary caprice and lawless force. As in 
many other cases of evil-doing, it is not the 
immediate effect, but the example (which is 
the larger part of the consequences of every 
act), which is most mischievous. If we listen 
to any language of this sort, we shall do our 
utmost to encourage governors of colonies 
to discover some specious pretexts of present 
convenience for relieving themselves alto¬ 
gether, and as often as they wish, from the 
restraints of law. In spite of every legal 
check, colonial administrators are already 
daring enough, from the physical impedi¬ 
ments which render it nearly impossible to 
reduce their responsibility to practice. If 




3 B 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


738 


we encourage them to proclaim martial law 
without necessity, we shall take away all 
limitations from their power in this depart¬ 
ment ; for pretences of convenience can 
seldom be wanting in a state of society 
which presents any temptation to abuse of 
power. 

But I am aware, Sir, that I have under¬ 
taken to maintain the innocence of Mr. 
Smith, as well as to show the unlawfulness 
and nullity of the proceedings against him. 
I am relieved from the necessity of entering 
at large into the facts of his conduct, by 
the admirable and irresistible speech of my 
Learned Friend, who has already demon¬ 
strated the virtue and innocence of this un¬ 
fortunate Gentleman, who died the martyr 
of his zeal for the diffusion of religion, hu¬ 
manity, and civilisation, among the slaves 
of Demerara. The Honourable Gentleman 
charges him with a want of discretion. Per¬ 
haps it may be so. That useful quality, 
which Swift somewhere calls “ an alderman¬ 
like virtue,” is deservedly much in esteem 
among those who are “ wise in their gene- 
ration,” and to whom the prosperity of this 
world belongs; but it is rarely the attribute 
of heroes and of martyrs, — of those who 
voluntarily suffer for faith or freedom, — 
who perish on the scaffold in attestation of 
their principles ; — it does not animate men 
to encounter that honourable death which 
the colonists of Demerara were so eager to 
bestow on Mr. Smith. 

On the question of actual innocence, the 
Honourable Gentleman has either bewil¬ 
dered himself, or found it necessary to at¬ 
tempt to bewilder his audience, by involving 
the case in a labyrinth of words, from which 
I shall be able to extricate it by a very few 
and short remarks. The question is, not 
whether Mr. Smith was wanting in the 
highest vigilance and foresight, but whether 
he was guilty of certain crimes laid to his 
charge ? The first charge is, that he pro¬ 
moted discontent and dissatisfaction among 
the slaves, “ intending thereby to excite re¬ 
volt.” The Court-martial found him guilty 
of the fact, but not of the intention; thereby, 
in common sense and justice, acquitting him. 


The second charge is, that, on the 17th of 
August, he consulted with Quamina con¬ 
cerning the intended rebellion ; and, on the 
19th and 20th, during its progress, he aided 
and assisted it by consulting and cor¬ 
responding with Quamina, an insurgent. 
The Court-martial found him guilty of the 
acts charged on the 17th and 20th, but ac¬ 
quitted him of that charged on the 19th. 
But this charge is abandoned by the Ho¬ 
nourable Gentleman, and, as far as I can 
learn, will not be supported by any one 
likely to take a part in this debate. On the 
fourth charge, which, in substance, is, that 
Mr. Smith did not endeavour to make Qua¬ 
mina prisoner on the 20th of August, — the 
Court-martial have found him guilty. But 
I will not waste the time of the House, by 
throwing away a single word upon an accu¬ 
sation which I am persuaded no man here 
will so ill consult his own reputation as to 
vindicate. 

The third charge, therefore, is the only 
one which requires a moment’s discussion. 
It imputes to Mr. Smith, that he previously 
knew of the intended revolt, and did not 
communicate his knowledge to the proper 
authorities. It depends entirely on the same 
evidence which was produced in support of 
the second. It is an offence analogous to 
what, in our law, is denominated “ mispri¬ 
sion” of treason; and it bears the same re¬ 
lation to an intended revolt of slaves against 
their owners, which misprision in England 
bears to high treason. To support this 
charge, there should be sufficient evidence of 
such a concealment as would have amounted 
to misprision, if a revolt of slaves against 
their private masters had been high treason. 
Now, it had been positively laid down by 
all the judges of England, that “ one who is 
told only, in general, that there will be a 
rising, without persons or particulars, is not 
bound to disclose.”* Concealment of the 
avowal of an intention is not misprision, be¬ 
cause such an avowal is not an overt act of 
high treason. Misprision of treason is a 
concealment of an overt act of treason. A 


* Kelynge, p. 22. 







CASE OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 739 


consultation about the means of revolt is 
undoubtedly an overt act, because it is one 
of the ordinary and necessary means of ac¬ 
complishing the object: but it is perfectly 
otherwise with a conversation, even though 
in the course of it improper declarations of 
a general nature should be made. I need 
not quote Hale or Foster in support of posi¬ 
tions which I believe will not be contro¬ 
verted. Contenting myself with having laid 
them down, I proceed to apply them to the 
evidence on this charge. 

I think myself entitled to lay aside — 
and, indeed, in that I only follow the ex¬ 
ample of the Honourable Gentleman — the 
testimony of the coachman and the groom, 
which, if understood in one sense is in¬ 
credible, and in the other is insignificant. 
It evidently amounts to no more than a 
remark by Mr. Smith, after the insurrection 
broke out, that he had long foreseen danger. 
The concealment of such a general appre¬ 
hension, if he had concealed it, was no crime; 
for it would be indeed most inconvenient 
to magistrates and rulers, and most destruc¬ 
tive of the quiet of society, if men were 
bound to communicate to the public autho¬ 
rities every alarm that might seize the 
minds of any of them. 

But he did not conceal that general ap¬ 
prehension : on the contrary, he did much 
more than strict legal duty required. Di¬ 
vide the facts into two parts, those which 
preceded Sunday the 17th of August, and 
those which occurred then and afterwards. 
I fix on this day, because it will not be 
said, by any one whose arguments I should 
be at the trouble of answering, that there is 
any evidence of the existence of a specific 
plan of revolt previous to the 17th of 
August. What did not exist could neither 
be concealed nor disclosed. But the con¬ 
duct of Mr. Smith respecting the general 
apprehensions which he entertained before 
that day is evidence of great importance as 
to wliat would have been his probable con¬ 
duct, if any specific plan had afterwards 
been communicated to him. If he made 
every effort to disclose a general appre¬ 
hension, it is not likely that he should have 


deliberately concealed a specific plan. It is 
in that light that I desire the attention of 
the House to it. 

It is quite clear that considerable agita¬ 
tion had prevailed among the negroes from 
the arrival of Lord Bathurst’s Dispatch in 
the beginning of July. They had heard 
from seamen arrived from England, and by 
servants in the Governor’s house, and by 
the angry conversations of their masters, 
that some projects for improving their con¬ 
dition had been favourably received in this 
country. They naturally entertained san¬ 
guine and exaggerated hopes of the extent 
of the reformation. The delay in making 
the Instructions known naturally led the 
slaves to greater exaggerations of the plan, 
and gradually filled their minds with angry 
suspicions that it was concealed on account 
of the extensive benefits it was to confer. 
Liberty seemed to be offered from England, 
and pushed aside by their masters and rulers 
at Demerara. This iri’itation could not 
escape the observation of Mr. Smith, and 
instead of concealing it, he early imparted 
it to a neighbouring manager and attorney. 
How comes the Honourable Gentleman to 
have entirely omitted the evidence of . Mr. 
Stewart ? * It appears from his testimony, 
that Mr. Smith, several weeks before the 
revolt, communicated to him (Stewart) the 
manager of plantation Success, that alarm¬ 
ing rumours about the Instructions pre¬ 
vailed among the negroes. It appears that 
Mr. Smith went publicly with his friend 
Mr. Elliott, another missionary, to Mr. 
Stewart, to repeat the information at a sub¬ 
sequent period; and that, in consequence, 
Mr. Stewart, with Mr. Cort, the attorney of 
plantation Success, went on the 8th of Au¬ 
gust to Mr. Smith, who confirmed his pre¬ 
vious statements, — said that Quamina and 
other negroes had asked whether their free¬ 
dom had come out, — and mentioned that 
he had some thoughts of disabusing them, 
by telling them from the pulpit that their 
expectations of freedom were erroneous. 
Mr. Cort dissuaded him from taking so much 


* Trial, &c. p. 47. 


3 B 2 









MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


740 


upon himself. Is it not evident from this 
testimony, that Mr. Smith had the reverse 
of an intention to conceal the dangerous 
agitation on or before the 8 th of August ? 
It is certain that all evidence of his privity 
or participation before that day must be 
false. He then told all that he knew, and 
offered to do much more than he was bound 
to do. His disclosures were of a nature to 
defeat a project of revolt, or to prevent it 
from being formed ; — he enabled Cort or 
Stewart to put the Government on their 
guard. He told no particulars, because he 
knew none; but he put it into the power 
of others to discover them if they existed. 
He made these discoveries on the 8 th of 
August: what could have changed his pre¬ 
vious system of conduct in the remaining 
ten days? Nay, more, he put it out of his 
own power to change his conduct effectually: 
it no longer depended on himself whether 
what he knew should not be so perfectly 
made known to the Government as to 
render all subsequent concealment inef¬ 
fectual. He could not even know on the 
17th whether his conversations with Stewart 
and Cort had not been communicated to the 
Governor, and whether measures had not 
been taken, which had either ascertained 
that the agitation no longer generally pre¬ 
vailed, or had led to such precautions as 
could not fail to end in the destruction of 
those who should deliberately and criminally 
conceal the designs of the insurgents. The 
crime of misprision consists in a design to 
deceive, — which, after such a disclosure, it 
was impossible to harbour. If this had re¬ 
lated to the communication of a formed 
plan, it might be said, that the disclosure to 
private persons was not sufficient, and that 
he was bound to make it to the higher au¬ 
thorities. I believe Mr. Cort was a member 
of the Court of Policy. [Here Mr. Glad¬ 
stone intimated by a shake of his head that 
Mr. Cort was not.] I yield to the local 
knowledge of my Honourable Friend — if I 
may venture to call him so in our present 
belligerent relations. If Mr. Cort be not a 
member of the Court of Policy, he must have 
had access to its members: — he stated to 


Mr. Smith the reason of their delay to pro¬ 
mulgate the Instructions; and in a commu¬ 
nication which related merely to general 
agitation, Mr. Smith could not have chosen 
two persons more likely to be on the alert 
about a revolt of slaves than the manager 
and attorney of a neighbouring plantation. 
Stewart and Cort were also officers of 
militia. 

A very extraordinary part of this case 
appears in the Demerara Papers (No. II.) 
to which I have already adverted. Hamil¬ 
ton, the manager of plantation Ressouvenir, 
had, it seems, a negro mistress, from whom 
few of his secrets were hid. This lady had 
the singularly inappropriate name of Susan¬ 
nah. I am now told that she had been the 
wife of Jack, one of the leaders of the re¬ 
volt — I have no wish to penetrate into his 
domestic misfortunes ; — at all events, Jack 
kept up a constant and confidential inter¬ 
course with his former friend, even in the 
elevated station which she had attained. 
She told him (if we may believe both him 
and her) of all Hamilton’s conversations. 
By the account of Paris, it seems that Hamil¬ 
ton had instructed them to destroy the 
bridges. Susannah said that he entreated 
them to delay the revolt for two weeks, till 
he could remove his things. They told 
Hamilton not only of the intention to rise 
three weeks before, but of the particular 
time. On Monday morning Hamilton told 
her, that it was useless for him to manumit 
her and her children, as she wished, for that 
all would soon be free; and that the Go¬ 
vernor kept back the Instructions because 
he was himself a slave-owner. Paris and 
Jack agree in laying to Hamilton’s charge 
the deepest participation in their criminal 
designs. ' If this evidence was believed, 
why was not Hamilton brought to trial 
rather than Smith ? If it was disbelieved, 
as the far greater part of it must have 
been, why was it concealed from Smith 
that such wicked falsehoods had been con¬ 
trived against another man,—a circumstance 
which so deeply affects the credit of all the 
negro accomplices, who swore to save their 
own lives. If, as I am inclined to believe, 







CASE OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 741 


some communications were made through 
Susannah, how hard was the fate of Mr. 
Smith, who suffers for not promulgating 
some general notions of danger, which, from 
this instance, must have entered through 
many channels into the minds of the greater 
number of whites. But, up to the 17th of 
August, it appears that Mr. Smith did not 
content himself with bare disclosure, but 
proffered his services to allay discontent, 
and showed more solicitude than any other 
person known to us, to preserve the peace 
of the community. 

The question now presents itself, which I 
allow constitutes the vital part of this case, 
—Whether any communication was made 
to Mr. Smith on the evening of Sunday the 
17th, of which the concealment from his 
superiors was equivalent to what we call 
misprision of treason ? No man can con¬ 
scientiously vote against the motion who 
does not consider the affirmative as proved. 
I do not say that this would be of itself suf¬ 
ficient to negative the motion; I only say, 
that it is indispensably necessary. There 
would still remain behind the illegality of 
the jurisdiction, as well as the injustice of 
the punishment. And on this latter most 
important part of the case I must here 
remark, that it would not be sufficient to tell 
us, that the Roman and Dutch law ranked 
misprision as a species of treason, and made 
it punishable by death. It must be shown, 
not only that the Court were by this law en¬ 
titled to condemn Mr. Smith to death, but 
that they were also bound to pronounce such 
a sentence. For if they had any discretion, 
it will not be said that an English court- 
martial ought not to regulate the exercise of 
it by the more humane and reasonable prin¬ 
ciples of their own law, which does not treat 
misprision as a capital offence. 

. . . I am sorry to see that the Ho¬ 

nourable Agent for Demerara * has quitted 
his usual place, and has taken a very im¬ 
portant position. I feel no ill-will; but 


* Mr. William Holmes, who was also the Trea¬ 
sury “ whipper-in,” was for the moment seated next, 
and whispering to, Mr. Canning. — Ed. 


I dread the sight of him when pouring 
poison into the ears of the powerful. He is 
but too formidable in his ordinary station, 
at the head of those troops whom his magical 
wand brings into battle in such numbers as 
no eloquence can match, and no influence 

but his own can command. 

Let us now consider the evidence of what 
passed on the 17th of August. And here, 
once more, let me conjure the House to 
consider the condition of the witnesses 
who gave that evidence. They were ac¬ 
complices in the revolt, who had no chance 
of life but what acceptable testimony might 
afford. They knew the fierce, furious hatred, 
which the ruling party had vowed against 
Mr. Smith. They were surrounded by the 
skeletons of their brethren:—they could 
perhaps hear the lash resounding on the 
bloody backs of others, who were condemned 
to suffer a thousand lashes, and to work for 
life in irons under the burning sun of Guiana. 
They lived in a colony where such unex¬ 
ampled barbarities were inflicted as a miti¬ 
gated punishment, and held out as acts of 
mercy. Such were the dreadful terrors 
which acted on their minds, and under the 
mental torture of which every syllable of 
their testimony was uttered. There was 
still another deduction to be made from 
their evidence : — they spoke to no palpable 
facts ; they gave evidence only of conversa¬ 
tion. “Words,” says Mr. Justice Foster, 
“ are transient and fleeting as the wind; fre¬ 
quently the effects of a sudden transport 
easily misunderstood, and often misreported.” 
If he spoke thus of words used in the pre¬ 
sence of witnesses intelligent, enlightened, 
and accustomed to appreciate the force and 
distinctions of terms, what would he have 
said of the evidence of negro slaves, accom¬ 
plices in the crime, trembling for their lives, 
reporting conversations of which the whole 
effect might depend on the shades and gra¬ 
dations of words in a language very grossly 
known to them, — of English words, uttered 
in a few hurried moments, and in the pre¬ 
sence of no other witnesses from whom 
they could dread an exposure of their 
falsehood ? It may be safely affirmed, that 











742 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


it is difficult for imagination to conceive ad¬ 
missible evidence of lower credit, and more 
near the verge of utter rejection. 

But what, after all, is the sum of the evi¬ 
dence ? It is, that the negroes who followed 
Mr. Smith from church on Sunday the 17th, 
spoke to him of some design which they 
entertained for the next day. It is not pre¬ 
tended that time, or place, or persons were 
mentioned:—the contrary is sworn. Mr. 
Smith, who was accustomed for six weeks to 
their murmurs, and had before been success¬ 
ful in dissuading them from violence, con¬ 
tents himself with repeating the same dis- 
suasives, — believes he has again succeeded 
in persuading them to remain quiet, — and 
abstains for twenty-four hours from any new 
communication of designs altogether vague 
and undigested, which he hoped would 
evaporate, as others of the same kind had 
done, without any serious effects. The very 
utmost that he seems to have apprehended 
was, a plan for obliging, or “ driving,” as 
they called it, their managers to join in an 
application to the Governor on the subject 
of the new law, — a kind of proceeding 
which had more than once occurred, both 
under the Dutch and English governments. 
It appears from the witnesses for the prose¬ 
cution, that they had more than once gone 
to Mr. Smith before on the same subject, 
and that his answer was always the same; 
and that some of the more exasperated ne¬ 
groes were so dissatisfied with his exhorta¬ 
tions to submission, that they cried out, 
“ Mr. Smith was making them fools, — that 
he would not deny his own colour for the 
sake of black people.” Quamina appears to 
have shown at all times a more than or¬ 
dinary deference towards his pastor. He 
renewed these conversations on the evening 
of Sunday the 17th, and told Mr. Smith, 
who again exhorted them to patience, that 
two of the more violent negroes, Jack and 
Joseph, spoke of taking their liberty by 
force. I desire it to be particularly ob¬ 
served, that this intention, or even violent 
language, appears to have been attributed 
only to two, and that in such a manner as 
naturally to exclude the rest. Mr. Smith 


again repeated the advice which had hitherto 
proved efficacious. “ He told them to wait, 
and not to be so foolish. How do you mean 
that they should take it by force? You 
cannot do any thing with the white people, 
because the soldiers will be more strong than 
you ; therefore you had better wait. You 
had better go and tell the people, and 
Christians particularly, that they had better 
have nothing to do with it.” When Mr. 
Smith spoke of the resistance of the soldiers, 
Quamina, with an evident view to persuade 
Mr. Smith that nothing was intended which 
would induce the military to proceed to the 
last extremity, observed, that they would 
drive the managers to town; which, by 
means of the expedient of a general “ strike,” 
or refusal to work, appears to have been 
the project spoken of by most of the slaves. 
To this observation Mr. Smith justly an¬ 
swered, that even if they did “ drive ” the 
managers to town, they “ would not be able 
to go against the soldiers,” who would very 
properly resist such tumultuary and dan¬ 
gerous movements. Be it again observed, 
that Bristol, the chief witness for the prose¬ 
cution, clearly distinguishes this plan from 
that of Jack and Joseph, “ who intended to 
fight with the white people.” I do not un¬ 
dertake to determine whether the more de¬ 
sperate measure was at that time confined to 
these two men: it is sufficient for me that 
such was the representation made to Mr. 
Smith. Whoever fairly compares the evi¬ 
dence of Bristol with that of Seaton will, I 
think, find the general result to be such as I 
have now stated. It is true, that there are 
contradictions between them, which, in the 
case of witnesses of another caste, might be 
considered as altogether subversive of their 
credit. But I make allowance for their 
fears, — for their confusion, — for their ha¬ 
bitual inaccuracy, — for their ignorance of 
the language, — for their own incorrectness, 
if they gave evidence in English,—for that of 
the interpreters, if they employed any other 
language. In return, I expect that no fair 
opponent will rely on minute circumstances, 
— that he will also allow the benefit of all 
chances of inaccuracy to the accused,— and 







CASE OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 


743 


that he will not rely on the manner where 
a single word, mistaken or misremembered, 
might make the whole difference between 
the most earnest and the faintest dissuasive. 

I do not know what other topics Mr. 
Smith could have used. He appeals to their 
prudence: “the soldiers,” says he, “will 
overcome your vain revolt.” He appeals to 
their sense of religion : — “ as Christians 
you ought not to use violence.” What 
argument remained, if both these failed? 
What part of human nature could he have 
addressed, where neither danger could de¬ 
ter, nor duty restrain ? He spoke to their 
conscience and to their fears : — surely ad¬ 
monition could go no further. There is not 
the least appearance that these topics were 
not urged with as perfect good faith, as they 
must have been in those former instances 
where he demonstrated his sincerity by the 
communications which he made to Stewart 
and Cort. His temper of mind on this sub¬ 
ject continued, then, to be the same on the 
evening of the 17th that it had been before. 
And, if so, how absolutely incredible it is, 
that he should, on that night, and on the 
succeeding morning, advisedly, coolly, and 
malignantly, form the design of hiding a 
treasonable plot confidentially imparted to 
him by the conspirators, in order to lull the 
vigilance of the Government, and commit 
himself and his countrymen to the mercy of 
exasperated and triumphant slaves ! 

I have already stated the reasons which 
might have induced him to believe that he 
had once more succeeded in dissuading the 
negroes from violence. Was he inexcusable 
in overrating his own ascendant, — in over¬ 
estimating the docility of his converts,—in 
relying more on the efficacy of his religious 
instructions than men of more experience 
and colder temper would deem reasonable ? 
I entreat the House to consider whether this 
self-deception be improbable; for if he be¬ 
lieved that he had been successful, and that 
the plan of tumult or revolt was abandoned, 
would it not have been the basest and most 
atrocious treachery to have given such in¬ 
formation as might have exposed the de¬ 
fenceless slaves to punishments of unparal¬ 


leled cruelty, for offences which they had 
meditated, but from which he believed that 
he had reclaimed them ? Let me for a 
moment again remind the House of the 
facts which give such weight to this con¬ 
sideration. He lived in a colony where, for 
an insurrection in which no white man was 
wantonly or deliberately put to death, and 
no property was intentionally destroyed or 
even damaged, I know not how many 
negroes perished on the gibbet, and others, 
— under the insolent, atrocious, detestable 
pretext of mercy ! — suffered a thousand 
lashes, and were doomed to hard labour in 
irons for life, under the burning sun, and 
among the pestilential marshes of Guiana ? 
These dreadful cruelties, miscalled punish¬ 
ments, did indeed occur after the 17th of 
August. But he, whose “ heart had fluttered 
from the incessant cracking of the whip,” 
must have strongly felt the horrors to which 
he was exposing his unhappy flock by a 
hasty or needless disclosure of projects 
excited by the impolitic delay of their 
rulers. Every good man must have wished 
to find the information unnecessary. Would 
not Mr. Smith have been the most unworthy 
of pastors, if he had not desired that such 
a cup might pass from him? And if he 
felt these benevolent desires, — if he recoiled 
with horror from putting these poor men 
into the hands of what in Demerara is called 
justice, there was nothing in the circum¬ 
stances which might not have seemed to him 
to accord with his wishes. Even without 
the influence of warm feeling, I do not think 
that it would have been unreasonable for 
any man to believe that the negroes had 
fully agreed to wait. Nay, I am convinced 
that with Quamina Mr. Smith was success¬ 
ful. Quamina, I believe, used his influence 
to prevent the revolt; and it was not till 
after he was apprehended on Monday, on 
unjust suspicions, and was rescued, that he 
took refuge among the revolters, and was at 
last shot by the soldiery when he was a run¬ 
away in the forest, — a fact which was ac¬ 
cepted by the Court-martial as the sufficient, 
though sole, evidence of his being a ring¬ 
leader in the rebellion. 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


744 


The whole period during which it is ne¬ 
cessary to account for Mr. Smith’s not 
communicating to the Government an 
immature project, of which he knew no 
particulars, and which he might well believe 
to be abandoned, is a few hours in the 
morning of Monday; for it is proved by 
the evidence of Hamilton, that he was in¬ 
formed of the intended revolt by a Captain 
Simpson, at one o’clock of that day, in 
George-Town, the seat of government, at 
some miles distant from the scene of action. 
It was then so notorious, that Hamilton 
never dreamt of troubling the Governor 
with such needless intelligence; yet this 
was only four or five hours later than the 
time when Mr. Smith was held to be bound, 
under pain of death, to make such a com¬ 
munication ! The Governor himself, in his 
despatches, said that he had received the 
information, but did not believe it.* This 
disbelief, however, could not have been of 
long duration; for active measures were 
taken, and Mr. Stewart apprehended Qua- 
mina and his son Jack a little after three 
o’clock on Monday; which, considering the 
distance, necessarily implies that some gene¬ 
ral order of that nature had been issued by 
the Government at George-Town not long 
after noon on that day.f As all these pro¬ 
ceedings occurred before Mr. Smith received 
the note from Jack of Dochfour about half 
an hour before the revolt, I lay that fact out 
of the case, as wholly immaterial. The in¬ 
terview of Mr. Smith with Quamina, on the 
19th of August, is negatived by the finding 
of the Court-martial: — that on the 20th 
will be relied on by no man in this House, 
because there is not the slightest proof, nor, 
indeed, probability, that the conversation at 
that interview was not perfectly innocent. 
Nothing, then, called for explanation but 
the conversation of Sunday evening, and 
the silence of Monday morning, which I 
think I have satisfactorily explained, as 
fully as my present strength will allow, and 


* Demerara Papers, No. II. p. 1. 
f Ibid. p. 70. 


much more so than the speech of my Learned 
Friend left it necessary to do. 

There is one other circumstance which 
occurred on Sunday, and which I cannot 
pass over in silence:—it is the cruel per¬ 
version of the beautiful text from the Gos¬ 
pel on which Mr. Smith preached his last 
sermon. That circumstance alone evinces 
the incurable prejudice against this unfor¬ 
tunate man, which so far blinded his pro¬ 
secutors, that they actually represent him 
as choosing that most affecting lamentation 
over the fall of Jerusalem, in order to excite 
the slaves to accomplish the destruction of 
Demerara. The lamentation of one who 
loved a country was by them thought to be 
selected to stimulate those who were to de¬ 
stroy a country; — as if tragical reprehen¬ 
sions of the horrors of an assault were likely 
to be exhibited in the camp of the assailants 
the night before they were to storm a city. 
It is wonderful that these prosecutors should 
not have perceived that such a choice of a 
text would have been very natural for Mr. 
Smith, only on the supposition that he had 
been full of love and compassion and alarm 
for the European inhabitants of Demerara. 
The simple truth was, that the estate was 
about to be sold, the negroes to be scattered 
over the colony by auction, and that,—by one 
of those somewhat forced analogies, which 
may appear to me unreasonable, but which 
men of the most sublime genius as well as 
fervent piety have often applied to the in¬ 
terpretation of Scripture, — he likened their 
sad dispersion, in connexion with their past 
neglect of the means of improvement, and 
the chance of their now losing all religious 
consolation and instruction, to the punish¬ 
ment inflicted on the Jews by the conquest 
and destruction of Jerusalem. 

In what I have now addressed to the 
House, I have studiously abstained from all 
discussions of those awful questions which 
relate to the general structure of colonial 
society. I am as adverse as any one to the 
sudden emancipation of slaves, — much out 
of regard to the masters, but still more, as 
affecting a far larger portion of mankind, 
out of regard to the unhappy slaves them- 








CASE, OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 745 


* selves. Emancipation by -violence and re^ 
volt I consider as the greatest calamity that 
can visit a community, except perpetual 
slavery. I should not have so deep an ab- / 
horrence of that wretched state, if I did not 
regard it as unfitting slaves for the safe ex¬ 
ercise of the common rights of mankind. I 
should be grossly inconsistent with myself, 
if, believing this corrupt and degrading 
power of slavery over the mind to be the 
worst of all its evils, I were not very fearful 
of changes which would set free those beings, 
whom a cruel yoke had transformed into 
wild beasts, only that they might tear and 
devour each other. I acknowledge that the 
pacific emancipation of great multitudes 
thus wretchedly circumstanced is a problem 
so arduous as to perplex and almost silence 
the reason of man. Time is undoubtedly 
necessary ; and I shall never object to time 
if it be asked in good faith. If I be con¬ 
vinced of the sincerity of the reformer, I 
will not object to the reformation merely on 
account of the time which it requires. But 
I have a right to be jealous of every attempt 
which, under pretence of asking time for 
reformation, may only aim at evading urgent 
demands, and indefinitely procrastinating the 
deliverance of men from bondage. 

And here, Sir, I should naturally close; 
but I must be permitted to relate the sub¬ 
sequent treatment of Mr. Smith, because it 
reflects back the strongest light on the in¬ 
tentions and dispositions of those who pro¬ 
secuted him, and of those who ratified the 
sentence of death. They who can cruelly 
treat the condemned, are not in general 
scrupulous about convicting the innocent. 
I have seen the widow of this unhappy suf¬ 
ferer, — a pious and amiable woman, worthy 
to be the helpmate of her martyred husband, 
distinguished by a calm and clear under¬ 
standing, and, as far as I could discover, of 
great accuracy, anxious rather to understate 
facts, and to counteract every lurking dis¬ 
position to exaggerate, of which her judg¬ 
ment and humility might lead her to suspect 
herself. She told me her story with temper 
and simplicity; and, though I ventured 
more near to cross-examination in my in¬ 


quiries than delicacy would, perhaps, in any 
less important case have warranted, I saw 
not the least reason to distrust the exactness, 
any more than the honesty, of her narrative. 
Within a few days of his apprehension, Mr. 
Smith and his wife were closely confined in 
two small rooms at the top of a building, 
with only the outward roof between them 
and the sun, when the thermometer in the 
shade at their residence in the country stood 
at an average of 83 degrees of Fahrenheit. 
There they were confined from August to 
October, with two sentries at the door, 
which was kept open day and night. These 
sentries, who were relieved every two hours, 
had orders at every relief to call on the pri¬ 
soner, to ascertain by his answer that he had 
not escaped. The generality, of course, 
executed their orders: “ a few, more 

humane,” said Mrs. Smith, “ contented them¬ 
selves during the night with quietly looking 
into the bed.” Thus was he, under a mortal 
disease, and his wife, with all the delicacy of 
her sex, confined for two months, without 
seeing a human face except those of the sen¬ 
tries, and of the absolutely necessary attend¬ 
ants : — no physician, no friends to console, 
no legal adviser to guide the prisoner to the 
means of proving his innocence, no mitiga¬ 
tion, no solace! The first human face which 
she saw, was that of the man who came to 
bear tidings of accusation, and trial, and 
death to her husband. I asked her, “ whe¬ 
ther it was possible that the Governor knew 
that they were in this state of desolation ? ” 
She answered, “ that she did not know, for 
nobody came to inquire after them ! ” He 
was afterwards removed to apartments on 
the ground floor, the damp of which seems 
to have hastened his fate. Mrs. Smith was 
set at large, but obliged to ask a daily per¬ 
mission to see her husband for a limited 
time, and if I remember right, before wit¬ 
nesses ! After the packet had sailed, and 
when there was no longer cause to dread 
their communication with England, she was 
permitted to have unrestricted access to 
him, as long as his intercourse with earthly 
things endured. At length he was merci- 
fully released from his woes. The funeral 







746 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

was ordered to take place at two o’clock in 
the morning, that no sorrowing negroes 
might follow the good man’s corpse. The 
widow desired to accompany the remains of 
her husband to the grave : — even this sad 
luxury was prohibited. The officer declared 
that his instructions were peremptory : Mrs. 
Smith bowed with the silent submission of 
a broken heart. Mrs. Elliot, her friend and 
companion, not so borne down by sorrow, 
remonstrated. “Is it possible,” she said, 

“ that General Murray can have forbidden a 
poor widow from following the coffin of her 
husband.” The officer again answered that 
his orders were peremptory. “ At all 
events,” said Mrs. Elliot, “ he cannot hinder 
us from meeting the coffin at the grave.” 
Two negroes bore the coffin, with a single 
lantern going before; and at four o’clock in 
the morning, the two women met it in silent 
anguish at the grave, and poured over the 
remains of the persecuted man that tribute 
which nature pays to the memory of those 
whom we love. Two negro workmen, a 
carpenter and a bricklayer, — who had been 
members of his congregation, — were desi¬ 
rous of being permitted to protect and dis¬ 
tinguish the spot where their benefactor 
reposed: — 

“ That ev’n his bones from insult to protect, 

Some frail memorial, still erected nigh, 

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture 
deckt, 

Might claim the passing tribute of a sigh.” * 

They began to rail in and to brick over the 
grave: but as soon as this intelligence 
reached the First Fiscal, his Honour was 
pleased to forbid the work; he ordered the 
bricks to be taken up, the railing to be torn 
down, and the whole frail memorial of 
gratitude and piety to be destroyed ! 

“English vengeance wars not with the 
dead:” — it is not so in Guiana. As they 
began, so they concluded; and at least it 
must be owned that they were consistent in 
their treatment of the living and of the 
dead. They did not stop here: a few days 

after the death of Mr. Smith, they passed a 
vote of thanks to Mr. President Wray, for 
his services during the insurrection, which, 

I fear, consisted entirely in his judicial acts 
as a member of the Court-martial. It is" 
the single instance, I believe, in the history 
of the world, where a popular meeting 
thanked a judge for his share in a trial, 
which closed with a sentence of death 1 I\ 
must add, with sincere regret, that Mr. 
Wray, in an unadvised moment, accepted 
these tainted thanks, and expressed his gra¬ 
titude for them. Shortly after they did 
their utmost to make him repent, and be 
ashamed of his rashness. I hold in my hand 
a Demerara newspaper, containing an ac¬ 
count of a meeting, which must have been 
held with the knowledge of the Governor, 
and among whom I see nine names, which 
from the prefix “ Honourable ” belong, I 
presume, to persons who were members 
either of the Court of Justice or of the Court 
of Policy. It was an assembly which must 
be taken to represent the colony. Their 
first proceeding was a Declaration of 
Independence : — they resolved, that the 
King and Parliament of Great Britain had 
no right to change their laws without the 
consent of their Court of Policy. They 
founded this pretension, — which would be 
so extravagant and insolent, if it were not 
so ridiculous, — on the first article of the 
Capitulation now lying before me, bearing 
date on the 19th of September, 1803, by 
which it was stipulated that no new esta¬ 
blishments should be introduced without the 
consent of the Court of Policy, — as if a 
military commander had any power to per¬ 
petuate the civil constitution of a conquered 
country, and as if the subsequent treaty had 
not ceded Demerara in full sovereignty to 
his Majesty. I should have disdained to 
notice such a declaration if it were not for 
what followed. This meeting took place 
eighteen days after the death of Mr. Smith. 
It might be hoped, that, if their hearts were 
not touched by his fate, at least their hatred 
might have been buried in his grave; but 
they showed how little chance of justice he 
had when living within the sphere of their 

* Gray’s Elegy. — Ed. 







ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN STATES. 747 


influence, by their rancorous persecution of 
his memory after death. Eighteen days 
after he had expired in a dungeon, they 
passed a resolution of strong condemnation 
against two names not often joined, — the 
London Missionary Society and Lord Ba¬ 
thurst;— the Society, because they peti¬ 
tioned for mercy (for that is a crime in their 
eyes), — Lord Bathurst, because he advised 
His Majesty to dispense it to Mr. Smith. 
With an ignorance suitable to their other 
qualities, they consider the exercise of mercy 
as a violation of justice. They are not con¬ 


tent with persecuting their victim to death ; 
— they arraign nature, which released him, 
and justice, in the form of mercy, which 
would have delivered him out of their hands. 
Not satisfied with his life, they are incensed 
at not being able to brand his memory,— 
to put an ignominious end to his miseries, 
and to hang up his skeleton on a gibbet, 
which, as often as it waved in the winds, 
should warn every future missionary to fly 
from such a shore, and not dare to enter 
that colony to preach the doctrines of peace, 
of justice, and of mercy! 


SPEECH 

ON PRESENTING A PETITION FROM THE MERCHANTS OF LONDON 

FOR THE RECOGNITION OF THE INDEPENDENT STATES 

ESTABLISHED IN THE COUNTRIES OF AMERICA FORMERLY 
SUBJECT TO SPAIN. 

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, ON THE 15TH OF JUNE, 1824. 


“ Scit 4 

Unde petat Romam, libertas ultima mundi 

Quo steterit ferienda loco.” — Pharsalia, lib. vii. 579. 

“ As for the wars anciently made on behalf of a parity or tacit conformity of estate, — to set up or pull 
down democracies and oligarchies, — I do not see how they may be well justified.”— Bacon, Essay on 
ike True Greatness of Kingdoms. 


Mr. Speaker, 

I hold in my hand a Petition from the 
Merchants of the City of London who are 
engaged in trade with the countries of Ame¬ 
rica formerly subject to the crown of Spain, 
praying that the House would adopt such 
measures as to them may seem meet to 
induce His Majesty’s Government to recog¬ 
nise the independence of the states in those 
countries which have, in fact, established 
independent governments. 


In presenting this Petition, I think it right 
to give the House such information as I 
possess relating to the number and charac¬ 
ter of the Petitioners, that it may be seen 
how far they are what they profess to be, — 
what are their means of knowledge, — what 
are likely to be the motives of their appli¬ 
cation,—what faith is due to their testimony, 
and what weight ought to be allowed to their 
judgment. Their number is one hundred 
and seventeen. Each of them is a member 










MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


748 


of a considerable commercial bouse interested 
in the trade to America: the Petition, there¬ 
fore, conveys the sentiments of three or four 
hundred merchants. The signatures were 
collected in two days, without a public meet¬ 
ing, or even an advertisement. It was con¬ 
fined to the American merchants, but the 
Petitioners have no reason to believe that 
any merchant in London would have declined 
to put his name to it. I am but imperfectly 
qualified to estimate the importance and 
station of the Petitioners. Judging from 
common information, I should consider many 
of them as in the first rank of the mercantile 
community. I see among them the firm of 
Baring and Company, which, without dis¬ 
paragement to any others, may be placed at 
the head of the commercial establishments 
of the world. I see also the firms of Herring, 
Powles, and Company; of Richardson and 
Company; Goldsmid and Company; Monte- 
fiore and Company ; of Mr. Benjamin Shaw, 
who, as Chairman of Lloyd’s Coffee-house, 
represents the most numerous and diversified 
interests of traffic; together with many others 
not equally known to me, but whom, if I 
did know, I have no doubt that I might with 
truth describe as persons of the highest mer¬ 
cantile respectability. I perceive among 
them the name of Ricardo, which I shall 
ever honour, and which I cannot now pro¬ 
nounce without emotion.* In a word, the 
Petitioners are the City of London. They 
contain individuals of all political parties; 
they are deeply interested in the subject, — 
perfectly conversant with all its commercial 
bearings; and they could not fill the high 
place where they stand, if they were not as 
much distinguished by intelligence and 
probity, as by those inferior advantages of 
wealth which with them are not fortunate 
accidents, but proofs of personal worth and 
professional merit. 

If, Sir, it had been my intention to enter 
fully on this subject, and especially to dis¬ 
cuss it adversely to the King’s Government, 
I might have chosen a different form of pre¬ 


* Mr. Ricardo had died on the 11th of September 
preceding. — Ed. 


senting it to the House. But though I am 
and ever shall be a member of a party asso¬ 
ciated, as I conceive, for preserving the 
liberties of the kingdom, I present this Pe¬ 
tition in the spirit of those by whom it is 
subscribed, in the hope of relieving that 
anxious desire which pervades the com¬ 
mercial world, — and which is also shared 
by the people of England,—that the present 
session may not close without some dis¬ 
cussion or some explanation on this im¬ 
portant subject, as far as that explanation 
can be given without inconvenience to the 
public service. For such a purpose, the 
presentation of a petition affords a con¬ 
venient opportunity, both because it implies 
the absence of any intention to blame the 
past measures of Government as foreign 
from the wishes of the Petitioners, and be¬ 
cause it does not naturally require to be 
followed by any motion which might be re¬ 
presented as an invasion of the prerogative 
of the Crown, or as a restraint on the dis¬ 
cretion of its constitutional advisers. 

At the same time I must add, that in 
whatever form or at whatever period of the 
session I had brought this subject forward, 
I do not think that I should have felt myself 
called upon to discuss it in a tone very dif¬ 
ferent from that which the nature of the 
present occasion appears to me to require. 
On a question of policy, where various 
opinions may be formed about the past, and 
where the only important part is necessarily 
prospective, I should naturally have wished 
to speak in a deliberative temper. However 
much I might lament the delays which had 
occurred in the recognition of the American 
States, I could hardly have gone further 
than strongly to urge that the time was now 
at least come for more decisive measures. 

With respect, indeed, to the State Papers 
laid before us, I see nothing in them to blame 
or to regret, unless it be that excess of ten¬ 
derness and forbearance towards the feelings 
and pretensions of European Spain which 
the Despatches themselves acknowledge. In 
all other respects I can only describe them 
as containing a body of liberal maxims of 
policy and just principles of public law, ex- 








ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN STATES. 749 


pressed with a precision, a circumspection, 
and a dignity which will always render them 
models and master-pieces of diplomatic com¬ 
position.* Far from assailing these valuable 
documents, it is my object to uphold their 
doctrines, to reason from their principles, 
and to contend for nothing more than that 
the future policy of England on this subject 
may be governed by them. On them I rest: 
from them seems to me to flow every con¬ 
sequence respecting the future, which I think 
most desirable. I should naturally have had 
no other task than that of quoting them, of 
showing the stage to which they had con¬ 
ducted the question, of unfolding their im¬ 
port where they are too short for the 
generality of readers, and of enforcing their 
application to all that yet remains undone. 
But something more is made necessary by 
the confusion and misconception which pre¬ 
vail on one part of this subject. I have 
observed with astonishment, that persons 
otherwise well informed should here betray 
a forgetfulness of the most celebrated events 
in history, and an unacquaintance with the 
plainest principles of international law, which 
I should not have thought possible if I had 
not known it to be real. I am therefore 
obliged to justify these State Papers before 
I appeal to them. I must go back for a 
moment to those elementary principles which 
are so grossly misunderstood. 

And first, Sir, with respect to the term 
“ recognition,” the introduction of which 
into these discussions has proved the prin¬ 
cipal occasion of darkness and error. It is 
a term which is used in two senses so dif¬ 
ferent from eacTi other as to have nothing 
very important in common. The first, which 
is the true and legitimate sense of the word 
“ recognition,” as a technical term of inter¬ 
national law, is that in which it denotes the 
explicit acknowledgment of the independence 
of a country by a state which formerly ex¬ 


* They were among the first papers issued from 
the Foreign Office after the accession to office of 
Mr. Canning, and represented the spirit of his — as 
distinguished from the preceding Castlereagh po¬ 
licy. — Ed. 


ercised sovereignty over it. Spain has been 
doomed to exhibit more examples of this 
species of recognition than any other Eu¬ 
ropean state; of which the most memorable 
cases are her acknowledgment of the inde¬ 
pendence of Portugal and Holland. This 
country also paid the penalty of evil coun¬ 
cils in that hour of folly and infatuation 
which led to a hostile separation between 
the American Colonies and their mother 
country. Such recognitions are renuncia¬ 
tions of sovereignty, — surrenders of the 
power or of the claim to govern. 

But we, who are as foreign to the Spanish 
states in America as we are to Spain herself, 
— who never had any more authority over 
them than over her, — have in this case no 
claims to renounce, no power to abdicate, 
no sovereignty to resign, no legal rights to 
confer. What we have to do is therefore 
not recognition in its first and most strictly 
proper sense. It is not by formal stipulations 
or solemn declarations that we are to recog¬ 
nise the American states, but by measures 
of practical policy, which imply that we ac¬ 
knowledge their independence. Our recog¬ 
nition is virtual. The most conspicuous part 
of such a recognition, is the act of sending 
and receiving diplomatic agents. It implies 
no guarantee, no alliance, no aid, no appro¬ 
bation of the successful revolt, — no in¬ 
timation of an opinion concerning the justice 
or injustice of the means by which it has 
been accomplished. These are matters be¬ 
yond our jurisdiction. It would be an 
usurpation in us to sit in judgment upon 
them. As a state, we can neither condemn 
nor justify revolutions which do not affect 
our safety, and are not amenable to our laws. 
We deal with the authorities of new states 
on the same principles and for the same ob¬ 
ject as with those of old. We consider them 
as governments actually exercising authority 
over the people of a country, with whom we 
are called upon to maintain a regular inter¬ 
course by diplomatic agents for the interests 
of Great Britain, and for the security of 
British subjects. Antiquity affords a pre¬ 
sumption of stability, which, like all other 
presumptions, may and does fail in parti- 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


750 

cular instances; but in itself it is nothing, 
and when it ceases to indicate stability, it 
ought to be regarded by a foreign country 
as of no account. The tacit recognition of 
a new state, with which alone I am now con¬ 
cerned, not being a judgment for the new 
government, or against the old, is not a de¬ 
viation from perfect neutrality, or a cause of 
just offence to the dispossessed ruler.* When 


* These doctrines are so indisputable, that they 
are not controverted even by the jurists of the 
Holy Alliance, whose writings in every other re¬ 
spect bear the most ignominious marks of the ser¬ 
vitude of the human understanding under the 
empire of that confederacy. Martens, who in the 
last edition of his Summary of International Law 
has sacrificed even the principle of national inde¬ 
pendence (liv. iii. c. ii. s. 74.), without which no 
such law could be conceived, yet speaks as follows 
on recognitions: — Quant it la simple reconnais¬ 
sance, il semble qu’une nation etrangere, n’etant 
pas obligee a juger de la legitimite, pent toutes les 
fois qu’elle est douteuse se permettre de s’attacher 
au seul fait de la possession, et traiter comme in¬ 
dependant de son ancien gouvernement l’etat ou 
la province qui jouit dans le fait de l’independance, 
sans blesser par lit les devoirs d’une rigoureuse 
neutralite'.” Precis du Droit des Gens, liv. iii. 
c. ii. s. 80. Gottingen, 1821. Yet a comparison of 
the above sentence with the parallel passage of the 
same book in the edition of 1789 is a mortifying 
specimen of the decline of liberty of opinion in 
Europe. Even Kluber, the publisher of the pro¬ 
ceedings of the Congress of Vienna, assents to the 
same doctrine, though he insidiously contrives the 
means of evading it by the insertion of one or two 
ambiguous words: — “La souverainete est acquise 
par un etat, ou lors de sa fondation ou bien lors- 
qu’il se degage legitimement de la dependance 
dans laquelle il se trouvait. Pour etre valide, elle 
n’a pas besoin d’etre reconnue ou garantie par une 
puissance quelconque: pourvu que la possession ne 
soit pa8 vicieuse” Droit des Gens, part i. c. i. s. 23. 
Mr. Kluber would find it difficult to answer the 
question, “ Who is to judge whether the acquisi¬ 
tion of independence be legitimate, or its possession 
vicious?” And it is evident that the latter quali¬ 
fication is utterly unmeaning; for if there be an 
original fault, which vitiates the possession of in¬ 
dependence, it cannot be removed by foreign re¬ 
cognition, which, according to this writer himself, 
is needless where the independence is lawful, and 
must therefore be useless in those cases where he 
insinuates rather than asserts that foreign states 
are bound or entitled to treat it as unlawful. 


Great Britain recognised the United States, 
it was a concession by the recognising Power, 
the object of which was the advantage and 
security of the government recognised. But 
when Great Britain (I hope very soon) re¬ 
cognises the states of- Spanish America, it 
will not be as a concession to them, for they 
need no such recognition; but it will be for 
her own sake, — to promote her own interest, 
— to protect the trade and navigation of her 
subjects, — to acquire the best means of cul¬ 
tivating friendly relations with important 
countries, and of composing by immediate 
negotiation those differences which might 
otherwise terminate in war. Are these new 
doctrines ? — quite the contrary. They are 
founded on the ancient practice of Europe. 
They have been acted upon for more than 
two centuries by England as well as other 
nations. 

I have already generally alluded, Sir, to 
the memorable and glorious revolt by which 
the United Provinces of the Netherlands 
threw off the yoke of Spain. Nearly four¬ 
score years passed from the beginning of 
that just insurrection to the time when a 
recognition of independence was at last ex¬ 
torted from Castilian pride and obstinacy. 
The people of the Netherlands first took up 
arms to obtain the redress of intolerable 
grievances; and for many years they for¬ 
bore from proceeding to the last extremity 
against their tyrannical king. * It was not 
till Philip had formally proscribed the Prince 


* The following are the words of their illustrious 
historian : — “ Post longam dubitationem, ab ordi- 
nibus Belgarum Pliilippo, ob violatas leges, impe- 
rium abrogatum est; lataque in ilium sententia 
cum quo, si verum fatemur, novem jam per annos 
bellatum erat; sed tunc primum desitum nomen 
ejus et insignia usurpari, mutataque verba solen- 
nis jurisjurandi, ut qui princeps hactenus erat: 
hostis vocaretur. Hoc consilium vicinas apud 
gentes necessitate et tot irritis ante precibus excusa- 
tum, baud desiere Hispani ut scelus insectari, 
parum memores, pulsum a majoribus suis regno 
invisa) crudelitatis regem, eique prselatam stirpem 
non ex legibus genitam; ut jam taceantur vetera 
apud Francos, minus vetera apud Anglos, recen- 
tiora apud Danos et Sueonas dejectorum regum 
exempla.” Grotii Annales, lib. iii. 








ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN STATES. 751 


of Orange, — the purest and most perfect 
model of a patriotic hero, — putting a price 
on his head, and promising not only pardon 
for every crime, but the honours of nobility 
to any one who should assassinate him*, 
that the States-General declared the King 
of Spain to have forfeited, by a* long course 
of merciless tyranny, his rights of sovereignty 
over the Netherlands, f Several assassins 
attempted the life of the good and great 
Prince of Orange : one wounded him dan¬ 
gerously ; another consummated the murder, 
— a zealot of what was then, as it is now, 
called “ legitimacy.” He suffered the pun¬ 
ishment due to his crime; but the King of 
Spain bestowed on his family the infamous 
nobility which had been earned by the 
assassin, — an example which has also dis¬ 
graced our age. Before and after that mur¬ 
der, the greatest vicissitudes of fortune had 
attended the arms of those who fought for 
the liberties of their country. Their chiefs 
were driven into exile ; their armies were 
dispersed. The greatest and most opulent 
of the Belgic Provinces, misled by priests, 
had made their peace with the tyrant. The 
greatest captains of the age commanded 
against them. The Duke of Alva employed 
his valour and experience to quell the re¬ 
volts which had been produced by his 
cruelty. The genius of the Prince of Parma 
long threatened the infant liberty of Hol¬ 
land. Spinola balanced the consummate 
ability of Prince Maurice, and kept up an 
equal contest, till Gustavus Adolphus res¬ 
cued Europe from the Holy Allies of that 
age. The insurgents had seen with dread 
the armament' called “ Invincible,” which 
was designed, by the conquest of England, 
to destroy the last hopes of the Netherlands. 
Their independence appeared more than 
once to be annihilated; it was often en¬ 
dangered ; it was to the last fiercely con¬ 
tested. The fortune *of war was as often 
adverse as favourable to their arms. 

It was not till the 30th of January, 1648 j, 


* Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, vol. v. p. 368. 
f Ibid. p. 413. t Ibid - vo1 - vi - P- 429 * 


nearly eighty years after the revolt, nearly 
seventy after the declaration of independ¬ 
ence, that the Crown of Spain, by the Treaty 
of Munster, recognised the Republic of the 
United Provinces, and renounced all pre¬ 
tensions to sovereignty over their territory. 
What, during that long period, was the 
policy of the European states ? Did they 
wait for eighty years, till the obstinate punc¬ 
tilio or lazy pedantry of the Escurial was 
subdued ? Did they forego all the advan¬ 
tages of friendly intercourse with a powerful 
and flourishing republic ? Did they with¬ 
hold from that republic the ordinary courtesy 
of keeping up a regular and open corre¬ 
spondence with her through avowed and 
honourable ministers ? Did they refuse to 
their own subjects that protection for their 
lives and properties, which such a corre¬ 
spondence alone could afford ? All this they 
ought to have done, according to the prin¬ 
ciples of those who would resist the prayer 
of the Petition in my hand. But nothing of 
this was then done or dreamt o£ Every 
state in Europe, except the German branch 
of the House of Austria, sent ministers to 
the Hague, and received those of the States- 
General. Their friendship was prized, — 
their alliance courted; and defensive treaties 
were formed with them by Powers at peace 
with Spain, from the heroic Gustavus Adol¬ 
phus to the barbarians of Persia and Mus¬ 
covy. I say nothing of Elizabeth herself, 
— proscribed as she was as an usurper, — 
the stay of Holland, and the leader of the 
liberal party throughout Europe. But no 
one can question the authority on this point 
of her successor, — the great professor of 
legitimacy, — the founder of that doctrine 
of the divine right of kings, which led his 
family to destruction. As king of Scotland, 
in 1594, fifty-fo ur years before the recog¬ 
nition by Spain, James recognised the States- 
General as the successors of the Houses of 
Austria and Burgundy, by stipulating with 
them the renewal of a treaty concluded 
between his mother Queen Mary and the 
Emperor Charles V.* In 1604, when he 


* Dumont, vol. v. p. 507. 









752 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


made peace with Spain, eager as he was by 
that transaction to be admitted into the fra¬ 
ternity of legitimate kings, he was so far 
curbed by the counsellors of Elizabeth, that 
he adhered to his own and to her recognition 
of the independence of Holland ; the Court 
of Madrid virtually acknowledging, by seve¬ 
ral articles of the treaty*, that such per¬ 
severance in the recognition was no breach 
of neutrality, and no obstacle to friendship 
with Spain. At the very moment of the 
negotiation, Winwood was despatched with 
new instructions as minister to the States- 
General. It is needless to add that Eng¬ 
land, at peace with Spain, continued to treat 
Holland as an independent state for the 
forty-four years which passed from that 
treaty to the recognition of Munster. 

The policy of England towards Portugal, 
though in itself far less memorable, is still 
more strikingly pertinent to the purpose of 
this argument. On the 1st of December 
1640, the people of Portugal rose in arms 
against the tyranny of Spain, under which 
they had groaned about sixty years. They 
seated the Duke of Braganza on the throne. 
In January 1641, the Cortes of the kingdom 
were assembled to legalise his authority, 
though seldom convoked by his successors 
after their power was consolidated. Did 
England then wait the pleasure of Spain ? 
Did she desist from connexion with Portu¬ 
gal, till it appeared from long experience 
that the attempts of Spain to recover that 
country must be unavailing ? Did she even 
require that the Braganza Government 
should stand the test of time before she 
recognised its independent authority. No : 
within a year of the proclamation of the 
Duke of Braganza by the Cortes, a treaty 
of peace and alliance was signed at Windsor 
between Charles I. and John IV., which not 
only treats with the latter as an independent 
sovereign, but expressly speaks of the King 
of Castile as a dispossessed ruler; and alleges 


* See particularly Art. xii. and xiv. in Itymer, 
vol. xvi. The extreme anxiety of the English to 
adhere to their connexion with Holland, appears 
from the Instructions and Despatches in Winwood. 


on the part of the King of England, that he 
was moved to conclude this treaty “ by his 
solicitude to preserve the tranquillity of his 
kingdoms , and to secure the liberty of trade 
of his beloved subjects .” * The contest was 
carried on: the Spaniards obtained vic¬ 
tories ; they excited conspiracies ; they cre¬ 
ated divisions. The palace of the King of 
Portugal was the scene of domestic discord, 
court intrigue, and meditated usurpation. 
There is no trace of any complaint or re¬ 
monstrance, or even murmur, against the 
early recognition by England, though it was 
not till twenty-six years afterwards that 
Spain herself acknowledged the independ¬ 
ence of Portugal, and (what is remarkable) 
made that acknowledgment in a treaty con¬ 
cluded under the mediation of England.^ 
'"To these examples let me add an observa¬ 
tion upon a part of the practice of nations, 
strongly illustrative of the principles which 
ought to decide this question. All the 
Powers of Europe treated England, under 
the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, as 
retaining her rights of sovereignty. They 
recognised these governments as much as 
they had recognised the Monarchy. The 
friends of Charles II. did not complain of 
this policy. That monarch, when restored, 
did not disallow the treaties of foreign 
Powers with the Republic or with Crom¬ 
well. Why? Because these Powers were 
obliged, for the interest of their own sub¬ 
jects, to negotiate with the government 
which, whatever might be its character, was 
actually obeyed by the British nation. They 
pronounced no opinion on the legitimacy of 
that government,—no judgment unfavour¬ 
able to the claims of the exiled prince; they 
consulted only the security of the commerce 
and intercourse of their own subjects with 
the British Islands. 

It was quite otherwise with the recog¬ 
nition by Louis XIV. of the son of James II., 
when his father died, as King of Great 
Britain. As that prince was not acknow- 


* Dumont, vol. vi. p. 238. 
f Treaty of Lisbon, February 23rd, 1G88. Du¬ 
mont, vol. vii. p. 70. 








ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN STATES. 753 


ledged and obeyed in England, no interest 


found peace, and in spite of professions of 


of I ranee required that Louis should main¬ 
tain an intercourse, or take any notice of 
his pretensions. That recognition was there¬ 
fore justly resented by England as a wanton 
insult, — as a direct interference in her in¬ 
ternal affairs,—as an assumption of autho¬ 
rity to pronounce against the lawfulness of 
her government.* 

I am aware, Sir, that our complaints of 
the interference of France in the American 
war may be quoted against my argument. 
Those who glance over the surface of history 
may see some likeness between that case 
and the present: but the resemblance is 
merely superficial; it disappears on the 
slightest examination. It was not of the 
establishment of diplomatic relations with 
America by France in 1778, that Great 
Britain complained. We now know from 
the last edition of the Memoirs of the Mar¬ 
quis de Bouille, that from the first appear¬ 
ance of discontent in 1765, the Due de 
Choiseul employed secret agents to excite 
commotion in North America. That gallant 
and accomplished officer himself was no 
stranger to these intrigues after the year 
1768, when he became governor of Guada- 
loupe.j" It is well known that the same 
clandestine and treacherous machinations 
were continued to the last, in a time of pro- 

* “Le Comte de Manchester, ambassadeur 
d’Angleterre, ne parut plus a Versailles aprfcs la 
reconnaissance du Prince de Galles, et partit, sans 
prendre conge, quelques jours aprfes l’arrivee du 
Roi h Fontainebleau. Le Roi Guillaume re^ut en 
sa maison de Loo en Hollande la nouvelle de la 
mort du Roi Jacques et de cette reconnaissance. 
II etait alors a table avec quelques autres seigneurs. 
II ne profera pas une seule parole outre la nouvelle; 
mais il rougit, enfon^a son chapeau, et ne put con- 
tenir son visage. II envoya ordre k Londres d’en 
chasser sur le champ Poussin, et de lui faire re¬ 
passer la mer aussi-tot aprfes. II faisait les affaires 
du Roi en l’absence d’un ambassadeur et d’un en- 
voyd. Cet eclat fut suivi de pres de la signature 
de la Grande Alliance defensive et offensive contre 
la France et l’Espagne, entre l’Empereur et l’Em- 
pire, l’Angleterre et la Hollande.” Memoires de 
St. Simon, vol. iii. p. 228. 

f Memoires de Bouille, p. 15. Choiseul, Rela¬ 
tion du Voyage de Louis XVI. k Varennes, p. 14. 


amity so repeated and so solemn, that the 
breach of them produced a more than poli¬ 
tical resentment in the mind of King 
George III. against the House of Bourbon. 
We also learn, from no contemptible autho¬ 
rity, that at the very time that the prelimi¬ 
naries of peace were signed at Fontainebleau 
in 1762 by the Due de Choiseul and the 
Duke of Bedford, the former of these mi¬ 
nisters concluded a secret treaty with Spain, 
by which it was stipulated, that in eight 
years both Powers should attack England; 
— a design of which the removal of Choiseul 
defeated the execution.* The recognition 
of the United States was no more than the 
consummation and avowal of these dark 
designs. So conscious was the Court of 
Versailles of their own perfidy, that they 
expected war to be the immediate conse¬ 
quence of it. On the same day with the 
treaty of commerce they signed another 
secret treaty f, by which it was stipulated, 
that in case of hostilities between France 
and England, America should make common 
cause with the former. The division of the 
territories to be conquered was even pro¬ 
vided for. Negligent and supine as were 
the English Ministers, they can hardly be 
supposed to have been altogether ignorant 
of these secret treaties. The cause of war, 
then, was not a mere recognition after a 
long warning to the mother country,—after 
a more than generous forbearance shown to 
her dignity and claims (as it would be now 
in the case with Spanish America): it was 
that France, in defiance of the most solemn 
assurances of her Ministers, and also as it 
is said of her Sovereign, at length openly 
avowed those machinations to destroy the 
union between the British nation and the 
people of America,—Englishmen by blood, 
and freemen by principle, dear to us by 
both ties, but most dear by the last,—which 
they had carried on during so many years 
of peace and pretended friendship. 


* Ferrand, Trois Demembremens de la Pologne, 
vol. i. p. 76. 

f Martens, Recueil de Traites, vol. i. p. 701. 


3 C 










754 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


I now proceed to review the progress 
which we have already made towards the 
recognition of the states of Spanish America, 
as it appears in the Papers before the House. 
I will not dwell on the statute 3 Geo. IV. 
c. 43., which provides, “ that the merchandise 
of countries in America or the West Indies, 
being or having been a part of the dominions 
of the King of Spain , may be imported into 
Great Britain in ships which are the build 
of these countries; ” though that clause must 
be allowed to be an acknowledgment of in¬ 
dependence, unless it could be said that the 
provinces separated from Spain were either 
countries without inhabitants, or inhabited 
by men without a government. Neither 
will I say any thing of the declaration made 
to Spain, that consuls must be immediately 
sent to South America; though I shall 
hereafter argue, that the appointment of 
consuls is as much an act of recognition as 
the appointment of higher ministers. Lord 
Liverpool indeed said, that by doing so we 
were “ treating South America as inde¬ 
pendent,” — which is the only species of re¬ 
cognition which we have a right to make. 
I should be the last to blame the suspension 
of such a purpose during the lawless and 
faithless invasion of Spain, then threatened, 
and soon after executed. So strongly was 
I convinced that this was a sacred duty, 
that I at that time declined to present a 
petition of a nature similar to that which I 
now offer to your consideration. Nothing 
under heaven could have induced me to 
give the slightest aid to the unrighteous 
violence which then menaced the independ¬ 
ence of Spain. 

The Despatch of Mr. Secretary Canning 
to Sir Charles Stuart, of the 31st of March, 
1823, is the first paper which I -wish to 
recall to the remembrance, and recommend 
to the serious attention of the House. It 
declares that time and events have decided 
the separation of Spanish America,—that 
various circumstances in their internal con¬ 
dition may accelerate or retard the recog¬ 
nition of their independence; and it con¬ 
cludes with intelligibly intimating that Great 
Britain would resist the conquest of any 


part of these provinces by France. The 
most explicit warning was thus given to 
Spain, to France, and to all Europe, as well 
as to the states of Spanish America, that 
Great Britain considered their independence 
as certain,—that she regarded the time of 
recognising it as a question only of policy, 

— and that she would not suffer foreign 
Powers to interfere for preventing its esta¬ 
blishment. France, indeed, is the only 
Power named; but the reason of the case 
applied to every other, and extended as 
much to conquest under the name of Spain 
as if it were made avowedly for France 
herself. 

The next document to which I shall refer 
is the Memorandum of a Conference be¬ 
tween M. de Polignac and Mr. Secretary 
Canning, on the 9th of October, 1823; and 
I cannot help earnestly recommending to all 
persons who have any doubt with respect to 
the present state of this question, or to the 
footing on which it has stood for many 
months,—who do not see or do not own 
that our determination has long been made 
and announced,—to observe with care the 
force and extent of the language of the 
British Government on this important occa¬ 
sion. “ The British Government,” it is there 
said, “ were of opinion that any attempt to 
bring Spanish America under its ancient 
submission must be utterly hopeless; that 
all negotiation for that purpose would be 
unsuccessful; and that the prolongation or 
renewal of war for the same object could be 
only a waste of human life and an infliction 
of calamities on both parties to no end.” 
Language cannot more strongly declare the 
conviction of Great Britain that the issue of 
the contest was even then no longer doubtful, 

— that there was indeed no longer any such 
contest as could affect the policy of foreign 
states towards America. As soon as we had 
made known our opinion in terms so posi¬ 
tive to Europe and America, the pretensions 
of Spain could not in point of justice be any 
reason for a delay. After declaring that 
we should remain, however, “ strictly neutral 
if war should be unhappily prolonged,” we 
go on to state more explicitly than before, 







ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN STATES. 755 


“ that the junction of any Power in an en¬ 
terprise of Spain against the colonies would 
be viewed as an entirely new question, upon 
which they must take such decision as the 
interest of Great Britain might require;” 

— language which, however cautious and 
moderate in its forms, is in substance too 
clear to be misunderstood. After this para¬ 
graph, no state in Europe would have had a 
right to affect surprise at the recognition, if 
it had been proclaimed on the following day. 
Still more clearly, if possible, is the same 
principle avowed in a subsequent paragraph: 

— “That the British Government had no 
desire to precipitate the recognition, so long 
as there wa s any reasonable chance of an 
accommodation with the mother country, 
by whjch~such a recognition might come 
first from Spain;” but that it could not 
wait indefini tely for that result; that it could 
not consent to make its recognition of the 
new states dependent on that of Spain; 
“and that it would consider any foreign 
interference, either by force or by menace, 
in the dispute between Spain and the colo¬ 
nies, as a motive for recognising the latter 
without delay.” And here in a matter less 
important I should be willing to stop, and 
to rest my case on this passage alone. 
Words cannot be more explicit: it is need¬ 
less to comment on them, and impossible to 
evade them. We declare, that the only 
accommodation which we contemplate, is 
one which is to terminate in recognition by 
Spain; and that we cannot indefinitely wait 
even for that result. We assert our right 
to recognise, whether Spain does so or not; 
and we state a case in which we should 
immediately recognise, independently of the 
consent of the Spanish Government, and 
without regard to the internal state of the 
American provinces. As a natural conse¬ 
quence of these positions, we decline any 
part in a proposed congress of European 
Powers for regulating the affairs of America. 

Sir, I cannot quit this document without 
paying a just tribute to that part which re¬ 
lates to commerce, — to the firmness with 
which it asserts the right of this country to 
continue her important trade with America, 


as well as the necessity of the appointment 
of consuls for the protection of that trade, — 
and to the distinct annunciation, “ that an 
attempt to renew the obsolete interdictions 
would be best cut short by a speedy and 
unqualified recognition of the independence 
of the South American states.” Still more 
do I applaud the declaration, “that Great 
Britain had no desire to set up any separate 
right to the free enjoyment of this trade; 
that she considered the force of circum¬ 
stances and the irreversible progress of 
events to have already determined the ques¬ 
tion of the existence of that freedom for all 
the world.” These are declarations equally 
wise and admirable. They coincide indeed 
so evidently with the well-understood inter¬ 
est of every state, that it is mortifying to be 
compelled to speak of them as generous; but 
they are so much at variance with the base 
and short-sighted policy of Governments, 
that it is refreshing and consolatory to meet 
them in Acts of State ; — at least when, as 
here, they must be sincere, because the cir¬ 
cumstances of their promulgation secure 
their observance, and indeed render de¬ 
viation from them impossible. I read them 
over and over with the utmost pleasure. 
They breathe the spirit of that just policy 
and sound philosophy, which teaches us to 
regard the interest of our country as best 
promoted by an increase of the industry, 
wealth, and happiness of other nations. 

Although the attention of the House is 
chiefly directed to the acts of our own 
Government, it is not foreign from the pur¬ 
pose of my argument to solicit them for a 
few minutes to consider the admirable Mes¬ 
sage sent on the 2nd of December, 1823, by 
the President of the United States * to the 
Congress of that great republic. I heartily 
rejoice in the perfect agreement of that 
message with the principles professed by us 
to the French Minister, and afterwards to all 
the great Powers of Europe, whether mili¬ 
tary or maritime, and to the great English 
State beyond the Atlantic. I am not anxious 
to ascertain whether the Message was in- 


* Mr. Monroe. —Ed. 


3 C 2 








756 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

fluenced by our communication, or was the 
mere result of similarity of principle and 
coincidence of interest. The United States 
had at all events long preceded us in the re¬ 
cognition. They sent consuls and commis¬ 
sioners two years before us, who found the 
greater part of South America quiet and 
secure, and in the agitations of the remain¬ 
der, met with no obstacles to friendly inter¬ 
course. This recognition neither interrupted 
amicable relations with Spain, nor occa¬ 
sioned remonstrances from any Power in 
Europe. They declared their neutrality at 
the moment of recognition : they solemnly 
renew that declaration in the Message before 
me. That wise Government, in grave but 
determined language, and with that reason¬ 
able and deliberate tone which becomes 
true courage, proclaims the principles of 
her policy, and makes known the cases in 
which the care of her own safety will compel 
her to take up arms for the defence of other 
states. I have already observed its coinci¬ 
dence with the declarations of England; 
which indeed is perfect, if allowance be 
made for the deeper, or at least more imme¬ 
diate, interest in the independence of South 
America, which near neighbourhood gives to 
the United States. This coincidence of the 
two great English Commonwealths (for so I 
delight to call them, and I heartily pray 
that they may be for ever united in the 
cause of justice and liberty) cannot be con¬ 
templated without the utmost pleasure by 
- every enlightened citizen of either. Above 
all, Sir, there is one coincidence between 
them, which is, I trust, of happy augury to 
the whole civilised world : — they have both 
declared their neutrality in the American 
contest as long as it shall be confined to 
Spain and her former colonies, or as long as 
no foreign Power shall interfere. 

On the *25th of December, 1823, M. 
Ofalia, the Spanish Minister for Foreign 
Affairs, proposed to the principal Powers of 
Europe a conference at Paris on the best 
means of enabling his Catholic Majesty to 
re-establish his legitimate authority, and to 
spread the blessings Of his paternal govern¬ 
ment over the vast provinces of America, 

which once acknowledged the supremacy of 
Spain. To this communication, which was 
made also to this Government, an answer 
was given on the 30th of January following, 
which cannot be read by Englishmen with¬ 
out approbation and pleasure. In this an¬ 
swer, the proposition of a congress is once 
more rejected; the British Government 
adheres to its original declaration, that it 
would wait for a time, — but a limited time 
only, — and would rejoice to see his Catholic 
Majesty have the grace and advantage of 
taking the lead among the Powers of Europe 
in the recognition of the American states, as 
well for the greater benefit and security of 
these states themselves, as from the generous 
disposition felt by Great Britain to spare the 
remains of dignity and grandeur, however 
infinitesimally small, which may still be fan¬ 
cied to belong to the thing called the crown 
of Spain. Even the shadow of long-departed 
greatness was treated with compassionate for¬ 
bearance. But all these courtesies and de¬ 
corums were to have their limit. The inter¬ 
ests of Europe and America imposed higher 
duties which were not to be violated for the 
sake of leaving undisturbed the precedents 
copied by public offices at Madrid, from the 
power of Charles V., or the arrogance of 
Philip II. The principal circumstance in 
which this Despatch added to the preceding, 
was, that it both laid a wider foundation for 
the policy of recognition, and made a much 
nearer approach to exactness in fixing the 
time beyond which it could not be delayed. 

I have no subsequent official information. 

I have heard, and I believe, that Spain 
has answered this Despatch, — that she 
repeats her invitation to England to send 
a minister to the proposed congress, and 
that she has notified the assent of Russia, 
Austria, France, and Prussia. I have heard, 
and I also believe, that England on this oc¬ 
casion has proved true to herself, — that, in 
conformity to her ancient character, and in 
consistency with her repeated declarations, 
she has declined all discussion of this ques¬ 
tion with the Holy (or wra-Holy) Alliance. 
Would to God that we had from the be- 
J ginning kept aloof from these congresses, 






ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN STATES. 757 


in which we have made shipwreck of our 
ancient honour ! If that were not possible, 
would to God that we had protested, at least 
by silence and absence, against that con¬ 
spiracy at Yerona, which has annihilated the 
liberties of continental Europe ! 

In confirmation of the review which I 
have taken of the documents, I may also 
here mention the declaration made in this 
House, that during the occupation of Spain 
by a French army, every armament against 
the Spanish ports must be considered as 
having a French character, and being there- 

O ' O ^ 

fore within the principle repeatedly laid 
down in the Papers. Spain indeed, as a 
belligerent, can be now considered only as 
a fang of the Holy Alliance, powerless in 
itself, but which that monster has the power 
to arm with thrice-distilled venom. 

As the case now stands, Sir, I conceive it 
to be declared by Great Britain, that the 
acknowledgment of the independence of 
Spanish America is no breach of faith or 
neutrality towards Spain, — that such an 
acknowledgment might long ago have been 
made without any violation of her rights or 
interposition in her affairs, — that we have 
been for at least two years entitled to make 
it by all the rules of international law, — 
that we have delayed it, from friendly con¬ 
sideration for the feelings and claims of the 
Spanish Government, — that we have now 
carried our forbearance to the utmost verge 
of reasonable generosity, — and, having ex¬ 
hausted all the offices of friendship and 
good neighbourhood, are at perfect liberty 
to consult only the interests of our own 
subjects, and the just pretensions of the 
American states. 

In adopting this recognition now, we 
shall give just offence to no other Power. 
But if we did, and once suffer ourselves to 
be influenced by the apprehension of danger 
in resisting unjust pretensions, we destroy 
the only bulwark, — that of principle,— 
that guards a nation. There never was a 
time when it would be more perilous to 
make concessions, or to show feebleness and 
fear. We live in an age of the most ex¬ 
travagant and monstrous pretensions, sup¬ 


ported by tremendous force. A confederacy 
of absolute monarchs claim the right of 
controlling the internal government of all 
nations. In the exercise of that usurped 
power they have already taken military pos¬ 
session of the whole continent of Europe. 
Continental governments either obey their 
laws or tremble at their displeasure. Eng¬ 
land alone has condemned their principles, 
and is independent of their power. They 
ascribe all the misfortunes of the present 
age to the example of her institutions. On 
England, therefore, they must look with 
irreconcileable hatred. As long as she is 
free and powerful, their system is incom¬ 
plete, all the precautions of their tyrannical 
policy are imperfect, and their oppressed 
subjects may turn their eyes to her, in¬ 
dulging the hope that circumstances will 
one day compel us to exchange the alliance 
of kings for the friendship of nations. 

I will not say that such a state of the 
world does not require a considerate and 
circumspect policy. I acknowledge, and 
should earnestly contend, that there never 
was a moment at which the continuance of 
peace was more desirable. After passing 
through all the sufferings of twenty years 
universal war, and feeling its internal evils 
perhaps more severely since its close than 
when it raged most widely and fiercely, 
we are only now beginning to taste the 
natural and genuine fruits of peace. The 
robust constitution of a free community is 
just showing its power to heal the deepest 
wounds, — to compose obstinate convulsions, 
— and to restore health and vigour to every 
disordered function or disabled member. I 
deprecate the occurrence of what must dis¬ 
turb this noble process, — one of the mi¬ 
racles of Liberty. But I am also firmly 
convinced, that prudence in the present cir¬ 
cumstances of Europe forbids every measure 
that can be represented as having the ap¬ 
pearance of fear. If we carry our caution 
further than strict abstinence from injustice, 
we cannot doubt to what motive our for¬ 
bearance will be imputed. Every delay is 
liable to that interpretation. The least 
scrupulous politicians condemn falsehood 






758 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


when it wears the appearance of fear. It 
may be sometimes unsafe to fire at the royal 
tiger who suddenly crosses your path in an 
eastern forest; but it is thought fully as 
dangerous to betray your fear by running 
away: prudent men quietly pursue their 
road without altering their pace, — without 
provoking or tempting the ferocious animal. 

Having thus traced the progress of mea¬ 
sures which have led us to the very verge 
of recognition, the question naturally pre¬ 
sents itself, Why do we not now recognise? 
It is not so much my duty as it is that of 
the Government, to tell us why they do not 
complete their own system. Every pre¬ 
paration is made; every adverse claim is 
rejected; ample notice is given to all par¬ 
ties. Why is the determination delayed ? 
We are irrevocably pledged to maintain our 
principles, and to act on them towards 
America. We have cut off all honourable 
retreat. Why should we seem to hesitate ? 
America expects from us the common marks 
of amity and respect. Spain cannot com¬ 
plain at their being granted. No other 
state can intimate an opinion on the sub¬ 
ject without an open attack on the inde¬ 
pendence of Great Britain. What then 
hinders the decisive word from being 
spoken ? 

We have already indeed taken one step 
more, in addition to those on which I have 
too long dwelt. We have sent consuls to 
all the ports of Spanish America to which 
we trade, as well as to the seats of the 
new government in that country. We have 
seen in the public papers, that the consul at 
Buenos Ayres has presented a letter from 
the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 
in this country to the Secretary of that Go¬ 
vernment, desiring that they would grant 
the permission to the consul, without which 
he cannot exercise his powers. Does not 
this act acknowledge the independence of 
the State of Buenos Ayres ? An inde¬ 
pendent state alone can appoint consuls : — 
an independent state only can receive con¬ 
suls. We have not only sent consuls, but 
commissioners. What is their character ? 
Can it be any other than that of an envoy 


with a new title? Every agent publicly 
accredited to a foreign government, and not 
limited by his commission to commercial 
affairs, must in reality be a diplomatic mi¬ 
nister, whatever may be his official name. 
We read of the public and joyful reception 
of these commissioners, of presents made 
by them to the American administrators, 
and of speeches in which they announce the 
good-will of the Government and people 
of England towards the infant republics. 
I allude to the speech of Colonel Hamilton 
at Bogota, on which, as i have seen it only 
in a translation, I can only venture to con¬ 
jecture (after making some allowance for 
the overflow of courtesy and kindness which 
is apt to occur on such occasions) that it 
expressed the anxious wishes and earnest 
hopes of this country, that he might find 
Columbia in a state capable of maintaining 
those relations of amity which we were 
sincerely desirous to establish. Where 
should we apply for redress, if a Columbian 
privateer were to capture an English mer¬ 
chantman ? Not at Madrid, but at Bogota. 
Does not this answer decide the whole 
question ? 

But British subjects, Sir, have a right to 
expect, not merely that their Government 
shall provide some means of redress, but 
that they should provide adequate and ef¬ 
fectual means,—those which universal ex¬ 
perience has proved to be the best. They 
are not bound to be content with the un¬ 
avowed agency and precarious good offices 
of naval officers, nor even with the inferior 
and imperfect protection of an agent whose 
commission is limited to the security of trade. 
The power of a consul is confined to com¬ 
mercial affairs ; and there are many of the 
severest wrongs which the merchant suffers, 
which, as they may not directly affect him 
in his trading concerns, are not within the 
proper province of the consul. The English 
trader at Buenos Ayres ought not to feel 
his safety less perfect than that of other 
foreign merchants. The habit of trusting to 
an ambassador for security has a tendency 
to reconcile the spirit of adventurous indus¬ 
try with a constant affection for the place 






ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE 

of a man’s birth. If these advantages are 
not inconsiderable to any European nation, 
they must be important to the most com¬ 
mercial and maritime people of the world. 

The American Governments at present 
rate our friendship too high, to be jealous 
and punctilious in their intercourse with us. 
But a little longer delay may give rise to 
an unfavourable judgment of our conduct. 
They may even doubt our neutrality itself. 
Instead of admitting that the acknowledg¬ 
ment of their independence would be a 
breach of neutrality towards Spain, they 
may much more naturally conceive that the 
delay to acknowledge it is a breach of neu¬ 
trality towards themselves. Do we in truth 
deal equally by both the contending parties ? 
We do not content ourselves with consuls at 
Cadiz and Barcelona. If we expect justice 
to our subjects from the Government of 
Ferdinand VII., we in return pay every 
honour to that Government as a Power of 
the first class. We lend it every aid that it 
can desire from the presence of a British 
minister of the highest rank. We do not 
inquire whether he legitimately deposed his 
father, or legally dispersed the Cortes who 
preserved his throne. The inequality be¬ 
comes the more strikingly offensive, when 
it is considered that the number of English 
in the American States is far greater, and 
our commerce with them much more im¬ 
portant. 

We have long since advised Spain to 
acknowledge the independence of her late 
provinces in America: we have told her 
that it is the only basis on which negotiations 
can be carried on, and that it affords her the 
only chance of preserving some of the ad¬ 
vantages of friendship and commerce with 
these vast territories. Whatever rendered 
it right for Spain to recognise them, must 
also render it right for us. If we now de¬ 
lay, Spain may very speciously charge us 
with insincerity. “It now,” she may say, 
“ appears from your own conduct, that under 
pretence of friendship you advised us to do 
that from which you yourselves recoil.” 

We have declared that we should imme¬ 
diately proceed to recognition, either if Spain 


SPANISH-AMERICAN STATES. 759 

were to invade the liberty of trade which we 
now possess, or if any other power were to 
take a part in the contest between her and 
the American states. But do not these de¬ 
clarations necessarily imply that they are in 
fact independent ? Surely no injustice of 
Spain, or France, or Russia could authorise 
England to acknowledge that to be a fact 
which we do not know to be so. Either 
therefore we have threatened to do what 
ought not to be done, or these states are 
now in a condition to be treated as inde¬ 
pendent. 

It is now many months since it was de¬ 
clared to M. de Polignac, that we should 
consider “ any foreign interference, by force 
or menace, in the dispute between Spain and 
her colonies, as a motive for recognising the 
latter without delay.” I ask whether the 
interference “by menace” has not now oc¬ 
curred ? M. Ofalia, on the 26th of Decem¬ 
ber, proposed a congress on the affairs of 
America, in hopes that the allies of King 
Ferdinand “ will assist him in accomplishing 
the worthy object of upholding the principles 
of order and legitimacy, the subversion of 
which, once commenced in America, would 
speedily communicate.” Now I have already 
said, that, if I am rightly informed, this pro¬ 
position, happily rejected by Great Britain, 
has been acceded to by the Allied Powers. 
Preparations for the congress are said to be 
already made. Can there be a more distinct 
case of interference by menace in the Ame¬ 
rican contest, than the agreement to assemble 
a congress for the purpose described in the 
despatch of M. Ofalia ? 

But it is said, Sir, that we ought not to 
recognise independence where a contest is 
still maintained, or where governments of 
some apparent stability do not exist. Both 
these ideas seem to be comprehended in the 
proposition, — “ that we ought to recognise 
only where independence is actually en¬ 
joyed;” though that proposition properly 
only affirms the former. But it is said that 
we are called upon only to acknowledge the 
fact of independence, and before we make 
the acknowledgment we ought to have evi¬ 
dence of the fact. To this single point the 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


760 


discussion is now confined. All consider¬ 
ations of European policy are (I cannot 
repeat it too often) excluded: the policy of 
Spain, or France, or Russia, is no longer an 
element in the problem. The fact of inde¬ 
pendence is now the sole object of consider¬ 
ation. If there be no independence, we 
cannot acknowledge it: if there be, we must. 

0 * To understand the matter rightly, we 
| must consider separately—what are often 
| confounded—the two questions,—Whether 
there is a contest with Spain still pending ? 
f and Whether internal tranquillity be se¬ 
curely established ? As to the first, we 
must mean such a contest as exhibits some 
equality of force, and of which, if the com¬ 
batants were left to themselves, the issue 
would be in some degree doubtful. It never 
can be understood so as to include a bare 
I chance, that Spain might recover her ancient 
1 dominions at some distant and absolutely 
\ uncertain period. 

‘ In this inquiry, do you consider Spanish 
America as one mass, or do you apply your 
inquiry to the peculiar situation of each 
individual state ? For the purposes of the 
present argument you may view them in 
either light:—in the latter, because they 
are sovereign commonwealths, as independ¬ 
ent of each other as they all are of Europe; 
or in the former, because they are united by 
a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive, 
which binds them to make common cause in 
this contest, and to conclude no separate 
peace with Spain. 

If I look on Spanish America as one vast 
unit, the question of the existence of any 
serious contest is too simple to admit the 
slightest doubt. What proportion does the 
contest bear to the country in which it pre¬ 
vails ? My geography, or at least my recol¬ 
lection, does not serve me so far, that I 
could enumerate the degrees of latitude and 
longitude over which that vast country ex¬ 
tends. On the western coast, however, it 
reaches from the northern point of New 
California to the utmost limit of cultivation 
towards Cape Horn. On the eastern it ex¬ 
tends from the mouth of the Mississippi to 
that of the Orinoco; and, after the immense 


exception of Guiana and Brazil, from the 
Rio de la Plata to the southern footsteps of 
civilised man. The prodigious varieties of 
its elevation exhibit in the same parallel 
of latitude all the climates and products of 
the globe. It is the only abundant source 
of the metals justly called “precious,”— 
the most generally and permanently useful 
of all commodities, except those which are 
necessary to the preservation of human life. 
It is unequally and most scantily peopled 
by sixteen or eighteen millions,—whose 
numbers, freedom of industry, and security 
of property must be quadrupled in a cen¬ 
tury. Its length on the Pacific coast is 
equal to that of the whole continent of 
Africa from the Cape of Good Hope to the 
Straits of Gibraltar. It is more extensive 
than the vast possessions of Russia or of 
Great Britain in Asia. The Spanish lan¬ 
guage is spoken over a line of nearly six 
thousand miles. The State of Mexico alone 
is five times larger than European Spain. 
A single communication cut through these 
territories between the Atlantic and Pacific 
would bring China six thousand miles nearer 
to Europe * ; and the Republic of Columbia 
or that of Mexico may open and command 
that new road for the commerce of the 
world. 

What is the Spanish strength ? A single 
castle in Mexico, an island on the coast of 
Chili, and a small army in Upper Peru ! Is 
this a contest approaching to equality ? Is 
it sufficient to render the independence of 
such a country doubtful ? Does it deserve 
the name of a contest? It is very little 
more than what in some of the wretched 
governments of the East is thought desirable 
to keep alive the vigilance of the rulers, 
and to exercise the martial spirit of the 
people. There is no present appearance 
that the country can be reduced by the 
power of Spain alone; and if any other 
Power were to interfere, it is acknowledged 
that such an interference would impose new 
duties on Great Britain. 


* See Humboldt’s admirable Essay on New 
Spain. 












ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN STATES. 761 

If, on the other hand, we consider the 
American states as separate, the fact of in¬ 
dependence is undisputed, with respect at 
least to some of them. What doubts can be 
entertained of the independence of the im¬ 
mense provinces of Caraccas, New Grenada, 
and Quito, which now form the Republic of 
Columbia ? There, a considerable Spanish 
army has been defeated: all have been either 
destroyed, or expelled from the territory of 
the Republic: not a Royalist soldier re¬ 
mains. Three Congresses have successively 
-been assembled: they have formed a reason¬ 
able and promising Constitution ; and they 
have endeavoured to establish a wise system 
and a just administration of law. In the 
midst of their difficulties the Columbians 
have ventured (and hitherto with perfect 
success) to encounter the arduous and pe¬ 
rilous, but noble problem of a pacific eman¬ 
cipation of their slaves. They have been 
able to observe good faith with their cre¬ 
ditors, and thus to preserve the greatest of 
all resources for times of danger. Their 
tranquillity has stood the test of the long 
absence of Bolivar in Peru. Englishmen 
who have lately traversed their territories in 
various directions, are unanimous in stating 
that their journeys were made in the most 
undisturbed security. Every where they 
saw the laws obeyed, justice administered, 
armies disciplined, and the revenue peace¬ 
ably collected. Many British subjects have 
indeed given practical proofs of their faith in 
the power and will of the Columbian Go¬ 
vernment to protect industry and property: 
— they have established houses of trade; 
they have undertaken to work mines; and 
they are establishing steam-boats on the 
Orinoco and the Magdalena. Where is the 
state which can give better proofs of secure 
independence ? 

The Republic of Buenos Ayres has an 
equally undisputed enjoyment of inde¬ 
pendence. There no Spanish soldier has 
set his foot for fourteen years. It would be 
as difficult to find a Royalist there, as it 
would be a Jacobite in England (I mean 
only a personal adherent of the House of 
Stuart, for as to Jacobites in principle, I 

fear they never were more abundant). Its 
rulers are so conscious of internal security, 
that they have crossed the Andes, and inter¬ 
posed with vigour and effect in the revolu¬ 
tions of Chili and Peru. Whoever wishes 
to know the state of Chili, will find it in a 
very valuable book lately published by Mrs. 
Graham *, a lady whom I have the happiness 
to call my friend, who, by the faithful and 
picturesque minuteness of her descriptions, 
places her reader in the midst of the country, 
and introduces him to the familiar acquaint¬ 
ance of the inhabitants. Whatever seeds of 
internal discord may be perceived, we do 
not discover the vestige of any party friendly 
to the dominion of Spain. Even in Peru, 
where the spirit of independence has most 
recently appeared, and appears most to fluc¬ 
tuate, no formidable body of Spanish parti¬ 
sans has been observed by the most intel¬ 
ligent observers; and it is very doubtful 
whether even the army which keeps the 
field in that province against the American 
cause be devoted to the restored despotism 
of Spain. Mexico, the greatest, doubtless, 
and most populous, but not perhaps the 
most enlightened, portion of Spanish Ame¬ 
rica, has passed through severe trials, and 
seems hitherto far from showing a dispo¬ 
sition again to fall under the authority of 
Spain. Even the party who long bore the 
name of Spain on their banners, imbibed in 
that very contest the spirit of independence, 
and at length ceased to look abroad for a 
sovereign. The last Viceroy who was sent 
from Spain f was compelled to acknowledge 
the independence of Mexico ; and the Roy¬ 
alist officer J, who appeared for a time so 
fortunate, could not win his way to a tran¬ 
sient power without declaring against the 
pretensions of the mother country. 

If, then, we consider these states as one 
nation, there cannot be said to be any re¬ 
maining contest. If, on the other hand, we 
consider them separately, why do we not 
immediately comply with the prayer of this 

* Journal of a Residence in Chili.— F.d. 
j- Admiral Apodaca. — Ed. 

% Don Augustin Iturbide. — Ed. 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


762 

Petition, by recognising the independence 
of those which we must allow to be in fact 
independent ? Where is the objection to 
the instantaneous recognition at least of 
Columbia and Buenos Ayres ? 

But here, Sir, I shall be reminded of the 
second condition (as applicable to Mexico 
and Peru), — the necessity of a stable go¬ 
vernment and of internal tranquillity. In¬ 
dependence and good government are, 
unfortunately, very different things. Most 
countries have enjoyed the former: not 
above three or four since the beginning of 
history have had any pretensions to the lat¬ 
ter. Still, many grossly misgoverned coun¬ 
tries have performed the common duties of 
justice and good-will to their neighbours, — 
I do not say so well as more wisely ordered 
commonwealths, but still tolerably, and al¬ 
ways much better than if they had not been 
controlled by the influence of opinion acting 
through a regular intercourse with other 
nations. 

We really do not deal with Spain and 
America by the same weight and measure. 
We exact proofs of independence and tran¬ 
quillity from America: we dispense both 
with independence and tranquillity in Old 
Spain. We have an ambassador at Madrid, 
though the whole kingdom be in the hands 
of France. We treat Spain with all the 
honours due to a civilised state of the first 
rank, though we have been told in this House 
that the continuance of the French army 
there is an act of humanity, necessary to 
prevent the faction of frantic Royalists from 
destroying not only the friends of liberty, 
but every Spaniard who hesitates to carry 
on a war of persecution and extirpation 
against all who are not the zealous support¬ 
ers of unbounded tyranny. On the other 
hand, we require of the new-born states of 
America to solve the awful problem of re¬ 
conciling liberty with order. We expect 
that all the efforts incident to a fearful 
struggle shall at once subside into the most 
perfect and undisturbed tranquillity, — that 
every visionary or ambitious hope which it 
has kindled shall submit without a murmur 
to the counsels of wisdom and the authority 


of the laws. Who are we who exact the 
performance of such hard conditions ? Are 
we the English nation, to look thus coldly 
on rising liberty? We have indulgence 
enough for tyrants; we make ample allow¬ 
ance for the difficulties of their situation; 
we are ready enough to deprecate the cen¬ 
sure of their worst acts. And are we, who 
spent ages of bloodshed in struggling for 
freedom, to treat with such severity others 
now following our example? Are we to 
refuse that indulgence to the errors and 
faults of other nations, which was so long 
needed by our own ancestors ? We who 
have passed through every form of civil and 
religious tyranny, — who persecuted Pro¬ 
testants under Mary, — who — I blush to add 
— persecuted Catholics under Elizabeth, — 
shall we now inconsistently, — unreasonably, 
—basely hold, that distractions so much fewer 
and milder, and shorter, endured in the same 
glorious cause, will unfit other nations for 
its attainment, and preclude them from the 
enjoyment of that rank and those privileges 
which we at the same moment recognise as 
belonging to slaves and barbarians ? 

I call upon my Right Honourable Friend* 
distinctly to tell us, on what principle he 
considers the perfect enjoyment of internal 
quiet as a condition necessary for the ac¬ 
knowledgment of an independence which 
cannot be denied to exist. I can discover 
none, unless the confusions of a country were 
such as to endanger the personal safety of a 
foreign minister. Yet the European Powers 
have always had ministers at Constantinople, 
though it was well known that the barbarians 
who ruled there would, on the approach of a 
quarrel, send these unfortunate gentlemen 
to a prison in which they might remain 
during a long war. But if there is any such 
insecurity in these states, how do the minis¬ 
ters of the United States of North America 
reside in their capitals ? or why do we trust 
our own consuls and commissioners among 
them ? Is there any physical peculiarity in 
a consul, which renders him invulnerable 
where an ambassador or an envoy would be 


* Mr. Canning. — Ed. 







ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE SPANISII-AMERICAN STATES. 763 


in danger ? Is he bullet-proof or bayonet- 
proof? or does he wear a coat of mail? 
The same Government, one would think, 
which redresses an individual grievance on 
the application of a consul, may remove a 
cause of national difference after listening 
to the remonstrance of an envoy. 

I will venture even to contend, that in¬ 
ternal distractions, instead of being an im¬ 
pediment to diplomatic intercourse, are 
rather an additional reason for it. An am¬ 
bassador is more necessary in a disturbed 
than in a tranquil country, inasmuch as the 
evils against which his presence is intended 
to guard are more likely to occur in the 
former than in the latter. It is in the midst 
of civil commotions that the foreign trader 
is the most likely to be wronged; and it is 
then that he therefore requires not only the 
good offices of a consul, but the weightier 
interposition of a higher minister. In a 
perfectly well-ordered country the laws and 
the tribunals might be sufficient. In the 
same manner it is obvious, that if an ambas¬ 
sador be an important security for the pre¬ 
servation of good understanding between 
the best regulated governments, his presence 
must be far more requisite to prevent the 
angry passions of exasperated factions from 
breaking out into war. Whether therefore 
we consider the individual or the public in¬ 
terests which are secured by embassies, it 
seems no paradox to maintain, that if they 
could be dispensed with at all, it would 
rather be in quiet than in disturbed 
countries. 

The interests here at stake may be said 
to be rather individual than national. But 
a wrong done to the humblest British sub¬ 
ject, an insult offered to the British flag 
flying on the slightest skiff, is, if unrepaired, 
a dishonour to the British nation. 

Then the amount of private interests en¬ 
gaged in our trade with Spanish America is 
so great as to render them a large part of 
the national interest. There are already at 
least a hundred English houses of trade 
established in various parts of that immense 
country. A great body of skilful miners 
have lately left this country, to restore and 


increase the working of the mines of Mexico. 
Botanists, and geologists, and zoologists, are 
preparing to explore regions too vast to be 
exhausted by the Condamines and Hum¬ 
boldts. These missionaries of civilisation, 
who are about to spread European, and 
especially English opinions and habits, and 
to teach industry and the arts, with their 
natural consequences, — the love of order 
and the desire of quiet, — are at the same 
time opening new markets for the produce 
of British labour, and new sources of im¬ 
provement as well as enjoyment to the people 
of America. 

The excellent petition from Liverpool to 
the King sets forth the value of our South 
American commerce very clearly, with re¬ 
spect to its present extent, its rapid increase, 
and its probable permanence. In 1819, the 
official returns represent the value of British 
exports at thirty-five millions sterling,— 
in 1822, at forty-six millions; and, in the 
opinion of the Petitioners, who are witnesses 
of the highest authority, a great part of this 
prodigious increase is to be ascribed to the 
progress of the South American trade. On 
this point, however, they are not content 
with probabilities. In 1822, they tell us 
that the British exports to the late Spanish 
colonies amounted in value to three millions 
eight hundred thousand pounds sterling; and 
in 1823, to five millions six hundred thou¬ 
sand ; — an increase of near two millions in 
one year. As both the years compared are 
subsequent to the opening of the American 
ports, we may lay out of the account the 
indirect trade formerly carried on with the 
Spanish Main through the West Indies, the 
far greater part of which must now be trans¬ 
ferred to a cheaper, shorter, and more con¬ 
venient channel. In the year 1820 and the 
three following years, the annual average 
number of ships which sailed from the port 
of Liverpool to Spanish America, was one 
hundred and eighty-nine; and the number 
of those which have so sailed in five months 
of the present year, is already one hundred 
and twenty-four; being an increase in the 
proportion of thirty to nineteen. Another 
criterion of the importance of this trade, on 







764 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

which the traders of Liverpool are pecu¬ 
liarly well qualified to judge, is the export 
of cotton goods from their own port. The 
result of the comparison of that export to the 
United States of America, and to certain 
parts* of Spanish and Portuguese America, 
is peculiarly instructive and striking : — 

ACTUAL VALUE OF COTTON GOODS EXPORTED 

FROM LIVERPOOL. 

Year ending Jan. 5. Year ending Jan. 5. 

1820. 1821. 

£ £ 

To United States 882,029 To United States 

1,033,206 

To Spanish and To Spanish and 

Portuguese Portuguese 

America - 852,651 America - 1,111,574 

It is to be observed, that this last extraor¬ 
dinary statement relates to the comparative 
infancy of this trade; that it comprehends 
neither Vera Cruz nor the ports of Colum¬ 
bia ; and that the striking disproportion in 
the rate of increase does not arise from the 
abatement of the North American demand 
(for that has increased), but from the rapid 
progress of that in the South American 
market. Already, then, this new commerce 
surpasses in amount, and still more in pro¬ 
gress, that trade with the United States 
which is one of the oldest and most exten¬ 
sive, as well as most progressive branches of 
our traffic. 

If I consult another respectable authority, 
and look at the subject in a somewhat dif¬ 
ferent light, I find the annual value of our 
whole exports estimated in Lord Liverpool’s 
speech| on this subject at forty-three mil¬ 
lions sterling, of which about twenty millions’ 
worth goes to Europe, and' about the value 
of seventeen millions to North and South 
America; leaving between four and five 
millions to Africa and Asia. According 
to this statement, I may reckon the trade to 
the new independent states as one-eighth of 
the trade of the whole British Empire. It 

is more than our trade to all our possessions 
on the continent and islands of America was, 
before the beginning of the fatal American 
war in 1774: — for fatal I call it, not be¬ 
cause I lament the independence of America, 
but because I deeply deplore the hostile 
separation of the two great nations of 
English race. 

The official accounts of exports and im¬ 
ports laid before this House on the 3d of 
May, 1824, present another view of this 
subject, in which the Spanish colonies are 
carefully separated from Brazil. By these 
accounts it appears that the exports to the 
Spanish colonies were as follows : — 

1818. ’ 1819. 1820. 1821. 

£735,344. £850,943. £431,615. £917,916. 

1822. 1823. 

£1,210,825. £2,016,276. 

I quote all these statements of this com¬ 
merce, though they do not entirely agree 
with each other, because I well know the 
difficulty of attaining exactness on such sub¬ 
jects,—because the least of them is perfectly 
sufficient for my purpose,—and because the 
last, though not so large as others in amount, 
shows more clearly than any other its rapid 
progress, and the proportion which its in¬ 
crease bears to the extension of American 
independence. 

If it were important to swell this account, 

I might follow the example of the Liverpool 
Petitioners (who are to be heard with the 
more respect, because on this subject they 
have no interest), by adding to the general 
amount of commerce the supply of money 
to the American states of about twelve mil¬ 
lions sterling. For though I of course allow 
that such contracts cannot be enforced by 
the arms of this country against a foreign 
state, yet I consider the commerce in money 
as equally legitimate and honourable with 
any other sort of commercial dealing, and 
equally advantageous to the country of the 
lenders, wherever it is profitable to the 
lenders themselves. I see no difference in 
principle between a loan on the security of 
public revenue, and a loan on a mortgage of 
private property; and the protection of such 
dealings is in my opinion a perfectly good 

* Yiz. Brazil, Buenos Ayres, Monte Video, 
Chili, and the West Coast of America. 

f Delivered in the House of Lords on the 15th 
of March.—E d. 









ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN STATES. 765 


additional reason for hastening to do that 
which is previously determined to be politic 
and just. 

If, Sir, I were further called to illustrate 
the value of a free intercourse with South 
America, I should refer the House to a 
valuable work, which I hope all who hear 
me have read, and which I know they ought 
to read, — I mean Captain Basil Hall’s Tra¬ 
vels in that country. The whole book is one 
continued proof of the importance of a Free 
Trade to England, to America, and to man¬ 
kind. No man knows better how to extract 
information from the most seemingly trifling 
conversations, and to make them the means 
of conveying the most just conception of the 
opinions, interests, and feelings of a people. 
Though he can weigh interests in the scales 
of Smith, he also seizes with the skill of 
Plutarch on those small circumstances and 
expressions which characterise not only in¬ 
dividuals but nations. “ While we were 
admiring the scenery,” says he, “ our people 
had established themselves in a hut, and 
were preparing supper under the direction 
of a peasant, — a tall, copper-coloured, semi- 
barbarous native of the forest, — but who, 
notwithstanding his uncivilised appearance, 
turned out to be a very shrewd fellow, and 
gave us sufficiently pertinent answers to most 
of our queries. A young Spaniard of our 
party, a Royalist by birth, and half a patriot 
in sentiment, asked the mountaineer what 
harm the King had done. ‘ Why,’ an¬ 
swered he, * as for the King, his only fault, 
at least that I know of, was his living too 
far off. If a king be really good for a coun¬ 
try, it appears-to me that he ought to live in 
that country, not two thousand leagues away 
from it.’ On asking him what was his opinion 
of free trade: ‘ My opinion,’ said he, ‘ is 
this:—formerly I paid nine dollars for the 
piece of cloth of which this shirt is made; I 
now pay two:—that is my opinion of free 
trade.’ ” * This simple story illustrates better 
than a thousand arguments the sense which 
the American consumer has of the conse¬ 
quences of free trade to him. 

. * Yol. ii. p. 188. 


If we ask how it affects the American 
producer , we shall find a decisive answer in 
the same admirable work. His interest is to 
produce his commodities at less expense, and 
to sell them at a higher price, as well as in 
greater quantity : — all these objects he has 
obtained. Before the Revolution, he sold 
his copper at seven dollars a quintal: in 
1821, he sold it at thirteen. The articles 
which he uses in the mines are, on the other 
hand, reduced; — steel from fifty dollars a 
quintal to sixteen dollars; iron from twenty- 
five to eight; the provisions of his labourers 
in the proportion of twenty-one to fourteen; 
the fine cloth which he himself wears, from 
twenty-three dollars a yard to twelve; his 
crockery from three hundred and fifty reals 
per crate to forty ; his hardware from three 
hundred to one hundred reals.; and his glass 
from two hundred to one hundred.* 

It is justly observed by Captain Hall, that 
however incompetent a Peruvian might be 
to appreciate the benefits of political liberty, 
he can have no difficulty in estimating such 
sensible and palpable improvements in the 
condition of himself and his countrymen. 
With Spanish authority he connects the re¬ 
membrance of restriction, monopoly, degra¬ 
dation, poverty, discomfort, privation. In 
those who struggle to restore it, we may be 
assured Jhat the majority of Americans 
can see only enemies who come to rob them 
of private enjoyments and personal accom¬ 
modations. 

It will perhaps be said, that Spain is 
willing to abandon her monopolies. But if 
she does now, might she not by the same 
authority restore them ? If her sovereignty 
be restored, she must possess abundant 
means of evading the execution of any con¬ 
cessions now made in the hour of her dis¬ 
tress. The faith of a Ferdinand is the only 
security she offers. On the other hand, if 
America continues independent, our security 
is the strong sense of a most palpable interest 
already spread among the people, — the in¬ 
terest of the miner of Chili in selling his 


* Yol. ii. p. 47. This curious table relates to 
Chili, — the anecdote to Mexico. 









766 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


copper, and of the peasant of Mexico in 
buying his shirt. I prefer it to the royal 
word of Ferdinand. But do we not know 
that the Royalist General Canterac, in the 
summer of 1823, declared the old prohibitory 
laws to be still in force in Peru, and an¬ 
nounced his intention of accordingly confis¬ 
cating all English merchandise which he had 
before generously spared ? Do we not know 
that English commerce every where flies 
from the Royalists, and hails with security 
and joy the appearance of the American 
flag ? * But it is needless to reason on this 
subject, or to refer to the conduct of local 
agents. We have a decree of Ferdinand 
himself to appeal to, bearing date at Madrid 
on the 9th February, 1824. It is a very 
curious document, and very agreeable to 
the general character of his most important 
edicts; — in it there is more than the usual 
repugnance between the title and the pur¬ 
port. As he published a table of proscription 
under the name of a decree of amnesty, so 
his professed grant of free trade is in truth 
an establishment of monopoly. The first 
article does indeed promise a free trade to 
Spanish America. The second, however, 
hastens to declare, that this free trade is to 
be “ regulated” by a future law, — that it is 
to be confined to certain ports, — and that 
it shall be subjected to duties, which are to 
be regulated by the same law. The third 
also declares, that the preference to be 
granted to Spain shall be “ regulated” in 
like manner. As if the duties, limitations, 
and preferences thus announced had not 
provided such means of evasion as were 
equivalent to a repeal of the first article, 
the Royal lawgiver proceeds in the fourth 
article to enact, that “ till the two foregoing 
articles can receive their perfect execution, 
there shall be nothing innovated in the state 
of America ” As the Court of Madrid does 
not recognise the legality of what has been 
done in America since the revolt, must not 
this be reasonably interpreted to import a 
re-establishment of the Spanish laws of ab¬ 


* As in the evacuation of Lima in the spring of 
1824. 


solute monopoly, till the Government of 
Spain shall be disposed to promulgate that 
code of restriction, of preference, and of 
duties, — perhaps prohibitory ones, — which, 
according to them, constitutes free trade. 

But, Sir, it will be said elsewhere, though 
not here, that I now argue on the selfish 
and sordid principle of exclusive regard to 
British interest, — that I would sacrifice 
every higher consideration to the extension 
of our traffic, and to the increase of our 
profits. For this is the insolent language, 
in which those who gratify their ambition 
by plundering and destroying their fellow- 
creatures, have in all ages dared to speak of 
those who better their own condition by 
multiplying the enjoyments of mankind. 
In answer, I might content myself with say¬ 
ing, that having proved the recognition of 
the independence of these states to be con¬ 
formable to justice, I have a perfect right 
to recommend it as conducive to the welfare 
of this nation. But I deny altogether the 
doctrine, that commerce has a selfish cha¬ 
racter, — that it can benefit one party with¬ 
out being advantageous to the other. It is 
twice blessed : it blesses the giver as well as 
the receiver. It consists in the interchange 
of the means of enjoyment; and its very 
essence is to employ one part of mankind in 
contributing to the happiness of others. 
What is the instrument by which a savage 
is to be raised from a state in which he has 
nothing human but the form, but commerce, 
— exciting in his mind the desire of accom¬ 
modation and enjoyment, and presenting to 
him the means of obtaining these advan¬ 
tages? It is thus only that he is gradu¬ 
ally raised to industry,— to foresight,— to a 
respect for property, — to a sense of jus¬ 
tice, — to a perception of the necessity of 
laws. What corrects his prejudices against 
foreign nations and dissimilar races ?— com¬ 
mercial intercourse. What slowly teaches 
him that the quiet and well-being of the 
most distant regions have some tendency to 
promote the prosperity of his own ? What 
at length disposes him even to tolerate those 
religious differences which led him to regard 
the greater part of the species with abhor- 







ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN STATES. 767 


rence ? Nothing but the intercourse and 
familiarity into which commerce alone could 
have tempted him. What diffuses wealth, 
and therefore increases the leisure which 
calls into existence* the works of genius, the 
discoveries of science, and the inventions of 
art ? What transports just opinions of go¬ 
vernment into enslaved countries, — raises 
the importance of the middle and lower 
classes of society, and thus reforms social 
institutions, and establishes equal liberty? 
What but Commerce — the real civiliser 
and emancipator of mankind ? 

A delay of recognition would be an im¬ 
portant breach of j ustice to the American 
states. We send consul? to their territory, 
in the confidence that their Government 
and their judges will do justice to British 
subjects; but we receive no authorised 
agents from them in return. Until they 
shall be recognised by the King, our courts 
of law will not acknowledge their existence. 
Our statutes allow certain privileges to ships 
coming from the “ provinces in America 
lately subject to Spain;” but our courts 
will not acknowledge that these provinces 
are subject to any government. If the 
maritime war which has lately commenced 
should long continue, many questions of 
international law may arise out of our ano¬ 
malous situation, which it will be impossible 
to determine by any established principles. 
If we escape this difficulty by recognising 
the actual governments in courts of Prize, 
how absurd, inconsistent, and inconvenient 
it is not to extend the same recognition to 
all our tribunals! 

The reception of .a new state into the 
society of civilised nations by those acts 
which amount to recognition, is a proceed¬ 
ing which, as it has no legal character,jujd 
is purely of a moral nature, must vary very 
much in its value, according to the authority 
of the nations who, upon such occasions, act 
as the representatives of civilised men. I 
will say nothing of England, but that she is 
the only anciently free state in the world. 
For her to refuse her moral aid to commu¬ 
nities struggling for liberty, is an act of un¬ 
natural harshness, which, if it does not re¬ 


coil on herself, must injure America in the 
estimation of mankind. 

This is not all. The delay of recognition 
tends to prolong and exasperate the dis¬ 
orders which are the reason alleged for it. 
It encourages Spain to waste herself in des¬ 
perate efforts; it encourages the Holy Alli¬ 
ance to sow division, — to employ intrigue 
and corruption, — to threaten, perhaps to 
equip and despatch, armaments. Then it 
encourages every incendiary to excite revolt, 
and every ambitious adventurer to embark 
in projects of usurpation. It is a cruel 
policy, which has the strongest tendency to 
continue for a time, of which we cannot 
foresee the limits, rapine and blood, commo¬ 
tions and civil wars, throughout the larger 
portion of the New World. By maintaining 
an outlawry against them, we shall give them 
the character of outlaws. The long con¬ 
tinuance of confusion, — in part arising from 
our refusing to countenance their govern¬ 
ments, to impose on them the mild yoke of 
civilised opinion, and to teach them respect 
for themselves by associating them with 
other free communities,—may at length re¬ 
ally unfit them for liberty or order, and de¬ 
stroy in America that capacity to maintain 
the usual relations of peace and amity with 
us which undoubtedly exists there at present. 

It is vain to expect that Spain, even if 
she were to reconquer America, could estab¬ 
lish in that country a vigorous government, 
capable of securing a peaceful intercourse 
with other countries. America is too deter¬ 
mined, and Spain is too feeble. The only 
possible result of so unhappy an event would 
be, to exhibit the wretched spectacle of j 
beggary, plunder, bloodshed, and alternate | 
anarchy and despotism in a country almost 
depopulated. It may require time to give 
firmness to native governments; but it is 
impossible that a Spanish one should ever 
again acquire it. 

Sir, I am far from foretelling that the 
American nations will not speedily and com- j 
pletely subdue the agitations which are in j 
some degree, perhaps, inseparable from a j 
struggle for independence. I have no such 
gloomy forebodings ; though even if I were 














MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


768 


to yield to them, I should not speak the 
language once grateful to the ears of this 
House, if I were not to say that the chance 
of liberty is worth the agitations of centuries. 
If any Englishman were to speak opposite 
doctrines to these rising communities, the 
present power and prosperity and glory of 
England would enable them to detect his 
slavish sophistry. As a man, I trust that 
the virtue and fortune of these American 
states will spare them many of the suffer¬ 
ings which appear to be the price set on 
liberty ; but as a Briton, I am desirous that 
we should aid them by early treating them 
with that honour and kindness which the 
justice, humanity, valour, and magnanimity 
which they have displayed in the prosecu¬ 
tion of the noblest object of human pursuit, 
have so well deserved. 

To conclude :—the delay of the recog¬ 
nition is not due to Spain : it is injurious to 
America: it is inconvenient to all European 
nations, — and only most inconvenient to 
Great Britain, because she has a greater 
intercourse with America than any other 
nation. I would not endanger the safety 
of my own country for the advantage of 
others; I would not violate the rules of 
duty to *p rom ote its interest; I would not 
take unlawful means even for the purpose 


of diffusing liberty among men; I would 
not violate neutrality to serve America, nor 
commit injustice to extend the commerce of 
England : but I would do an act, consistent 
with neutrality, and warranted by impartial 
justice, tending to mature the liberty and to 
consolidate the internal quiet of a vast con¬ 
tinent,—to increase the probability of the 
benefits of free and just government being 
attained by a great portion of mankind,— 
to procure for England the honour of a be¬ 
coming sharejn contributing to so unspeak¬ 
able a blessing,—to prevent the dictators of 
Europe from becoming the masters of the 
New World, — to re-establish some balance 
of opinions and force, by placing the re¬ 
publics of America, with the wealth and 
maritime power of the world, in the scale 
opposite to that of the European Allies, — 
to establish beyond the Atlantic an asylum 
which may preserve, till happier times, the 
remains of the Spanish name, — to save na¬ 
tions, who have already proved their gene¬ 
rous spirit, from becoming the slaves of the 
Holy Alliance,— and to rescue sixteen mil¬ 
lions of American Spaniards from sharing 
with their European brethren that sort of 
law and justice, — of peace and order,— 
which now prevails from the Pyrenees to 
the Rock of Gibraltar. 


SPEECH 

ON 

THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF CANADA, 

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, ON THE 2d OF MAY, 1828. 


Mr. Speaker, 

I think I may interpret fairly the general 
feeling of the House, when I express my 
congratulations upon the great extent of ta¬ 
lent and information which the Honourable 


Member for St. Michael’s* has just dis¬ 
played, and that I may venture to assert he 


* Mr. [now the Bight Honourable] Henry 
Labouchere. — Ed. 










CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF CANADA. 769 


has given us full assurance, in his future 
progress, of proving a useful and valuable 
member of the Parliament of this country. 
I cannot, also, avoid observing, that the 
laudable curiosity which carried him to visit 
that country whose situation is now the sub¬ 
ject of discussion, and still more the curiosity 
which led him to visit that Imperial Republic 
which occupies the other best portion of the 
American continent, gave evidence of a mind 
actuated by enlarged and liberal views. 

After having presented a Petition signed 
by eighty-seven thousand of the inhabitants 
of Lower Canada — comprehending in that 
number nine-tenths of the heads of families 
in the province, and more than two-thirds of 
its landed proprietors, and after having shown 
that the Petitioners had the greatest causes 
of complaint against the administration of the 
government in that colony, it would be an 
act of inconsistency on my part to attempt 
to throw any obstacle in the way of that 
inquiry which the Right Honourable Gentle¬ 
man * proposes. It might seem, indeed, a 
more natural course on my part, if I had 
seconded such a proposition. Perhaps I 
might have been contented to give a silent 
acquiescence in the appointment of a com¬ 
mittee, and to reserve any observations I 
may have to offer until some specific measure 
is proposed, or until the House is in posses¬ 
sion of the information which may be pro¬ 
cured through the labours of the committee, 
— perhaps, I say, I might have been disposed 
to adopt this course if I had not been en¬ 
trusted with the presentation of that Peti¬ 
tion. But I feel bound by a sense of the 
trust reposed in me to allow no opportunity 
to pass over of calling the attention of the 
House to the grievances of the Petitioners, 
and to their claims for redress and for the 
maintenance of their legitimate rights. This 
duty I hold myself bound to execute, accord¬ 
ing to the best of my ability, without sacri- 


* Mr. Huskisson, Secretary for the Colonial 
Department, had moved to refer the whole question 
of the already embroiled affairs of the Canadian 
provinces to a Select Committee of the House of 
Commons, which was eventually agreed to. — Ed. 


ficing my judgment, or rendering it subordi¬ 
nate to any sense of duty; — but feeling only 
that the confidence of the Petitioners binds 
me to act on their behalf, and as their ad¬ 
vocate, in precisely the same manner, and to 
the same extent, as if I had been invested 
with another character, and authorised to 
state their complaints in a different situation.* 
To begin then with the speech of the Right 
Honourable Gentleman, I may take leave to 
observe, that in all that was contained in the 
latter part of it he has my fullest and most 
cordial assent. In 1822, when the Cana¬ 
dians were last before the House, I stated 
the principles which ought to be maintained 
with respect to what the Right Honourable 
Gentleman has very properly and very elo¬ 
quently called the “ Great British Confede¬ 
racy.” I hold now, as I did then, that all 
the different portions of that Confederacy 
are integral parts of the British Empire, and 
as such entitled to the fullest protection. I 
hold that they are all bound together as one 
great class, by an alliance prior in import¬ 
ance to every other, — more binding upon 
us than any treaty ever entered into with 
any state, — the fulfilment of which we can 
never desert without the sacrifice of a great 
moral duty. I hold that it can be a matter 
of no moment, in this bond of alliance, whe¬ 
ther the parties be divided by oceans or be 
neighbours: I hold that the moral bond of 
duty and protection is the same. My maxims 
of Colonial Policy are few and simple : — a 
full and efficient protection from all foreign 
influence; full permission to conduct the 
whole of their own internal affairs; com¬ 
pelling them to pay all the reasonable ex¬ 
penses of their own government, and giving 
them at the same time a perfect control over 
the expenditure of the money; and imposing 
no restrictions of any kind upon the industry 
or traffic of the people. These are the only 
means by which the hitherto almost incurable 
evil of distant government can be either 


* This alludes to his nomination some time pre¬ 
viously by the House of Assembly of Lower Canada 
as the Agent of the Province, which nomination 
had not however taken effect. — Ed. 
















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


770 


mitigated or removed. And it may be a 
matter of doubt, whether in sueh circum¬ 
stances the colonists would not be under a 
more gentle control, and in a happier state, 
than if they were to be admitted to a full 
participation in the rule, and brought under 
the immediate and full protection, of the 
parent government. I agree most fully with 
the Honourable Gentleman who spoke last, 
when he expressed a wish that we should 
leave the regulation of the internal affairs of 
the colonies to the colonists, except in cases 
of the most urgent and manifest necessity. 
The most urgent and manifest necessity, I 
say; and few and rare ought to be the ex¬ 
ceptions to the rule even upon the strength 
of those necessities. 

Under these circumstances of right I con¬ 
tend it is prudent to regard all our colonies, 
and peculiarly the population of these two 
great provinces; — provinces placed in one 
of those rare and happy states of society in 
which the progress of population must be re¬ 
garded as a blessing to mankind, — exempt 
from the curse of fostering slavery,—exempt 
from the evils produced by the contentions 
of jarring systems of religion, — enjoying 
the blessings of universal toleration, — and 
presenting a state of society the most unlike 
that can possibly be imagined to the fastidi¬ 
ous distinctions of Europe. Exempt at once 
from the slavery of the West, and the castes 
of the East, — exempt, too, from the embar¬ 
rassments of that other great continent which 
we have chosen as a penal settlement, and in 
which the prejudices of society have been 
fostered, I regret to find, in a most unreason¬ 
able degree, — exempt from all the artificial 
distinctions of the Old World, and many of 
the evils of the New, we see a great popula¬ 
tion rapidly growing up to be a great nation. 
None of the claims of such a population 
ought to be cast aside; and none of their 
complaints can receive any but the most 
serious consideration. 

In the first part of his speech the Right 
Honourable Gentleman declared, that the 
excesses and complaints of the colonists arose 
from the defect of their constitution, and 
next from certain contentions into which they 


had fallen with Lord Dalhousie. In any 
thing I may say on this occasion, I beg to 
be understood as not casting any imputation 
upon the character of that Noble Lord: I 
speak merely of the acts of his Government; 
and I wish solely to be understood as saying, 
that my opinion of the acts of that Govern¬ 
ment are different from those which I believe 
to have been conscientiously his. 

I, however, must say, that I thought the 
Right Honourable Gentleman in one part of 
his address had indulged himself in some 
pleasantries which seemed ill suited to the 
subject to which he claimed our attention ; 
— I allude to the three essential grievances 
which he seemed to imagine led to many, if 
not all, of the discontents and complaints of 
the colonists. There was the perplexed sys¬ 
tem of real* property-law, creating such a 
vexatious delay, and such enormous costs to 
the suitor as to amount very nearly to a 
denial of justice: this, he said, arose from 
adhering to the Custom of Paris. The next 
cause of discontent is the inadequate repre¬ 
sentation of the people in Parliament: that 
he recommended to the immediate attention 
of the committee, for the purpose of revision. 
Lastly, the members of the Legislature were 
so absurdly ignorant of the first principles of 
political economy, as to have attempted to 
exclude all the industry and capital of other 
countries from flowing in to enrich and fer¬ 
tilise their shores. These were the three 
grounds upon which he formally impeached 
the people of Canada before the Knights, 
Citizens, and Burgesses of Great Britain and 
Ireland in Parliament assembled. 

Did the Right Honourable Gentleman 
never hear of any other system of law, in 
any other country than Canada, in which 
a jumble of obsolete usages were mixed 
up and confounded with modern subtleties, 
until the mind of the most acute men of the 
age and nation — men who had, in a ser¬ 
vice of forty years, passed through every 
stage of its gradations — were driven to 
declare that they felt totally unable to find 
their way through its labyrinths, and were 
compelled, by their doubts of what was law 
and what was not, to add in a most ruinous 















CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF CANADA. 771 


degree to the expenses of the suitor ? This 
system has been called the “ Common Law,” 
— “the wisdom of our ancestors,” — and 
various other venerable names. Did he 
never hear of a system of representation in 
any other country totally irreconcileable 
either with the state of the population or 
with any rule or principle under heaven ? 
Have I not heard over and over again from 
the lips of the Right Honourable Gentle¬ 
man, and from one* whom, alas! I shall 
hear no more, that this inadequate system 
of representation possessed extraordinary 
advantages over those more systematic con¬ 
trivances which resulted from the studies of 
the “ constitution-makers ” of other coun¬ 
tries ? And yet it is for this very irregu¬ 
larity in their mode of representation that 
the Canadians are now to be brought before 
the judgment of the Right Honourable 
Gentleman’s committee. I felt still greater 
wonder, however, when I heard him men¬ 
tion his third ground of objection to the 
proceedings of the colonists, and his third 
cause of their discontent — their ignorance 
of political economy. Too surely the laws 
for the exclusion of the capital and industry 
of other countries did display the grossest 
ignorance of that science! I should not 
much wonder if I heard of the Canadians 
devising plans to prevent the entrance of a 
single grain of foreign corn into the pro¬ 
vinces. I should not wonder to hear the 
members of their Legislature and their 
great landowners contending that it was 
absolutely necessary that the people should 
be able to raise all their own food ; and con¬ 
sequently (although, perhaps, they do not 
see the consequences) to make every other 
nation completely independent of their pro¬ 
ducts and their industry. It is perhaps 
barely possible that some such nonsense as 
this might be uttered in the legislative as¬ 
sembly of the Canadians. 

Then again, Sir, the Right Honourable 
Gentleman has alluded to the Seigneurs and 
their vassals. Some of these “ most potent, 
grave, and reverend ” Seigneurs may happen 


* Mr. Canning. — Ed. 


to be jealous of their manorial rights: for 
seigneuralty means manor, and a seigneur is 
only, therefore, a lord of the manor. How 
harmless this lofty word seems to be when 
translated! Some of these Seigneurs might 
happen, I say, to be jealous of their manorial 
privileges, and anxious for the preservation 
of their game. I am a very bad sportsman 
myself, and not well acquainted with the 
various objects of anxiety to such persons; 
but there may be, too, in these colonies also, 
persons who may take upon themselves to 
institute a rigorous inquiry into the state 
of their game, and into the best methods of 
preserving red game and black game, and 
pheasants and partridges; and who might 
be disposed to make it a question whether 
any evils arise from the preservation of these 
things for their sport, or whether the safety, 
the liberty, and the life of their fellow- 
subjects ought not to be sacrificed for their 
personal gratification. 

With regard to the observance of the 
Custom of Paris, I beg the House to con¬ 
sider that no change was effected from 1760 
to 1789; and (although I admit with the 
Right Honourable Gentleman that it may 
be bad as a system of conveyance, and may 
be expensive on account of the difficulties 
produced by mortgages) that the Canadians 
cannot be very ill off under a code of laws 
which grew up under the auspices of the 
Parliament of Paris — a body comprising 
the greatest learning and talent ever brought 
to the study of the law, and boasting the 
names of L’Hopital and Montesquieu. 

Neither can it be said, that the Assembly 
of Canada was so entirely indifferent to its 
system of representation: for it ought to 
be recollected, that they passed a bill to 
amend it, which was thrown out by the 
Council, — that is, in fact, by the Govern¬ 
ment. At all events, this shows that there 
was no want of a disposition to amend the 
state of their representation ; although Go¬ 
vernment might differ from them as to the 
best method of accomplishing it. A bill for 
establishing the independence of the judges 
was another remedial measure thrown out 
by the Upper House. 


3D 2 









772 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


As at present informed, however, without 
going further into these questions, I see 
enough stated in the Petition upon the 
table of the House to justify the appointment 
of a committee of inquiry. 

In every country, Sir, the wishes of the 
greater number of the inhabitants, and of 
those in possession of the great mass of the 
property, ought to have great influence in 
the government; — they ought to possess 
the power of the government. If this be 
true generally, the rule ought, a multo 
fortiori , to be followed in the government 
of distant colonies, from which the inform¬ 
ation that is to guide the Government at 
home is sent by a few, and is never correct 
or complete. A Government on the spot, 
though with the means of obtaining correct 
information, is exposed to the delusions of 
prejudice: — for a Government at a dis¬ 
tance, the only safe course to pursue is to 
follow public opinion. In making the prac¬ 
tical application of this principle, if I find 
the Government of any country engaged in 
squabbles with the great mass of the people, 
— if I find it engaged in vexatious contro- 
versies and ill-timed disputes, — especially 
if that Government be the Government of a 
colony, — I say, that there is a reasonable 
presumption against that Government. I do 
not charge it with injustice, but I charge it 
with imprudence and indiscretion; and I say 
that it is unfit to hold the authority entrusted 
to it. The ten years of squabbles and hos¬ 
tility which have existed in this instance, are 
a sufficient charge against this Government. 

I was surprised to hear the Right Ho¬ 
nourable Gentleman put the People and the 
Government on the same footing in this 
respect. What is government good for, if 
not to temper passion with wisdom ? The 
People are said to be deficient in certain 
qualities, and a Government are said to 
possess them. If the People are not de¬ 
ficient in them, it is a fallacy to talk of the 
danger of entrusting them with political 
power: if they are deficient, where is the 
common sense of exacting from them that 
moderation which government is instituted 
for the very purpose of supplying? 


Taking this to be true as a general prin¬ 
ciple, it cannot be false in its application to 
the question before the House. As I un¬ 
derstand it, the House of Assembly has a 
right to appropriate the supplies which 
itself has granted. The House of Com¬ 
mons knows well how to appreciate that 
right, and should not quarrel with the 
House of Assembly for indulging in a 
similar feeling. The Right Honourable 
Gentleman himself admits the existence of 
this right. The Governor-General has, 
however, infringed it, by appropriating a 
sum of one hundred and forty thousand 
pounds without the authority of the As¬ 
sembly. That House does not claim to ap¬ 
propriate the revenue raised under the Act 
of 1774: they only claim a right to examine 
the items of the appropriation in order to 
ascertain if the Government need any fresh 
supplies. The Petitioners state it as one 
of their not unimaginary grievances, that 
they have lost one hundred thousand pounds 
by the neglect of the Receiver-General. 
This is not one of those grievances which 
are said to arise from the Assembly’s claim 
of political rights. Another dispute arises 
from the Governor-General claiming, in 
imitation of the power of the King, a right 
to confirm the Speaker of the House of 
Assembly. This right, — a very ancient 
one, and venerable from its antiquity and 
from being an established fact of an excel¬ 
lent constitution at home, — is a most ab¬ 
surd adjunct to a colonial government. But 
I will not investigate the question, nor 
enter into any legal argument with regard 
to it; for no discussion ean in any case, as 
I feel, be put in competition with the feel¬ 
ings of a whole people. It is a fatal error 
in the rulers of a country to despise the 
people: its safety, honour, and strength, 
are best preserved by consulting their wishes 
and feelings. The Government at Quebec, 
despising such considerations, has been long 
engaged in a scuffle with the people, and 
has thought hard words and hard blows not 
inconsistent with its dignity. 

1 observe, Sir, that twenty-one bills were 
passed by the House of Assembly in 1827, 








CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF CANADA. 773 


—most of them reformatory, — of which not 
one was approved of by the Legislative 
Council. Is the Governor responsible for 
this ? I answer, he is. The Council is no¬ 
thing else but his tool: it is not, as at present 
constituted, a fair and just constitutional 
check between the popular assembly and the 
Governor. Of the twenty-seven Councillors, 
seventeen hold places under the Govern¬ 
ment at pleasure, dividing among themselves 
yearly fifteen thousand pounds, which is not 
a small sum in a country in which a thousand 
a-year is a large income for a country gen¬ 
tleman. I omit the Bishop, who is perhaps 
rather too much inclined to authority, but 
is of a pacific character. The minority, worn 
out in their fruitless resistance, have with¬ 
drawn from attendance on the Council. Two 
of them, being the most considerable land¬ 
holders in the province, were amongst the 
subscribers to the Petition. I appeal to the 
House, if the Canadians are not justified in 
considering the very existence of this Coun¬ 
cil as a constitutional grievance ? 

It has been said that there is no aristocracy 
formed in the province. It is not possible 
that this part of Mr. Pitt’s plan could ever 
have been carried into execution: an aris¬ 
tocracy — the creature of time and opinion 
— cannot be created. But men of great 
merit and superior qualifications get an in¬ 
fluence over the people; and they form a 
species of aristocracy, differing, indeed, from 
one of birth and descent, but supplying the 
materials out of which a constitutional senate 
may be constituted. Such an aristocracy 
there is in Canada; but it is excluded from 
the Council. 

There are then, Sir, two specific classes of 
grievances complained of by the Lower Ca¬ 
nadians : the first is, the continued hostility 
to all the projected measures of the Assembly 
by the Governor; the second is, the use he 
makes of the Council to oppose them. These 
are the grounds on which inquiry and change 
are demanded. I, however, do not look upon 
these circumstances alone as peremptorily 
requiring a change in the constitution of the 
province. These are wrongs which the Go¬ 
vernment might have remedied. It might 


have selected a better Council; and it might 
have sent out instructions to the Governor 
to consult the feelings of the people. It 
might have pointed out to him the example 
of a Government which gave way to the 
wishes of a people, — of a majority of the 
people, expressed by a majority of their re¬ 
presentatives, — on a question, too, of reli¬ 
gious liberty*, and instead of weakening 
themselves, had thereby more firmly seated 
themselves in the hearts of the people. On 
reviewing the whole question, the only prac¬ 
tical remedy which I see, is to introduce 
more prudence and discretion into the coun¬ 
sels of the Administration of the Province. 

The Right Honourable Gentleman has 
made allusion to the English settlers in Lower 
Canada, as if they were oppressed by the 
natives. But I ask what law has been passed 
by the Assembly that is unjust to them ? Is 
it as a remedy for this that it is proposed to 
change the scheme of representation ? The 
English inhabitants of Lower Canada, with 
some few exceptions, collected in towns as 
merchants or the agents of merchants, — very 
respectable persons, I have no doubt, — 
amount to about eighty thousand : would it 
not be the height of injustice to give them 
the same influence which the four hundred 
thousand Canadians, from their numbers and 
property, ought to possess ? Sir, when I 
hear of an inquiry on account of measures 
necessary to protect English settlers, I greatly 
lament that any such language should have 
been used. Are we to have an English co¬ 
lony in Canada separated from the rest of 
the inhabitants,—a favoured body, with pe¬ 
culiar privileges ? Shall they have a sym¬ 
pathy with English sympathies and English 
interests ? And shall we deal out to Canada 
six hundred years of such miseries as we 
have to Ireland ? Let us not, in God’s name, 
introduce such curses into another region. 
Let our policy be to give all the King’s sub¬ 
jects in Canada equal law and equal justice. 
I cannot listen to unwise distinctions, gene¬ 
rating alarm, and leading to nothing but 
evil, without adverting to them ; and I shall 


* Alluding to the repeal of the Test Act. — Ed. 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


774 

be glad if my observations supply the Gen¬ 
tlemen opposite with the opportunity of 
disavowing, — knowing, as I do, that the 
disavowal will be sincere, — that any such 
distinction is to be kept up. 

As to Upper Canada, the statement of the 
Right Honourable Gentleman appears to be 
scanty in information: it does not point out, 
—as is usual in proposing such a Committee, 
—what is to be the termination of the change 
proposed. He has thrown out two or three 
plans ; but he has also himself supplied ob¬ 
jections to them. The Assembly there ap¬ 
pears to be as independent as the one in the 
Lower Province. I have heard of some of 
their measures — an Alien bill, a Catholic bill, 
and a bill for regulating the Press : and these 
discussions were managed with as much spi¬ 
rit as those of an assembly which I will not 
say is better, but which has the good fortune 
to be their superiors. The people have been 
much disappointed by the immense grants 
of land which have been reserved for the 
Church of England,—which faith is not that 
of the majority of the people. Such endow¬ 
ments are to be held sacred where they have 
been long made; but I do not see the pro¬ 
priety of creating them anew, — and for a 
Church, too, to which the majority of the 
people do not belong. Then, with regard to 
the regulations which have been made for 
the new college, I see with astonishment 
that, in a country where the majority of the 
people do not belong to the Church of Eng¬ 
land, the professors are all to subscribe to 
the Thirty-nine articles: so that, if Dr. Adam 
Smith were alive, he could not fill the chair 
of political economy, and Dr. Black would 
be excluded from that of chemistry. Another 
thing should be considered: — a large por¬ 


tion of the population consist of American 
settlers, who can least of all men- bear the 
intrusion of law into the domains of con¬ 
science and religion. It is a bad augury for 
the welfare of the province, that opinions 
prevalent at the distance of thousands of 
miles, are to be the foundations of the col¬ 
lege-charter : it is still worse, if they be only 
the opinions of a faction, that we cannot in¬ 
terfere to correct the injustice. 

To the proposed plan for the union of the 
two provinces there are so many and such 
powerful objections, that I scarcely think 
that such a measure can soon be successfully 
concluded. The Bill proposed in 1822, 
whereby the bitterness of the Lower Canada 
Assembly was to be mitigated by an’infusion 
of mildness from the Upper Province, — 
failing as it did,—has excited general alarm 
and mistrust among all your colonies. Ex¬ 
cept that measure, which ought to be looked 
upon as a warning rather than a precedent, 
I think the grounds upon which we have now 
been called upon to interfere the scantiest 
that ever were exhibited. 

I do not know, Sir, what other plans are 
to be produced, but I think the wisest mea¬ 
sure would be to send out a temperate Go¬ 
vernor, with instructions to be candid, and 
to supply him with such a Council as will 
put an end to the present disputes, and in¬ 
fuse a better spirit into the administration 
than it has known for the last ten years. I 
wish, however, to state, that I have not come 
to a final judgment, but have merely de¬ 
scribed what the bearing of my mind is on 
those general maxims of colonial policy, any 
deviation from which is as inconsistent with 
national policy as it is with national justice. 







SPEECH 

ON MOVING 

FOR PAPERS RELATIVE TO THE AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL, 

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OE COMMONS, ON THE 1ST OF JUNE, 1829. 


Mr. Speaker, 

I think it will be scarcely necessary for 
any man who addresses the House from that 
part of it where I generally sit, to disclaim 
any spirit of party opposition to His Ma¬ 
jesty’s Ministers during the present session. 
My own conduct in dealing with the motion 
which I regret that it is now my painful 
duty to bring forward, affords, I believe I 
may say, a pretty fair sample of the principle 
and feeling which have guided all my friends 
in the course they have adopted since the 
very first day of this Session, when I inti¬ 
mated my intention to call public attention 
to the present subject. For the first two 
months of the session, I considered myself 
and my political friends as acting under a 
sacred and irresistible obligation not to do 
anything which might appear even to ruffle 
the surface of that hearty and complete co¬ 
operation which experience has proved to 
have beeh not more than necessary to the 
success of that grand healing measure* 
brought forward by His Majesty’s Ministers, 
— that measure which I trust and believe 
will be found the most beneficent ever 
adopted by Parliament since the period 
when the happy settlement of a Parliament¬ 
ary and constitutional crown on the House 
of Brunswick, not only preserved the consti¬ 
tution of England, but struck a death-blow 
against all pretensions to unbounded power 
and indefeasible title throughout the world. 
I cannot now throw off the feelings that 


* The Bill for removing the Roman Catholic 
disabilities. 


actuated me in the course of the contest by 
means of which this great measure has been 
effected. I cannot so soon forget that I 
have fought by the side of the Gentlemen 
opposite for the attainment of that end. 
Such are my feelings upon the present oc¬ 
casion, that while I will endeavour to dis¬ 
charge my duty, as I feel no hostility, so I 
shall assume no appearance of acrimony. 
At the same time, I trust my conduct will 
be found to be at an immeasurable dis¬ 
tance from that lukewarmness, which, on a 
question of national honour, and in the 
cause of the defenceless, I should hold to be 
aggravated treachery. I am influenced by 
a solicitude that the councils of England 
should be and should seem unspotted, not 
only at home, but in the eye of the people as 
well as the riders of Europe, — by a desire 
for an explanation of measures which have 
ended in plunging our most ancient ally into 
the lowest depths of degradation, — by a 
warm and therefore jealous regard to na¬ 
tional honour, which in my judgment con¬ 
sists still more in not doing or abetting, or 
approaching, or conniving at wrong to 
others, than in the spirit never tamely to 
brook wrong done to ourselves. 

I hold it, Sir, as a general principle to be 
exceedingly beneficial and wholesome, that 
the attention of the House should be some¬ 
times drawn to the state of our foreign re¬ 
lations : and this for the satisfaction of the 
people of England; — in the first place, in 
order to assure them that proper care is 
taken for the maintenance of peace and 
security; — above all, to convince them that 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


776 


care is taken of the national honour, the 
best, and indeed only sufficient guard of 
that peace and security. I regard such dis¬ 
cussions as acts of courtesy due to our 
fellow-members of the great commonwealth 
of European states; more particularly now 
that some of them are bound to us by kin¬ 
dred ties of liberty, and by the possession 
of institutions similar to our own. Two of 
our neighbouring states,—one our closest and 
most congenial ally,—the other, in times less 
happy, our most illustrious antagonist, but 
in times to come our most illustrious rival 
— have adopted our English institutions 
of limited monarchy and representative as¬ 
semblies : may they consolidate and perpe¬ 
tuate their wise alliance between authority 
and freedom! The occasional discussions 
of Foreign Policy in such assemblies will, I 
believe, in spite of cross accidents and in¬ 
temperate individuals, prove on the whole, 
and in the long-run, favourable to good-will 
and good understanding between nations, 
by gradually softening prejudices, by lead¬ 
ing to public and satisfactory explanations 
of ambiguous acts, and even by affording a 
timely vent to jealousies and resentments. 
They will, I am persuaded, root more deeply 
that strong and growing passion for peace, 
which, whatever may be the projects or in¬ 
trigues of Cabinets, is daily spreading in the 
hearts of European nations, and which, let 
me add, is the best legacy bequeathed to us 
by the fierce wars which have desolated 
Europe from Copenhagen to Cadiz. They 
will foster this useful disposition, through 
the most generous sentiments of human na¬ 
ture, instead of attempting to attain the 
same end by under-rating the resources or 
magnifying the difficulties of any single 
country, at a moment when distress is felt 
by all: — attempts more likely to rouse and 
provoke the just sense of national dignity 
which belongs to great and gallant nations, 
than to check their boldness or to damp their 
spirit. 

If anything was wanting to strengthen my 
passion for peace, it would draw new vigour 
from the dissuasive against war which I 
heard fall with such weight from the lips 


of him*, of whom alone in the two thousand 
years that have passed since Scipio defeated 
Hannibal at Zama, it can be said, that in a 
single battle he overthrew the greatest of 
commanders. I thought, at the moment, of 
verses written and sometimes quoted for 
other purposes, but characteristic of a dis¬ 
suasive, which derived its weight from so 
many victories, and of the awful lesson taught 
by the fate of his mighty antagonist: — 

“ Si admoveris ora, 

Cannas et Trebiam ante oculos, Thrasymenaque 
busta, 

Et Pauli stare ingentem miraberis umbram.” f 

Actuated by a passion for peace, I own 
that I am as jealous of new guarantees of 
foreign political arrangements, as I should 
-be resolute in observing the old. I object 
to them as multiplying the chances of war. 
And I deprecate virtual, as well as express 
ones : for such engagements may be as much 
contracted by acts as by words. To pro¬ 
claim by our measures, or our language, that 
the preservation of the integrity of a parti¬ 
cular state is to be introduced as a principle 
into the public policy of Europe, is in truth 
to form a new, and perhaps universal, even 
if only a virtual, guarantee. I will not 
affect to conceal that I allude to our pecu¬ 
liarly objectionable guarantee of the Otto¬ 
man empire.]; I cannot see the justice of 
a policy, which would doom to perpetual 
barbarism and barrenness the eastern and 
southern shores of the Mediterranean,—the 
fair and famous lands which wind from the 
Euxine to the Atlantic. I recoil from thus 
riveting the Turkish yoke on the neck of 
the Christian nations of Asia Minor, of 
Mesopotamia, of Syria, and of Egypt; en¬ 
couraged as they are on the one hand to 
hope for deliverance by the example of 
Greece, and sure that the barbarians will 
be provoked, by the same example, to mal¬ 
treat them with tenfold cruelty. It is in 

* Alluding to a passage contained in a speech 
of the Duke of Wellington on the Catholic Relief 
Bill. — Ed. 

t Pharsalia, lib. vii. — Ed. 

X Which formed part of the basis of the arrange¬ 
ments for liberating Greece. — Ed. 













ON THE AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. 777 


vain to distinguish in this case between a 
guarantee against foreign enemies, and one 
against internal revolt. If all the Powers 
of Europe be pledged by their acts to pro¬ 
tect the Turkish territory from invasion, the 
unhappy Christians of the East must look 
on all as enemies ; while the Turk, relieved 
from all foreign fear, is at perfect liberty to 
tyrannise over his slaves. The Christians 
must despair, not only of aid, but even of 
good-will, from states whose interest it will 
become, that a Government which they are 
bound to shield from abroad should be un¬ 
disturbed at home. Such a guarantee can¬ 
not be long enforced; it will shortly give 
rise to the very dangers against which it is 
intended to guard. The issue will assuredly, 
in no long time, be, that the great military 
Powers of the neighbourhood, when they 
come to the brink of war with each other, 
will recur to their ancient secret of avoiding 
a quarrel, by fairly cutting up the prey that 
lies at their feet. They will smile at the 
credulity of those more distant states, whose 
strength, however great, is neither of the 
kind, nor within the distance, which would 
enable them to prevent the partition. But 
of this, perhaps, too much. 

The case of Portugal touches us more 
nearly. It is that of a country connected 
with England by treaty for four hundred 
and fifty years, without the interruption of 
a single day’s coldness, — with which we 
have been connected by a treaty of guarantee 
for more than a century, without ever hav¬ 
ing been drawn into war, or exposed to the 
danger of it, — which, on the other hand, 
for her stedfast faith to England, has been 
three times invaded— in 1760, in 1801, and 
in 1807, — and the soldiers of which have 
fought for European independence, when it 
was maintained by our most renowned cap¬ 
tains against Louis XIY. and Napoleon. It 
is a connexion which in length and intimacy 
the history of mankind cannot match. All 
other nations have learnt to regard our as¬ 
cendant, and their attachment, as two of the 
elements of the European system. May I 
venture to add, that Portugal preceded us, 
though but for a short period, in the com¬ 


mand of the sea, and that it is the country 
of the greatest poet who has employed his 
genius in celebrating nautical enterprise ? 

Such is the country which has fallen under 
the yoke of an usurper, whose private crimes 
rather remind us of the age of Commodus 
and Caracalla, than of the level mediocrity 
of civilised vice, — who appears before the 
whole world with the deep brand on his brow 
of a pardon from his king and father for a 
parricide rebellion,—who has waded to the 
throne through a succession of frauds, false¬ 
hoods, and perjuries, for which any man 
amenable to the law would have suffered the 
most disgraceful, — if not the last punish¬ 
ment. Meanwhile the lawful sovereign, 
Donna Maria II., received by His Majesty 
with parental kindness, — by the British na¬ 
tion with the interest due to her age, and 
sex, and royal dignity, — solemnly recog¬ 
nised by the British Government as Queen 
of Portugal, — whom all the great Powers 
of Europe once co-operated to place on her 
throne, continues still to be an exile ; though 
the very acts by which she is unlawfully 
dispossessed are outrages and indignities 
of the highest nature against these Powers 
themselves. 

His Majesty has twice told his Parliament 
that he has been compelled, by this alike 
perfidious and insolent usurpation, to break 
off all diplomatic intercourse with Portugal. 
Europe has tried the Usurper. Europe is 
determined that under his sway the usual 
relations of amity and courtesy cannot be 
kept up with a once illustrious and still re¬ 
spectable nation. So strong a mark of the 
displeasure of all European rulers has never 
yet been set on any country in time of peace. 
It would be a reflection on them, to doubt 
that they have been in some measure in¬ 
fluenced by those unconfuted — I might 
say, uncontradicted — charges of monstrous 
crimes which hang over the head of the 
Usurper. His crimes, public and private, 
have brought on her this unparalleled dis¬ 
honour. Never before were the crimes of a 
ruler the avowed and sufficient ground of so 
severe a visitation on a people. It is, there¬ 
fore, my public duty to state them here; 












MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


778 


.and I cannot do so in soft words, without 
injustice to Portugal and disgrace to myself. 
In a case touching our national honour, in 
relation to our conduct towards a feeble 
ally, and to the unmatched ignominy which 
has now befallen her, I must use the utmost 
frankness of speech. 

I must inquire what are the causes of this 
fatal issue ? Has the fluctuation of British 
policy had any part in it ? Can we safely 
say that we have acted not merely with 
literal fidelity to engagements, but with ge¬ 
nerous support to those who risked all in 
reliance on us, — with consistent friendship 
towards a people who put their trust in us, 
— with liberal good faith to a monarch 
whom we acknowledge as lawful, and who 
has taken irretrievable steps in consequence 
of our apparent encouragement ? The mo¬ 
tion with which I shall conclude, will be for 
an address to obtain answers to these im¬ 
portant questions, by the production of the 
principal despatches and documents relating 
to Portuguese affairs, from the summer of 
1826 to the present moment; whether ori¬ 
ginating at London, at Lisbon, at Vienna, 
at Bio Janeiro, or at Terceira. 

As a ground for such a motion, I am 
obliged, Sir, to state at some length, though 
as shortly as I can, the events on which 
these documents may throw the needful 
light. In this statement I shall first lighten 
my burden by throwing overboard the pre¬ 
tended claim of Miguel to the crown, under 
I know not what ancient laws : not that I 
have not examined it *, and found it to be 
altogether absurd; but because he renoun¬ 
ced it by repeated oaths,—because all the 
Towers of Europe recognised another set¬ 
tlement of the Portuguese crown, and took 
measures, though inadequate ones, to carry 
it into effect, — because His Majesty has 
withdrawn his minister from Lisbon, in ac¬ 
knowledgment of Donna Maria’s right. I 
content myself with these authorities, as, in 
this place, indisputable. In the perform¬ 
ance of my duty, I shall have to relate facts 
which I have heard from high authority, and 

* See the Case of Donna Maria. — Ed. 


to quote copies, which I consider as accu¬ 
rate, of various despatches and minutes. I 
believe the truth of what I shall relate, and 
the correctness of what I shall quote. I 
shall be corrected wheresoever I may chance 
to be misinformed. I owe no part of my in¬ 
telligence to any breach of duty. The House 
will not wonder that many copies of docu¬ 
ments interesting to multitudes of men, in 
the disastrous situation of some of the parties, 
should have been scattered over Europe. 

I pass over the revolution of 1820, when 
a democratical monarchy was adopted. The 
principles of its best adherents have been 
modified by the reform of 1826 : its basest 
leaders are now among the tools of the 
Usurper, while he proscribes the loyal suf¬ 
ferers of that period. I mention only in 
passing the Treaty of Rio Janeiro, com¬ 
pleted in August, 1825, by which Brazil 
was separated from Portugal, under the 
mediation of England and Austria;—the 
result of negotiations in which Sir Charles 
Stuart (now Lord Stuart de Rothesay), one 
of the most distinguished of British diplo¬ 
matists, acted as the plenipotentiary of Por¬ 
tugal. In the following spring, John VI., 
the late King of Portugal, died, after hav¬ 
ing, in the ratification of the treaty, acknow¬ 
ledged Dom Pedro as his heir. It was a 
necessary interpretation of that treaty that 
the latter was not to continue King of Por¬ 
tugal in his own right, but only for the 
purpose of separating and settling the two 
kingdoms. He held Portugal in trust, and 
only till he had discharged this trust: for 
that purpose some time was necessary; the 
duration could not be precisely defined; 
but it was sufficient that there should ap¬ 
pear no symptom of bad faith, — no appear¬ 
ance of an intention to hold it longer than 
the purposes of the trust absolutely required. 
For these purposes, and for that time, he 
was as much King of Portugal as his fore¬ 
fathers ; and as such was recognised by 
all Europe, with the exception of Spain, 
which did not throw the discredit of her 
recognition on his title. 

To effect the separation safely and bene¬ 
ficially for both countries, Dom Pedro abdi- 
















ON THE AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. 779 


cated the crown of Portugal in favour of his 
daughter Donna Maria, who was to be 
affianced to Dom Miguel, on condition of 
his swearing to observe the Constitution at 
the same time bestowed by Dom Pedro on 
the Portuguese nation. With whatever 
pangs he thus sacrificed his daughter, it 
must be owned that no arrangement seemed 
more likely to secure peace between the 
parties who divided Portugal, than the union 
of the chief of the Absolutists with a prin¬ 
cess who became the hope of the Constitu¬ 
tionalists. Various opinions may be formed 
of the fitness of Portugal for a free consti¬ 
tution : but no one can doubt that the 
foundations of tranquillity could be laid 
no otherwise than in the security of each 
party from being oppressed by the other, — 
that a fair distribution of political power 
between them was the only means of shield¬ 
ing either, — and that no such distribution 
could be effected without a constitution 
comprehending all classes and parties. 

In the month of June, 1826, this Consti¬ 
tution was brought to Lisbon by the same 
eminent English minister who had gone from 
that city to Brazil as the plenipotentiary of 
John VI., and who now returned from Rio 
to the Tagus, as the bearer of the Constitu¬ 
tional Charter granted by Dom Pedro. I do 
not meddle with the rumours of dissatis¬ 
faction then produced by that Minister’s 
visit to Lisbon. It is easier to censure at a 
distance, than to decide on a pressing emer¬ 
gency. It doubtless appeared of the utmost 
importance to Sir Charles Stuart, that the 
uncertainty of the Portuguese nation as to 
their form of government should not be 
continued; and that he, a messenger of 
peace, should hasten with its tidings. No 
one can doubt that the people of Portugal 
received such a boon, by such a bearer, as a 
mark of the favourable disposition of the 
British Government towards the Consti¬ 
tution. It is matter of notoriety that many 
of the Nobility were encouraged by this 
seeming approbation of Great Britain pub¬ 
licly to espouse it in a manner which they 
might and would otherwise have considered 
as an useless sacrifice of their own safety. 


Their constitutional principles, however sin¬ 
cere, required no such devotion, without 
those reasonable hopes of success, which 
every mark of the favour of England strongly 
tended to inspire. No diplomatic disavowal 
(a proceeding so apt to be considered as 
merely formal) could, even if it were public, 
which it was not, undo the impression made 
by this act of Sir Charles Stuart. No 
avowal, however public, made six months 
after, of an intention to abstain from all in¬ 
terference in intestine divisions, could re¬ 
place the Portuguese in their first situation: 
they had taken irrevocable steps, and cut 
themselves off from all retreat. 

But this is not all. Unless I be misin¬ 
formed by those who cannot deceive, and 
are most unlikely to be deceived, the pro¬ 
mulgation of the Constitution was suspended 
at Lisbon till the Regency could receive 
advice from His Majesty. The delay lasted 
at least a fortnight. The advice given was, 
to put the Charter in force. I do not know 
the terms of this opinion, or the limitations 
and conditions which might accompany it; 
nor does it import to my reasoning that I 
should. The great practical fact that it was 
asked for, was sure to be published, as it 
instantly was, through all the societies of 
Lisbon. The small accessories were either 
likely to be concealed, or sure to be disre¬ 
garded, by eager and ardent reporters. In 
the rapid succession of governments which 
then appeared at Lisbon, it could not fail to 
be known to every man of information, and 
spread with the usual exaggerations among 
the multitude, that Great Britain had de¬ 
clared for the Constitution. Let it not be 
thought that I mention these acts to blame 
them. They were the good offices of an 
ally. Friendly advice is not undue inter¬ 
ference : it involves no encroachment on in¬ 
dependence,—no departure from neutrality. 
“ Strict neutrality consists merely, first, in 
abstaining from all part in the operations of 
war; and, secondly, in equally allowing or 
forbidding the supply of instruments of war 
to both parties.” * — Neutrality does not 

* Martens, Precis du Droit des Gens, p. 524. 








MACKINTOSH’S l\HSCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


780 


imply indifference. It requires no detest¬ 
able impartiality between right or wrong. 
It consists in an abstinence from certain 
outward acts, well defined by international 
law, — leaving the heart entirely free, and 
the hands at liberty, where they are not 
visibly bound. We violated no neutrality 
in execrating the sale of Corsica, — in loudly 
crying out against the partition of Poland. 
Neutrality did not prevent Mr. Canning 
from almost praying in this House for the 
defeat of the French invasion of Spain. No 
war with France, or Austria, or Prussia, or 
Russia, ensued. Neutrality is not a point, 
but a line extending from the camp of one 
party to the camp of his opponent. It com¬ 
prehends a great variety of shades and 
degrees of good and ill opinion : so that 
there is scope within its technical limits for 
a change from the most friendly to the 
most adverse policy, as long as arms are not 
taken up. 

Soon after, another encouragement of an 
extraordinary nature presented itself to this 
unfortunate people, the atrocious peculi¬ 
arities of which throw into shade its con¬ 
nexion, through subsequent occurrences, 
with the acts of Great Britain. On the 30th 
October following, Dom Miguel, at Vienna, 
first swore to the Constitution, and was con¬ 
sequently affianced by the Pope’s Nuncio, in 
the presence of the Imperial Ministers, to 
Donna Maria, whom he then solemnly ac¬ 
knowledged as Queen of Portugal. This 
was the first of his perjuries. It was a de¬ 
liberate one, for it depended on the issue of 
a Papal dispensation, which required time 
and many formalities. The falsehood had 
every aggravation that can arise from the 
quality of the witnesses, the importance of 
the object which it secured to him, and the 
reliance which he desired should be placed 
on it by this country. At the same moment, 
a rebellion, abetted by Spain, broke out in 
his name, which still he publicly disavowed. 
Two months more, and the perfidy of Spain 
became apparent: the English troops were 
landed in Portugal; the rebels were driven 
from the territory of our ancient friends, by 
one of the most wise, honourable, vigorous, 


and brilliant strokes of policy ever struck 
by England. Mr. Canning delivered Por¬ 
tugal, and thus paid the debt which we owed 
for four centuries of constant faith and 
friendship, — for three invasions and a con¬ 
quest endured in our cause. Still we were 
neutral: but what Portuguese could doubt 
that the nation which had scattered the Ab¬ 
solutists was friendly to the Constitution ? 
No technical rule was broken; but new 
encouragement was unavoidably held out. 
These repeated incentives to a nation’s hopes, 
— these informal but most effective, and 
therefore most binding acts, are those on 
which I lay the stress of this argument, 
still more than on federal and diplomatic 
proceedings. 

There occurred in the following year a 
transaction between the Governments, more 
nearly approaching the nature of a treaty, 
and which, in my humble judgment, partakes 
much of its nature, and imposes its equitable 
and honourable duties. I now come to the 
conferences of Vienna in autumn, 1827. On 
the 3rd of July in that year, Dom Pedro had 
issued an edict by which he approached more 
nearly to an abdication of the crown, and 
nominated Dom Miguel lieutenant of the 
kingdom. This decree had been enforced 
by letters of the same date, — one to Dom 
Miguel, commanding and requiring him to 
execute the office in conformity with the 
Constitution, and others to his allies, the 
Emperor of Austria and the King of Great 
Britain, committing to them as it were the 
execution of his decree, and beseeching them 
to take such measures as should render the 
Constitutional Charter the fundamental law 
of the Portuguese monarchy.* Om these 
conditions, for this purpose, he prayed for 
aid in the establishment of Miguel. In con¬ 
sequence of this decree, measures had been 
immediately taken for a ministerial confer- 


* “ Je supplie V. M. (le m’aider non settlement a 
faire que cette regence entre promptementen fone- 
tions, mais encore a effectuer que la Charte Con- 
stitutionelle octroyee par moi devienne la loi fon- 
damentale du Royaume.” Dom Pedro to the King 
of Great Britain, 3rd July, 1827. 











ON TIIE AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. 781 


ence at Vienna, to concert the means of its 
execution. 

And here, Sir, I must mention one of 
them, as of the utmost importance to both 
branches of my argument; — as an encou¬ 
ragement to the Portuguese, and as a virtual 
engagement with Dom Pedro: and I entreat 
the House to bear in mind the character of 
the transactions of which I am now to speak, 
as it affects both these important points. 
Count Villa Real, at that time in London, 
was appointed, I know not by whom, to act 
as a Portuguese minister at Vienna. Under 
colour of want of time to consult the Prin¬ 
cess Regent at Lisbon, unsigned papers of 
advice, amounting in effect to instructions, 
were put into his hands by an Austrian and 
an English minister. In these papers he was 
instructed to assure Miguel, that by observ¬ 
ing the Constitutional Charter, he would en¬ 
sure the support of England. The tone and 
temper fit to be adopted by Miguel in con¬ 
versations at Paris were pointed out. Count 
Villa Real was more especially instructed to 
urge the necessity of Miguel’s return by 
England. “ His return,” it was said, “ is 
itself an immense guarantee to the Royalists; 
his return through this country will be a 
security to the other party.” Could the 
Nobility and People of Portugal fail to con¬ 
sider so active a part in the settlement of 
their government, as an encouragement from 
their ancient and powerful ally to adhere to 
the Constitution? Is it possible that lan¬ 
guage so remarkable should not speedily have 
spread among them ? May not some of those 
before whose eyes now rises a scaffold have 
been emboldened to act on their opinions by 
encouragement which seemed so flattering ? 

In the month of September, 1827, when 
Europe and America were bewailing the 
death of Mr. Canning, a note was given in at 
Vienna by the Marquess de Rezende, the 
Brazilian minister at that court, containing 
the edict and letters of the 3d of July. The 
ministers of Austria, England, Portugal, and 
Brazil assembled there on the 18th of Oc¬ 
tober. They began by taking the Brazilian 
note and the documents which accompanied 
it, as the basis of their proceedings. It was 


thus acknowledged, solemnly, that Dom Pe¬ 
dro’s title was unimpaired, and his settlement 
of the constitutional crown legitimate. They 
thus also accepted the execution of the trust 
on the conditions under which he committed 
it to them. 

It appears from a despatch of Prince Met- 
ternich to Prince Esterhazy (the copy of 
which was entered on the minutes of the 
conference), that Prince Metternich imme¬ 
diately proceeded to dispose Dom Miguel 
towards a prudent and obedient course. He 
represented to him that Dom Pedro had 
required “ the effectual aid of Austria to 
engage the Infant to submit with entire 
deference to the orders of his brother; ” and 
he added, that “ the Emperor of Austria 
could, in no case, consent to his return 
through Spain, which would be contrary to 
the wishes of Dom Pedro, and to the opinion 
of all the Governments of Europe.” These 
representations were vain: the good offices 
of an August Person were interposed: — 
Miguel continued inflexible. But in an in¬ 
terview, where, if there had been any truth 
in him, he must have uttered it, he sponta¬ 
neously added, that “ he was determined to 
maintain in Portugal the Charter to which 
he had sworn, and that His Majesty might 
be at ease in that respect.” This voluntary 
falsehood, — this daring allusion to his oath, 
amounting virtually to a repetition of it, — 
this promise, made at a moment when ob¬ 
stinacy in other respects gave it a fraudu¬ 
lent credit, deserves to be numbered among 
the most signal of the perjuries by which 
he deluded his subjects, and insulted all 
European sovereigns. 

Prince Metternich, after having consulted 
Sir Henry Wellesley (now Lord Cowley) 
and the other Ministers, “ on the means of 
conquering the resistance of the Infant,” 
determined, conformably (be it remembered), 
with the concurrence of all, to have a last 
and categorical explanation with that Prince. 
“ I declared to him,” says Prince Metter¬ 
nich, “ without reserve, that, in his position, 
he had only to choose between immediately 
going to England on his way to Portugal, or 
waiting at Vienna the further determination 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


782 


of Dom Pedro, to whom the Courts of Lon¬ 
don (be it not forgotten) and Vienna would 
communicate the motives which had induced 
the Infant not immediately to obey his bro¬ 
ther’s orders.” Prince Metternich describes 
the instantaneous effect of this menace of 
further imprisonment with the elaborate 
softness of a courtier and a diplomatist. “ I 
was not slow in perceiving that I had the 
happiness to make a profound impression on 
the mind of the Infant. After some mo¬ 
ments of reflection, he at last yielded to the 
counsels of friendship and of reason.” He 
owned “ that he dreaded a return through 
England, because he knew that there were 
strong prejudices against him in that country, 
and he feared a bad reception there.” He 
did justice to the people of England; — his 
conscious guilt foresaw their just indigna¬ 
tion : but he could not be expected to com¬ 
prehend those higher and more generous 
qualities which disposed them to forget his 
former crimes, in the hope that he was about 
to atone for them by the establishment of 
liberty. Nothing in their own nature taught 
them that it was possible for a being in hu¬ 
man shape to employ the solemn promises 
which deluded them as the means of per¬ 
petrating new and more atrocious crimes. 

Here, Sir, I must pause. Prince Metter¬ 
nich, with the concurrence of the English 
Minister, announced to Miguel, that if he 
did not immediately return to Portugal by 
way of England, he must remain at Vienna 
until Dom Pedro’s further pleasure should 
be known. Reflections here crowd on the 
mind. Miguel had before agreed to main¬ 
tain the Charter: had he hesitated on that 
subject, it is evident that the language used 
to him must have been still more categorical. 
No doubt is hinted on either side of his bro¬ 
ther’s sovereign authority: the whole pro¬ 
ceeding implies it; and in many of its parts 
it is expressly affirmed. He is to be detained 
at Vienna, if he does not consent to go 
through England, in order to persuade the 
whole Portuguese nation of his sincerity, and 
to hold out — in the already quoted words 
of the English Minister — “a security to 
the Constitutional party,” or, in other lan¬ 


guage, the strongest practical assurance to 

them, that he was sent by Austria, and more 
especially by England, to exercise the Re¬ 
gency, on condition of adhering to the Con¬ 
stitution. Whence did this right of im¬ 
prisonment arise? I cannot question it 
without charging a threat of false imprison¬ 
ment on all the great Powers. It may, per¬ 
haps, be thought, if not said, that it was 
founded on the original commitment by 
John VI. for rebellion and meditated parri¬ 
cide, and on the, perhaps, too lenient com¬ 
mutation of it into a sentence of transport¬ 
ation to Vienna. The pardon and enlarge¬ 
ment granted by Dom Pedro were, on that 
supposition, conditional, and could not be 
earned without the fulfilment of all the con¬ 
ditions. Miguel’s escape from custody must, 

then, be regarded as effected by fraud; and 
those to whom his person was entrusted by 
Dom Pedro, seem to me to have been bound, 
by their trust, to do all that was necessary 
to repair the evil consequence of his enlarge¬ 
ment to the King and people of Portugal. 
But the more natural supposition is, that 
they undertook the trust, the custody, and 
the conditional liberation, in consequence of 
the application of their ally, the lawful Sove¬ 
reign of Portugal, and for the public object 
of preserving the quiet of that kingdom, 
and with it the peace of Europe and the 
secure tranquillity of their own dominions. 
Did they not thereby contract a federal ob¬ 
ligation with Dom Pedro to complete their 
work, and, more especially, to take care that 
Miguel should not immediately employ the 
liberty, the sanction, the moral aid, which 
they had given him, for the overthrow of the 
fundamental laws which they too easily 
trusted that he would observe his promises 
and oaths to uphold ? AVhen did this duty 
cease ? Was it not fully as binding on the 
banks of the Tagus as on those of the Da¬ 
nube ? If, in the fulfilment of this obliga¬ 
tion, they had a right to imprison him at 
Vienna, because he would not allay the sus¬ 
picions of the Constitutional party by re¬ 
turning through England, is it possible to 
contend that they were not bound to require 
and demand at Lisbon, that he should in- 







OIST THE AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. 


stantly desist from Lis open overthrow of the 
Charter ? 

I do not enter into any technical distinc¬ 
tions between a protocol and a treaty. I 
consider the protocol as the minutes of con¬ 
ferences, in which the parties verbally agreed 
on certain important measures, which being 
afterwards acted upon by others, became 
conclusively binding, in faith, honour, and 
conscience, on themselves. In consequence 
of these conferences, Dom Miguel, on the 
19 th of October, wrote letters to his brother, 
His Britannic Majesty, and Her Royal 
Highness the Regent of Portugal. In the 
two former, he solemnly re-affirmed his de¬ 
termination to maintain the charter “granted 
by Dom Pedro;” and, in the last, he more 
fully assures his sister his unshaken purpose 
“ to maintain, and cause to be observed, the 
laws and institutions legally granted by our 
august brother, and which we have all sworn 
to maintain; and I desire that you should 
give to this solemn declaration the necessary 
publicity.” On the faith of these declar¬ 
ations, he was suffered to leave Vienna. 
The Powers who thus enlarged him taught 
the world, by this act, that they believed 
him. They lent him their credit, and be¬ 
came vouchers for his fidelity. On the faith 
of these declarations, the King and people 
of England received him with kindness, and 
forgot the criminal, to hail the first Consti¬ 
tutional King of emancipated Portugal. On 
the same faith, the English ambassadors 
attended him; and the English flag, which 
sanctioned his return, proclaimed to the 
Constitutionalists, that they might lay aside 
their fears for liberty and their reasonable 
apprehensions for themselves. The British 
ministers, in their instructions to Count 
Villa Real, had expressly declared, that his 
return through England was a great security 
to the Constitutional party. Facts had 
loudly spoken the same language; but the 
very words of the British Minister must 
inevitably have resounded through Portugal 
— lulling vigilance, seeming to dispense 
with caution, and tending to extinguish the 
blackest suspicions. This is not all: Count 
Villa Flor, then a minister, who knew his 


783 

man, on the first rumours of Miguel’s re¬ 
turn obtained the appointment of Ambassa¬ 
dor to Paris, that he might not be caught by 
the wolf in his den. It was apprehended 
that such a step would give general alarm: 

— he was prevailed upon to remain, by 
letters from Vienna, with assurances of 
Miguel’s good dispositions, which were not 
unknown to the British Ministers at Vienna; 
and he continued in office a living pledge 
from the two Powers to the whole Portu¬ 
guese people, that their Constitution was to 
be preserved. How many irrevocable acts 
were done, — how many dungeons were 
crowded, — how many deaths were braved, 

— how many were suffered — from faith in 
perfidious assurances, accredited by the ap¬ 
parent sanction of two deluded and abused 
Courts! How can these Courts be released 
from the duty of repairing the evil which 
their credulity has caused! 

I shall say nothing of the Protocol of 
London of the 12th of January, 1828, ex¬ 
cept that it adopted and ratified the con¬ 
ferences of Vienna, — that it provided for a 
loan to Miguel to assist his re-establishment, 
—and that it was immediately transmitted 
to Dom Pedro, together with the Protocol of 
Vienna. Dom Pedro had originally besought 
the aid of the Powers to secure the Consti¬ 
tution. They did not refuse it; — they did 
not make any reservations or limitations 
respecting it: on the contrary, they took 
the most decisive measures on the principle 
of his proposition. So implicitly did Dom 
Pedro rely on them that, in spite of all 
threatening symptoms of danger, he has 
sent his daughter to Europe; — a step from 
which he cannot recede, without betraying 
his own dignity, and seeming to weaken her 
claims; and which has proved a fruitful 
source of embarrassment, vexation, and hu¬ 
miliation, to himself and his most faithful 
councillors. By this decisive measure, he 
has placed his loyal subjects in a more last¬ 
ing and irreconcilable state of hostility with 
those who have mastered their country, and 
has rendered compromise under better rulers 
more difficult. 

Under all these circumstances, Sir, I can- 









784 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


not doubt that the Mediating Powers have 
acquired a right imperatively to require that 
Miguel shall renounce that authority which 
by fraud and falsehood he has obtained from 
them the means of usurping. They are 
bound to exercise that right by a sacred 
duty towards Dom Pedro, who has entrusted 
them with the conditional establishment of 
the Regency, and the people of Portugal, 
with whom their obligation of honour is the 
more inviolable, because it must be informal. 
I shall be sorry to hear that such duties are 
to be distinguished, by the first Powers of 
Christendom, from the most strictly literal 
obligations of a treaty. 

On the 28th of February, Miguel landed 
at Lisbon, accompanied by an English am¬ 
bassador, who showed as much sagacity and 
firmness as were perhaps ever combined in 
such circumstances. The Cortes met to 
receive the oaths of the Regent to the 
Emperor and the Constitution. A scene 
then passed which is the most dastardly of 
all his perjuries, — the basest evasion that 
could be devised by a cowardly and im¬ 
moral superstition. He acted as if he were 
taking the oaths, slurring them over in 
apparent hurry, and muttering inarticu¬ 
lately, instead of uttering their words. A 
Prince of one of the most illustrious of 
Royal Houses, at the moment of undertak¬ 
ing the sacred duties of supreme magis¬ 
tracy, in the presence of the representatives 
of the nation, and of the ministers of all 
civilised states, had recourse to the lowest 
of the knavish tricks formerly said (but I 
hope calumniously) to have been practised 
by miscreants at the Old Bailey, who by 
bringing their lips so near the book without 
kissing it as to deceive the spectator, satisfied 
their own base superstition, and dared to 
hope that they could deceive the Searcher 
of Hearts. 

I shall not follow him through the steps 
of his usurpation. His designs were soon 
perceived: they were so evident that Sir 
Frederic Lamb, with equal sense and spirit, 
refused to land the money raised by loan, and 
sent it back to this country. They might 
have been then defeated by the Loyalists : 


but an insurmountable obstacle presented 
itself. The British troops were instructed 
to abstain from interference in domestic 
dissensions : — there was one exception, and 
it was in favour of the basest man in Por¬ 
tugal. The Loyalists had the means of 
sending Miguel to his too merciful brother 
in Brazil: they were bound by their alle¬ 
giance to prevent his rebellion; and loyalty 
and liberty alike required it. The right 
was not doubted by the British authorities : 
but they were compelled to say that the 
general instruction to protect the Royal 
Family would oblige them to protect Miguel 
against attack. Our troops remained long 
enough to give him time to displace all 
faithful officers, and to fill the garrison with 
rebels; while by the help of monks and 
bribes, he stirred up the vilest rabble to a 
“sedition for slavery.” When his designs 
were ripe for execution, we delivered him 
from all shadow of restraint by recalling 
our troops to England. I do not mention 
this circumstance as matter of blame, but 
of the deepest regret. It is too certain, 
that if they had left Lisbon three months 
sooner, or remained there three months 
longer, in either case Portugal would have 
been saved. This consequence, however 
unintended, surely imposes on us the duty 
of showing much more than ordinary con¬ 
sideration towards those who were destroyed 
by the effect of our measures. The form in 
which the blockade of Oporto was announced 
did not repair this misfortune. I have never 
yet heard why we did not speak of “the 
persons exercising the power of govern¬ 
ment,” instead of calling Miguel “ Prince 
Regent,”—a title which he had forfeited, 
and indeed had himself rejected. Nor do I 
see why in the singular case of two parties, 
— one falsely, the other truly, — professing 
to act on behalf of Dom Pedro, both might 
not have been impartially forbidden to exer¬ 
cise belligerent rights at sea until his plea¬ 
sure was made known. The fatal events 
which have followed are, I have serious 
reason to believe, no proof of the state of 
general opinion in Portugal. A majority of 
the higher nobility, with almost all the con- 








ON THE AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. 785 


siderable inhabitants of towns, were and 
are still well affected. The clergy, the lower 
gentry, and the rabble, were, but I believe 
are not now, adverse. The enemies of the 
Constitution were the same classes who 
opposed our own Revolution for fourscore 
years. Accidents, unusually unfortunate, 
deprived the Oporto army of its commanders. 
Had they disregarded this obstacle, and im¬ 
mediately advanced from Coimbra, it is the 
opinion of the most impartial and intelligent 
persons, then at Lisbon, that they would 
have succeeded without a blow. It is cer¬ 
tain that the Usurper and his mother had 
prepared for a flight to Madrid, and, after 
the fatal delay at Coimbra, were with dif¬ 
ficulty persuaded to adopt measures of 
courage. As soon as Miguel assumed the 
title of King, all the Foreign Ministers fled 
from Lisbon : a nation which ceased to resist 
such a tyrant was deemed unworthy of re¬ 
maining a member of the European com¬ 
munity. The brand of exclusion was fixed, 
which is not yet withdrawn. But, in the 
meantime, the delay at Coimbra, the strength 
thence gained by the Usurper, and the dis¬ 
couragement spread by the retreat of the 
Loyalists, led to the fall of Oporto, and com¬ 
pelled its loyal garrison, with many other 
faithful subjects, to leave their dishonoured 
country. They were doubly honoured by 
the barbarous inhospitality of Spain on the 
one hand, and on the other by the sympathy 
of France and of England. 

At this point, Sir, I must deviate a moment 
from my line, to consider the very peculiar 
state of our diplomatic intercourse with Dom 
Pedro and Donna Maria, in relation to the 
crown of Portugal. All diplomatic inter¬ 
course with the Usurper in possession of it 
was broken off. There were three ministers 
from the legitimate sovereigns of the House 
of Braganza in London : — the Marquess 
Palmella, ambassador from Portugal, who 
considered himself in that character as the 
minister of Donna Maria, the Queen ac¬ 
knowledged by us, — the Marquess Barba- 
cena, the confidential adviser appointed by 
Dom Pedro to guide the infant Queen,— 
and the Viscount Itabayana, the recognised 


minister from that monarch as Emperor of 
Brazil. They all negotiated, or attempted 
to negotiate, with us. The Marquess Pal¬ 
mella was told that the success of the 
usurpation left him no Portuguese interests 
to protect, — that his occupation was gone. 
The Viscount Itabayana was repelled as 
being merely the minister from Brazil, a 
country finally separated from Portugal. 
The Marquess Barbacena was positively ap¬ 
prised that we did not recognise the right of 
Dom Pedro to interfere as head of the House 
of Brazil, or as international guardian of his 
daughter. By some ingenious stratagem 
each was excluded, or driven to negotiate in 
an inferior and unacknowledged character. 
This policy seems to me very like what used 
to be called in the courts, “ sharp practice.” 
It is not free from all appearance of inter¬ 
national special pleading, which seems to me 
the less commendable, because the Govern¬ 
ment were neither guided nor hampered by 
precedent. It is a case, I will venture to 
say, without parallel. The result was, that 
an infant Queen, recognised as legitimate, 
treated with personal honour and kindness, 
is left without a guardian to guide her, or a 
minister to act for her. Such was the result 
of our international subtleties and diplomatic 
punctilios! 

To avoid such a practical absurdity, no¬ 
thing seemed more simple than to hold that 
nature and necessity, with the entire absence 
of any other qualified person, had vested in 
Dom Pedro the guardianship of his Royal 
daughter, for the purpose of executing the 
separation of the two countries, and the ab¬ 
dication of the Portuguese crown. His cha¬ 
racter would have had some analogy to that 
of the guardian named in a court of justice 
to a minor party in a lawsuit. Ingenuity 
would, I think, have been better employed 
in discovering the legal analogies, or poli¬ 
tical reasons, which are favourable to this 
natural and convenient doctrine. Even the 
rejection of the minister of a deposed sove¬ 
reign has not always been rigidly enforced. 
Queen Elizabeth’s virtues were not indul¬ 
gent ; nor did her treatment of the Queen of 
Scots do honour to her character: yet she 

3 E 









786 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


continued for years after the deposition of 
Mary to treat with Bishop Leslie; and he 
was not pronounced to have forfeited the 
privileges of an ambassador till he was de¬ 
tected in a treasonable conspiracy. 

A negotiation under the disadvantage of 
an unacknowledged character was, however, 
carried on by the Marquess Palmella and 
the Marquess Barbacena, between the months 
of November and February last, in which 
they claimed the aid of Great Britain against 
the Usurper, by virtue of the ancient trea¬ 
ties, and of the conferences at Vienna. Per¬ 
haps I must allow that the first claim could 
not in strictness be maintained : — perhaps 
this case was not in the bond. But I have 
already stated my reasons for considering 
the conferences at Vienna, the measures con¬ 
certed there, and the acts done on their faith, 
as equivalent to an engagement on the part 
of Austria and England with Dom Pedro. 
At all events, this series of treaties for four 
hundred and fifty years, from Edward III. 
to George IV. — longer and more uninter- 
rupted than any other in history — contain¬ 
ing many articles closely approaching the 
nature of a guarantee, followed as it has 
been by the strong marks of favour showed 
by England to the Constitution, and by the 
principles and plan adopted by England and 
Austria (with the approbation of France, 
Russia, and Prussia), at Vienna, altogether 
hold out the strongest virtual encouragement 
to the Constitutionalists. How could Por¬ 
tugal believe that those who threatened to 
imprison Miguel at Vienna, would hesitate 
about hurling him from an usurped throne 
at Lisbon ? How could the Portuguese 
nation suppose that, in a case where Austria 
and England had the concurrence of all the 
great Powers, they should be deterred from 
doing justice by a fear of war ? How could 
they imagine that the rule of non-interfer¬ 
ence, — violated against Spain, — violated 
against Naples, — violated against Piedmont, 
— more honourably violated for Greece but 
against Turkey, — should be held sacred 
only, when it served to screen the armies 
and guard the usurpation of Miguel ? 
Perhaps their confidence might have been 


strengthened by what they must think the 
obvious policy of the two Courts. It does 
seem to me that they might have commanded 
Miguel to quit his prey (for war is ridi¬ 
culous) as a mere act of self-defence. Fer¬ 
dinand VII. is doubtless an able preacher of 
republicanism; but he is surpassed in this 
particular by Miguel. I cannot think it a 
safe policy to allow the performance of an 
experiment to determine how low the kingly 
character may sink in the Pyrenean Penin¬ 
sula, without abating its estimation in the 
rest of Europe. Kings are sometimes the 
most formidable of all enemies to royalty. 

The issue of our conduct towards Portugal 
for the last eighteen months is, in point of 
policy, astonishing. We are now bound to 
defend a country of which we have made all 
the inhabitants our enemies. It is needless 
to speak of former divisions : there are now 
only two parties there. The Absolutists 
hate us : they detest the country of juries 
and of Parliaments, — the native land of 
Canning, — the source from which their 
Constitution seemed to come, — the model 
which has excited the love of liberty through¬ 
out the world. No half-measures, however 
cruel to their opponents, can allay their 
hatred. If you doubt, look at their treat¬ 
ment of British subjects, which I consider 
chiefly important, as indicating their deep- 
rooted and irreconcileable malignity to us. 
The very name of an Englishman is with 
them that of a Jacobin and an atheist. Look 
at their treatment of the city of Oporto and 
of the island of Madeira, which may be 
almost considered as English colonies. If 
this hatred was in any degree excited by 
the feelings of the English inhabitants to¬ 
wards them, from what could such feelings 
spring but from a knowledge of the exe¬ 
crable character of the ruling faction ? Can 
they ever forgive us for degrading their 
Government and disgracing their minion, 
by an exclusion from international inter¬ 
course more rigorous than any incurred 
under a Papal interdict of the fourteenth 
century ? Their trust alone is in the Spanish 
Apostolicals. The Constitutionalists, who 
had absorbed and softened all the more po- 












ON THE AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. 787 


pular parties of the former period, no longer 
trust us. They consider us as having incited 
them to resistance, and as having afterwards 
abandoned them to their fate. They do not 
distinguish between treaties and protocols, — 
between one sort of guarantee and another. 
They view us, more simply, as friends who 
have ruined them. Their trust alone is in 
Constitutional France. Even those who 
think, perhaps justly, that the political value 
of Portugal to us is unspeakably diminished 
by the measures which we have happily 
taken for the security of Ireland, cannot 
reasonably expect that any nation of the 
second order, which sees the fate of Portu¬ 
gal, will feel assurance of safety from the 
protection of England. 

If we persist in an unfriendly neutrality, 
it is absurd voluntarily to continue to sub¬ 
mit to obligations from which we may justly 
release ourselves. For undoubtedly a go¬ 
vernment so covered with crimes, so dis¬ 
graced by Europe as that of Miguel, is. a 
new source of danger, not contemplated in 
the treaties of alliance and guarantee. If 
Mr. Canning, with reason, held that an alli¬ 
ance of Portugal with the Spanish Revolu¬ 
tionists would, on that principle, release us 
from our obligations, it cannot be doubted 
that by the standing infamy of submission 
to the present Government, she well de¬ 
serves to forfeit all remaining claims to our 
protection. 

Notwithstanding the failure of the nego¬ 
tiations to obtain our aid as an ally, I believe 
that others have been carried on, and pro¬ 
bably are not yet closed, in London and at 
Rio Janeiro. It has been proposed, by the 
Mediating Powers, to Dorn Pedro, to com¬ 
plete the marriage, to be silent on the 
Constitution, — but to obtain an universal 
amnesty. I cannot wonder at Dom Pedro’s 
rejection of conditions, one of which only 
can be effectual, — that which imposes on 
his daughter the worst husband in Europe. 
What wonder that he should reject a pro¬ 
posal to put the life of a Royal infant under 
the care of murderers, — to join her youth¬ 
ful hand, at the altar, with one embrued in 
the blood of her most faithful friends ! As 


for the other conditions, what amnesty can 
be expected from the wolf of Oporto ? 
What imaginable security can be devised for 
an amnesty, unless the vanquished party be 
shielded by some political privileges ? Yet 
I rejoice that these negotiations have not 
closed, — that the two Powers have adopted 
the decisive principle of stipulating what 
Miguel must do, without consulting him; 
and that, whether from the generous feelings 
of a Royal mind at home, or from the spirit 
of constitutional liberty in the greatest of 
foreign countries, or from both these causes, 
the negotiations have assumed a more ami¬ 
cable tone. I do not wonder that Dom 
Pedro, after having protested against the 
rebellion of his brother, and the coldness of 
his friends, should indignantly give orders 
for the return of the young Queen, while he 
provides for the assertion of her rights, by 
the establishment of a regency in Europe. 
I am well pleased, however, to learn, that 
the Mediating Powers have advised his mi¬ 
nisters to suspend the execution of his com¬ 
mands till he shall be acquainted with the 
present state of affairs. The monstrous mar¬ 
riage is, at all events, I trust, for ever aban¬ 
doned. As long as a negotiation is on foot 
respecting the general question, I shall not 
despair of our ancient Ally. 

Sir, I must own, that there is no circum¬ 
stance in this case, which, taken singly, I so 
deeply regret as the late unhappy affair of 
Terceira. The Portuguese troops and Roy¬ 
alists who landed in England, had been sta¬ 
tioned, after some time, at Plymouth, where 
their exemplary conduct gained the most 
public and general marks of the esteem of 
the inhabitants. In the month of Novem¬ 
ber, a proposition to disperse them in the 
towns and villages of the adjacent counties, 
without their officers, was made by the 
British Government. Far be it from me to 
question the right of his Majesty to disperse 
all military bodies in his dominions, and to 
prevent this country from being used as an 
arsenal or port of equipment by one belliger¬ 
ent against another, — even in cases where, 
as in the present, it cannot be said that the 
assemblage was dangerous to the peace of this 


3 E 2 






788 MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


kingdom, or menacing to the safety of any 
other. I admit, in their fullest extent, the 
rights and duties of neutral states. Yet the 
dispersion of these troops, without their 
officers, could scarcely fail to discourage 
them, to deprive them of military spirits and 
habits, and to end in the utter disbanding of 
the feeble remains of a faithful army. The 
ministers of Donna Maria considered this as 
fatal to their hopes. An unofficial corre¬ 
spondence was carried on from the end of 
November to the beginning of January on 
the subject, between the Duke of Welling¬ 
ton and the Marquess Palmella, — a man of 
whom I cannot help saying, that he is per¬ 
haps the individual by whom his country is 
most favourably known to foreign nations, 
—that, highly esteemed as he is among 
statesmen for his share in the greatest affairs 
of Europe for the last sixteen years, he is 
not less valued by his friends for his amiable 
character and various accomplishments, — 
and that there is no one living more in¬ 
capable of forgetting the severest dictates of 
delicacy and honour. The Marquess chose 
rather to send the faithful remnant of Donna 
AI aria’s troops to Brazil, than to subject 
them to utter annihilation. Various letters 
passed on the reasonableness of this disper¬ 
sion, and the mode of removal, from the 
20th of November to the 20th of December, 
in which Brazil was considered as the desti¬ 
nation of the troops. In a letter of the 20th 
of December, the Marquess Palmella, for 
the first time, mentioned the Island of Ter- 
ceira. It had been twice before mentioned, 
in negotiations, by two ministers of the 
House of Braganza, with totally different 
views, which, if the course of debate should 
call for it, I trust I shall explain: but it 
was first substituted for Brazil by the Mar¬ 
quess Palmella on the 20th of December. 
I anxiously particularise the date, because 
it is alone sufficient to vindicate his scrupu¬ 
lous honour. In the month of May, some 
partisans of Miguel had shaken the loyalty 
of a part of the inhabitants: Dom Pedro 
and the Constitution were proclaimed on 
the 22nd of June; the ringleaders of the 
rebellion were arrested; and the lawful 


government was re-established. Some dis¬ 
turbances, however, continued, which en¬ 
abled the priests to stir up a revolt in the 
end of September. The insurgents were 
again suppressed in a few days; but it was 
not till the 4th of December that Donna 
Maria was proclaimed as Queen of Portugal 
in conformity to the treaty of separation, to 
the Constitutional Charter, and to the Act 
of Abdication. Since that time I have now 
before me documents which demonstrate 
that her authority has been regularly exer¬ 
cised and acknowledged in that island, with 
no other disturbance than that occasioned 
by one or two bands of Guerillas, quickly 
dispersed, and without any pretence for 
alleging that there was in that island a dis- 
puted title, or an armed contest. 

On the 20th of December, then, the Mar¬ 
quess Palmella informed the Duke of Wel¬ 
lington, that though he (the Marquess) had 
hitherto chosen Brazil as being the only 
safe, though distant, refuge for the troops, 
“ yet, from the information which he had 
just received of the entire and peaceable 
submission of Terceira to the young Queen, 
and of the disappearance of the squadron 
sent by the actual Government of Portugal 
to blockade the Azores, he now intended to 
send her troops to that part of her dominions, 
where she was not only the rightful but the 
actual Sovereign, and for which he con¬ 
ceived that they might embark at Plymouth, 
without any infringement of the neutrality 
of the British territories.” This letter con¬ 
tains the explanation of the change of desti¬ 
nation. Unarmed troops could not have 
been safely sent to Terceira, nor merchant 
vessels either, while there were intestine 
divisions, or apprehensions of a blockade, or 
indeed till there was full and authentic in¬ 
formation of the establishment of quiet and 
legitimate authority. The Marquis Pal¬ 
mella thought that the transportation of the 
troops had now become as lawful as it was 
obviously desirable. To remove the Queen’s 
troops to a part of her own actual dominions 
seemed to him, as I own it still seems to me, 
an act consistent even with the cold and 
stern neutrality assumed by England. Had 






0N THE AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. 789 


not a Queen, acknowledged in England, and 
obeyed in Terceira, a perfect right to send 
her own soldiers home from a neutral coun¬ 
try ? If the fact of the actual return of 
Terceira to its allegiance be not denied and I 
disproved, I shall be anxious to hear the 
reasons, to me unknown, which authorise a 
neutral power to forbid such a movement. 
It is vain to say, that Great Britain, as 
mediator in the Treaty of 1825, was entitled 
to prevent the separation of the Azores from 
Portugal, and their subjection to Brazil; 
for, on the 4th of December, Donna Maria 
had been proclaimed at Terceira as Queen 
of Portugal, in virtue of the possession of 
the Portuguese crown. It is vain to say 
that the embarkation had a hostile character, 
since it was immediately destined for the 
territory of the friendly sovereign. Beyond 
this point the neutral is neither bound nor 
entitled to inquire. It was not, as has been 
inconsiderately said, an expedition against 
the Azores. It was the movement of Por¬ 
tuguese troops from neutral England to 
obedient and loyal Terceira,—where surely 
the Sovereign might employ her troops in 
such manner as she judged right. How far 
is the contrary proposition to go ? Should 
we, — could we, as a neutral power, have 
hindered Miguel from transporting those of 
his followers, who might be in England, to 
Lisbon, because they might be sent thence 
against the Azores. It is true, the group of 
islands have the generic name of the Azores: 
but so,—though the American islands are 
called the West Indies, — I presume it will 
not be contended that a rebellion in Barba- 
does could authorise a foreign Sovereign in 
preventing British troops which happened 
to be on his territory from being despatched 
by his Majesty to strengthen his garrison of 
Jamaica. Supposing the facts which I have 
stated to be true, I can see no mode of im¬ 
pugning the inferences which I have made 
from them. Until I receive a satisfactory 
answer, I am bound to say, that I consider 
the prohibition of this embarkation as a 
breach of neutrality in favour of the Usurper. 

And even, Sir, if these arguments are 
successfully controverted, another proposi¬ 


tion remains, to which it is still more difficult 
for me to conceive the possibility of an 
answer. Granting that the permission of 
the embarkation was a breach of neutrality, 
which might be, and must be, prevented on 
British land, or in British waters, where is 
the proof from reason, from usage, — even 
from example or authority, that England 
was bound, or entitled, to pursue the ex¬ 
pedition over the ocean,—to use force against 
them on the high seas, — most of all to levy 
war against them within the waters of Ter¬ 
ceira ? Where are the proofs of the exist¬ 
ence of any such right or duty ? I have 
searched for them in vain. Even if an ex¬ 
ample or two could be dug up, they would 
not affect my judgment. I desire to know 
where the series of examples from good 
times can be found which might amount to 
general usage, and thus constitute a part of 
international law. I never can consider 
mere general reasoning as a sufficient justi¬ 
fication of such an act. There are many 
instances in which international law rejects 
such reasonings. For example, to allow a 
passage to a belligerent through a neutral 
territory, is not in itself a departure from 
neutrality. But to fire on a friendly ship 
within the waters of a friendly state, for a 
wrong done in an English harbour, is an act 
which appears to me a most alarming inno¬ 
vation in the law of civilised war. The 
attack on the Spanish frigates in 1805 is 
probably reconcilable with the stern and 
odious rights of war: yet I am sure that 
every cool-headed and true-hearted English¬ 
man would desire to blot the scene from the 
annals of Europe. Every approach towards 
rigour, beyond the common and well-known 
usage of war, is an innovation: and it must 
ever be deplored that we have made the 
first experiment of its extension beyond 
former usage in the case of the most ancient 
of our allies, in the season of her utmost 
need. 

I shrink from enlarging on the scene 
which closed, — I fear for ever, — a friend¬ 
ship of four hundred and fifty years. On 
the 16th of January last, three English ves¬ 
sels and a Russian brig, having aboard five 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


790 

hundred unarmed Portuguese, attempted to 
enter the port of Praya, in the island of Ter- 
ceira. Captain Walpole, of his Majesty’s 
ship “ Ranger,” fired on two of these vessels, 
which had got under the guns of the forts 
protecting the harbour; the blood of Her 
Most Faithful Majesty’s subjects was spilt; 
one soldier was killed; a peaceable passen¬ 
ger was dangerously wounded. I forbear to 
state further particulars. I hope and con¬ 
fidently trust that Captain Walpole will 
acquit himself of all negligence, — of all 
want of the most anxious endeavours to 
spare blood, and to be frugal of violence, in 
a proceeding where such defects would be 
crimes. Warmly as I rejoice in the preva¬ 
lence of that spirit of liberty, and, as a con¬ 
sequence, of humanity, of which the triumph 
in France is so happy for Europe, I must 
own that I cannot contemplate without mor¬ 
tification the spectacle of the loyal Portu¬ 
guese exhibiting in a French port wounds 
inflicted by the arms of their ancient ally, 
protector, and friend. The friendship of 
four centuries and a half should have had a 
more becoming close: it should not have 
been extinguished in fire and blood. 

I will now conclude, Sir, with the latest, 
and perhaps the saddest incident in this 
tragic story of a nation’s “ hopes too fondly 
raised,” perhaps, but surely “ too rudely 
crossed.” I shall not quote it as a proof of 
the Usurper’s inhumanity ; — there is no 
man in this House who would not say that 
such proofs are needless: I produce it, only 
as a sample of the boldness with which he 
now throws down the gauntlet to the go¬ 
vernments and nations of Christendom. On 
Thursday the 7th of May, little more than 
three weeks ago, in the city of Oporto, ten 
gentlemen were openly murdered on the 
avowed ground, that on the 16th of May, 
1828, while Miguel himself still pretended 
to be the lieutenant of Dom Pedro, they 
followed the example of Austria and Eng¬ 
land, in treating Dom Pedro as their 
lawful sovereign, and in endeavouring to 
carry into execution the laws established 
by him. Two were reserved for longer 
suffering by a pretended pardon : — the ten¬ 


der mercies of the wicked are cruel. One 
of these two was condemned to a lingering 
yet agonising death in the galleys of Angola; 
the other, the brother of the Ambassador at 
Brussels, was condemned to hard labour for 
life, but adjudged first to witness the exe¬ 
cution of his friends ; — an aggravation light 
to the h^rd-hearted, heartbreaking to the 
generous, which, by a hateful contrivance, 
draws the whole force of the infliction from 
the virtues of the sufferer. The city of 
Oporto felt this scene with a horror not 
lessened by the sentiments which generations 
of Englishmen have, I would fain hope, left 
behind them. The rich fled to their villas; 
the poor shut up their doors and windows ; 
the peasants of the neighbourhood withheld 
their wonted supplies from the markets of 
the tainted city; the deserted streets were 
left to the executioner, his guards, and his 
victims,—with no more beholders than were 
needful to bear witness, that those “ faithful 
found among the faithless ” left the world 
with the feelings of men who die for their 
country. 

On the 16th of May, 1828, the day on 
which the pretended treasons were charged 
to have been committed, the state of Por¬ 
tugal was, in the light most indulgent to 
Miguel, that of a contest for the crown. It 
was not a rebellion : it was a civil war. At 
the close of these wars without triumph, 
civilised victors hasten to throw the pall of 
amnesty over the wounds of their country. 
Not so Miguel: ten months after submis¬ 
sion, he sheds blood for acts done before the 
war. He has not the excuses of Robespierre 
and Marat: — no army is marching on Lis¬ 
bon ; no squadron is entering the Tagus with 
the flag of deliverance. The season of ful¬ 
ness and safety, which stills the tiger, rouses 
the coward’s thirst for blood. Is this the 
blind instinct of ferocity? Is it only to 
carry despair into the thousands of loyal 
Portuguese whom he has scattered over the 
earth? No! acts of later date might have 
served that purpose: his choice of time is a 
defiance to Europe. The offence here was 
resisting an usurpation, the consummation 
of which a few weeks after made the repre- 
















SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL. 791 

sentatives of Europe fly from Lisbon as from 
a city of tlie plague. The indignity is 
chiefly pointed at the two Mediating Powers, 
who have not yet relinquished all hopes of 
compromise. But it is not confined to them : 
though he is aware that a breath would blow 
him away without blood or cost, he makes a 
daring experiment on the patience of all 
Europe. He will draw out for slaughter 
handful after handful of those, whose sole 

• 

crime was to trust the words and follow the 
example of all civilised nations. He believes 
that an attempt will at length be made to 
stop his crimes by a recognition of his 
authority, — that by dint of murders he may 
force his way into the number of the dis¬ 
pensers of justice and mercy. He holds up 
the bleeding heads of Oporto to tell sove¬ 
reigns and nations alike how he scorns their 
judgment and defies their power. 

SPEECH 

ON THE 

SECOND READING OE THE BILL TO AMEND THE REPRESENTATION 

OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND AND WALES, 

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, ON THE 4TH OF JULY, 1831. 

Mr. Speaker, 

I feel no surprise, and certainly no re¬ 
gret, at the applause which followed the 
speech of the Honourable and Learned 
Gentleman*, whose speeches never leave 
any unpleasant impression, but the reflec¬ 
tion that he speaks so seldom. Much of 
that excellent speech so immediately bears 
on the whole question of Parliamentary 
Reform, that it will naturally lead me to 
the consideration of the general principle of 
the Bill before us. 

I must, Sir, however, premise a very few 
remarks on the speech of the Honourable 
Baronet f; though I shall not follow him 
through his account of the squabble be¬ 
tween the labourers and their employers at 
Merthyr Tidvil, which I leave to the justice 
of the law, or, what is better, to the pru- 

dence and principle of both parties. Neither 
can I seriously handle his objection to this 
Bill, that it has produced a strong interest, 
and divided opinions throughout the king¬ 
dom. Such objections prove too much: 
they would exclude most important ques¬ 
tions, and, certainly, all reformatory mea¬ 
sures. It is one of the chief advantages of 
free governments, that they excite, — some¬ 
times to an inconvenient degree, but, upon 
the whole, with the utmost benefit, — all 
the generous feelings, all the efforts for a 
public cause, of which human nature is ca¬ 
pable. But there is one point in the in¬ 
genious speech of the Honourable Baronet, 
which, as it touches the great doctrines of 
the Constitution, and involves a reflection 
on the conduct of many Members of this 
House, cannot be passed over, without an 
exposition of the fallacy which shuts his 
eyes to very plain truths. Mr. Burke, in 
the famous speech at Bristol, told, indeed, 
his constituents, that as soon as he should be 
elected, however much he might respect 

* Mr. Fynes Clinton, M.P. for Aldborougli.—En. 
f Sir John Walsh, who had moved the amend¬ 
ment that the Bill be read that day six months, 
•which Mr. Clinton had seconded. — Ed. 
















MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


792 


their opinions, his votes must be governed 
by his own conscience. This doctrine was 
indisputably true. But did he not, by his 
elaborate justification of his public conduct, 
admit their jurisdiction over it, and ac¬ 
knowledge, that if he failed in converting 
them, they had an undoubted right to re¬ 
ject him ? Then, if they could justly reject 
him, for differing from what they thought 
right, it follows, most evidently, that they 
might, with equal justice, refuse their suf¬ 
frages to him, if they thought his future 
votes likely to differ from those which they 
deemed indispensable to the public weal. 
If they doubted what that future conduct 
might be, they were entitled, and bound, to 
require a satisfactory explanation, either in 
public or in private; and in case of un¬ 
satisfactory, or of no explanation, to refuse 
their support to the candidate. This duty 
the people may exercise in whatever form 
they deem most effectual. They impose no 
restriction on the conscience of the can¬ 
didate; they only satisfy their own con¬ 
science, by rejecting a candidate, of whose 
conduct, on the most momentous question, 
they have reason to doubt. Far less could 
constituents be absolved, on the present oc¬ 
casion, from the absolute duty of ascertain¬ 
ing the determination of candidates on the 
subject of Parliamentary Reform. His Ma¬ 
jesty, in his speech from the throne, on the 
22nd of April, was pleased to declare, “ I 
have come to meet you, for the purpose of 
proroguing Parliament, with a view to its 
immediate dissolution. I have been in¬ 
duced to resort to this measure, for the pur¬ 
pose of ascertaining the sense of'hiy people, 
in the way in which it can be most constitu¬ 
tionally and authentically expressed, on the 
expediency of making such changes in the 
representation as circumstances may appear 
to require; and which, founded upon the 
acknowledged principles of the Constitution, 
may tend at once to uphold the just rights 
and prerogatives of the Crown, and to give 
security to the liberties of the subject.” 
What answer could the people have made 
to the appeal thus generously made to them, 
without taking all necessary means to be 


assured that the votes of those, whom they 
chose, would sufficiently manifest to him the 
sense of his people, on the changes necessary 
to be made in the representation. 

On subjects of foreign policy, Sir, a long 
silence has been observed on this side of 
the House, — undisturbed, I am 'bound to 
add, by the opposite side, for reasons which 
are very obvious. We are silent, and we 
are allowed to be silent; because, a word 
spoken awry, might occasion fatal explo¬ 
sions. The affairs of the Continent are so 
embroiled, that we have forborne to ex¬ 
press those feelings, which must agitate the 
breast of every human being, at the sight of 
that admirable and afflicting struggle* on 
which the eyes of Europe are constantly, 
however, silently, fixed. As it is admitted 
by the Honourable Baronet, that the re¬ 
sistance of the French to an usurpation of 
their rights last year was glorious to all who 
were concerned in it, it follows that, being 
just, it has no need of being sanctioned by 
the approbation of fortune. Who then are 
morally answerable for the unfortunate con¬ 
fusions which followed, and for the further 
commotion, which, if heaven avert it not, 
may convulse France and Europe? Who 
opened the floodgates of discord on man¬ 
kind? Not the friends of liberty, — not 
the advocates of popular principles: their 
hands are clean; — they took up arms only 
to defend themselves against wrong. I 
hold sacred every retreat of misfortune, and 
desire not to disturb fallen greatness ; but 
justice compels me to say, that the hands 
of the late King of France were made to 
unlock these gates by his usurping ordi¬ 
nances, — 

“ To open; but to shut surpassed his power.” 
The dangers of Europe do not originate 
in democratical principles, or democratical 
power, but in a conspiracy for the subver¬ 
sion of all popular rights, however sanc¬ 
tioned by oaths, by constitution, and by 
laws. 

I shall now, Sir, directly proceed to the 
latter part of the speech of the Honourable 

* The insurrection in Poland. — Ed. 











SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL. 793 


and Learned Member for Boroughbridge, 
which regards the general principle and 
character of this Bill. In so doing, I shall 
endeavour, as far as may be, not to displease 
the fastidious ears of the Honourable Ba¬ 
ronet, by frequently repeating the bar¬ 
barous names of the Tudors and Planta- 
genets. I must, however, follow the Ho¬ 
nourable and Learned Member to the 
fountains of our government and laws, 
whither, indeed, he calls upon me with no 
unfriendly voice to accompany him. 

That no example can be found from the 
time of Simon de Montfort to the present 
year, either in the practice of ancient legis¬ 
lation, or in the improvements proposed by 
modern Reformers, which sanctions the ge¬ 
neral principle of this Bill, is an assertion, 
which I am sure the Honourable Gentleman 
will discover to be unadvisedly hazarded. 

I shall begin with one of the latest ex¬ 
amples of a Reformer of great weight and 
authority, — that which is afforded by the 
speech and the plan of Mr. Pitt, in 1785, 
because it does not only itself exhibit the 
principles of the schedules of this Bill, but 
because it proves, beyond all possibility of 
dispute, his thorough conviction that this 
principle is conformable to the ancient laws 
and practice of the constitution. The prin¬ 
ciple of Schedules A. and B. is the abolition, 
partial or total, of the elective rights of petty 
and dependent boroughs. The principle of 
Schedules C. D. and E. is the transfer of 
that resumed right to great towns, and to 
other bodies of constituents deemed likely 
to use it better. Let me now state Mr. Pitt’s 
opinion, in his own words, on the expediency 
of acting on both these principles, and on 
the agreement of both with the ancient course 
and order of the constitution. His plan, it 
is well known, was to take away seventy- 
two members from thirty-six small boroughs, 
and to add them to the county representa¬ 
tion, with a permament provision for such 
other transfers of similar rights to great 
towns, as should from time to time seem ne¬ 
cessary. His object, in this disfranchisement 
and enfranchisement, was, according to his 
own words, “ to make the House of Commons 


an assembly which should have the closest 
union, and the most perfect sympathy with 
the mass of the people.” To effect this ob¬ 
ject, he proposed to buy up these boroughs 
by the establishment of a fund ( cheers from 
the Opposition ), of which the first effect was 
expected to be considerable, and the accu¬ 
mulation would prove an irresistible tempta¬ 
tion. Gentlemen would do well to hear the 
whole words of Mr. Pitt, before they so 
loudly exult: — “It is an indisputable doc¬ 
trine of antiquity, that the state of the re¬ 
presentation is to be changed with the change 
of circumstances. Change in the borough 
representation was frequent. A great num¬ 
ber of the boroughs, originally Parliamentary, 
had been disfranchised, — that is, the crown 
had ceased to summon them to send bur¬ 
gesses. Some of these had been restored on 
their petitions: the rest had not recovered 
their lost franchise. Considering the re¬ 
storation of the former, and the deprivation 
of the latter, the constitution had been grossly 
violated , if it was true (which he denied ) that 
the extension of the elective franchise to one 
set of boroughs, and the resumption of it 
from others, was a violation of the constitu¬ 
tion. The alterations were not made from 
principle; but they were founded on the 
general notion which gave the discretionary 
power to the Crown,-—viz. that the principal 
places, and not the decayed boroughs, should 
exercise the right of election.” * I know full 
well that these boroughs were to be bought. 
I also know, that the late member for 
Dorset (Mr. Bankes), the college-friend, the 
zealous but independent supporter of Mr. 
Pitt, exclaimed against the purchase, though 
he applauded the Reform. How did Mr. 
Pitt answer ? Did he say, I cannot deprive 
men of inviolable privileges without com¬ 
pensation ; I cannot promote Reform by in¬ 
justice ? Must he not have so answered, if 
he had considered the resumption of the 
franchise as “corporation robbery?” No! 
he excuses himself to his friend: he declares 
the purchase to be “ the tender part of the 
subject,” and apologises for it, as “having 


* Pari. Hist. vol. xxv. p. 435. — Ed. 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


794 


become a necessary evil, if any Reform was 
to take place.” Would this great master of 
language, who so thoroughly understood and 
practised precision and propriety of words, 
have called that a necessary evil which he 
thought an obligation of justice, — the pay¬ 
ment of a sacred debt ? It is clear from the 
very words that follow, — “ if any Reform 
were to take place,” that he regarded the 
price of the boroughs merely as a boon to 
so many borough-holders to become prose¬ 
lytes to it. It is material also to observe, 
that as compensation was no part of his plans 
or suggestions in 1782 and 1783, he could 
not have consistently represented it as of 
right due. Another decisive reason renders 
it impossible to annex any other meaning to 
his-language :—he justifies his system of 
transferring the franchise by analogy to the 
ancient practice of ceasing to summon some 
boroughs to send members, while the pre¬ 
rogative of summoning others at pleasure 
was acknowledged. But the analogy would 
have failed if he thought compensation was 
due; for it is certain that no compensation 
was dreamt of, till his own plan. Would he 
have so strenuously maintained the consti¬ 
tutional authority to disfranchise and en¬ 
franchise different places, if he had enter¬ 
tained the least suspicion that it could not 
be exercised without being justly charac¬ 
terised as an act of rapine? Another cir¬ 
cumstance is conclusive: — his plan, as may 
be seen in his speech, was to make the com¬ 
pensation to the borough-holders, — not to 
the poor freemen, the scot and lot voters, 
the pot-walloppers, — whose spoliation has 
been so much deprecated on this occasion, 
—who alone could have had any pretence 
of justice or colour of law to claim it. They 
at least had legal privileges: the compensa¬ 
tion to the borough-holders was to be for 
the loss of their profits by breaches of law. 
One passage only in Mr. Pitt’s speech may 
be thought favourable to another sense : — 
“ To a Reform by violence he had an insur¬ 
mountable objection.” Now these words 
might mean only an objection to effect his 
purpose by an act of the supreme power, 
when he could introduce the same good by 


milder means. The reports of that period 
were far less accurate than they now are: 
the general tenor of the speech must deter¬ 
mine the meaning of a single word. It seems 
to me impossible to believe that he could 
have intended more than that he preferred a 
pacific accommodation of almost any sort to 
formidable resistance, and the chance of 
lasting discontent. This preference, founded 
either on personal feelings, or on supposed 
expediency, is nothing against my present 
purpose. What an imputation would be 
thrown on his memory, by supposing that 
he who answered the objection of Reform 
being unconstitutional , could pass over the 
more serious objection that it was unjust. 

That I may not be obliged to return to 
this case, I shall add one other observation, 
which more strictly belongs to another part 
of the argument. Mr. Pitt never once 
hints, that the dependent boroughs were 
thought necessary to the security of pro¬ 
perty. It never occurred to him that any 
one could think them intrinsically good. It 
was impossible that he could propose to em¬ 
ploy a million sterling in demolishing the 
safeguards of the British constitution. Be 
it observed, that this remark must be con¬ 
sidered by all who respect the authority of 
Mr. Pitt as of great weight, even if they 
believe compensation and voluntary sur¬ 
render to be essential to the justice of 
transferring the elective franchise. It must 
then, I think, be acknowledged by the 
Honourable and Learned Member for Aid- 
borough himself, that there was a Reformer 
of great name before my Noble Friend, 
who maintained the transfer of the elective 
franchise, by disfranchisement and enfran¬ 
chisement, to be conformable to ancient 
rights or usages, and for that reason, among 
others, fit to be employed as parts of a plan 
of Parliamentary Reform.* 

The two plans of Reform, Sir, that have 
been proposed, during the last seventy years, 
may be divided into the Simultaneous and 


* The Reforms proposed by Mr. Flood in 1790, 
and by Lord Grey in 1797, might have been added 
to those of Mr. Pitt in 1782, 1783, and 1785. 








SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL. 


the Progressive. Of the first it is manifest, 
that the two expedients of resuming the 
franchise from those who cannot use it for 
the public good, and bestowing it where it 
will probably be better employed, are indis¬ 
pensable, or rather essential parts. I shall 
presently show that it is impossible to exe¬ 
cute the most slowly Progressive scheme of 
Reformation, without some application, how¬ 
ever limited, of these now altogether pro¬ 
scribed principles. 

I do not wish to displease the Honourable 
Baronet by frequent or extensive excursions 
into the Middle Ages ; but the Honourable 
and Learned Gentleman will admit that 
the right of the Crown to summon new 
boroughs, was never disputed until its last 
exercise by Charles II. in the well-known 
instance of Newark. In the Tudor reigns, 
this prerogative had added one hundred and 
fifty members to this House. In the forty- 
five years of Elizabeth, more than sixty 
were received into it. From the accession 
of Henry VII. to the disuse of the prero¬ 
gative, the representation received an acces¬ 
sion of about two hundred, if we include 
the cases where representation was estab¬ 
lished by Parliament, and those where, after 
a disuse of centuries, it was so restored. 
Let me add, without enlarging on it, that 
forty-four boroughs, and a city, which an¬ 
ciently sent burgesses to this House, are 
unrepresented at this day. I know no Par¬ 
liamentary mode of restoring their franchises, 
but by a statute, which would be in effect a 
new grant. I believe, that if such matters 
were cognisable by courts of law, the judges 
would presume, or, for greater security, ad¬ 
vise a jury to presume, after a disuse of so 
many centuries, that it had originated either 
in a surrender, or in some other legal mode 
of terminating the privilege. According to 
the common maxim, that there is no right 
without a remedy, we may infer the absence 
of right from the absence of remedy. In 
that case, the disuse of granting summonses 
by the King, or his officers, must be taken 
to have been legal, in spite of the authority 
of Serjeant Glanville and his Committee, 
who, in the reign of James I., held the con- 


795 

trary doctrine. But I waive this question, 
because the answer to it is needless to the 
purpose of my argument. It is enough for 
me that the disuse had been practically 
maintained, without being questioned, till 
the end of James’s reign; and that it still 
shuts our doors on ninety persons who might 
otherwise be chosen to sit in this House. 
The practice of resuming the franchise , 
therefore, prevailed as certainly in ancient 
tim<?s, as the exercise of the prerogative of 
conferring it. The effect of both combined, 
was to take from the representation the 
character of immutability, and to bestow on 
it that flexibility which, if it had been then 
properly applied, might have easily fitted it 
for every change of circumstances. These 
powers were never exercised on any fixed 
principle. The prerogative was often griev¬ 
ously abused; but the abuse chiefly con¬ 
sisted in granting the privilege to beggarly 
villages, or to the manor or demesne of a 
favoured lord: there are few examples of 
withholding the franchise from considerable 
towns. On a rapid review of the class of 
towns next in importance to London, such 
as York, Bristol, Exeter, Norwich, Lincoln, 
&c., it appears to me, that they all sent 
Members to the House of Commons of Ed¬ 
ward I. Boston did not occur to me ; but, 
admitting the statement respecting that 
place to be accurate, the Honourable and 
Learned Gentleman must allow this instance 
to be at variance with the general spirit and 
tendency of the ancient constitution, in the 
distribution of elective privileges. I do not 
call it an exception to a rule ; for there were 
no rules: it was no departure from princi¬ 
ple ; for no general principle was professed, 
or, perhaps, thought of: but it was at vari¬ 
ance with that disposition not to leave great 
towns unrepresented, which, though not re¬ 
duced to system, yet practically influenced 
the coarse good sense of our ancestors, and, 
what is remarkable, is most discernible in 
the earliest part of their legislation.* 


* For a more detailed reference to the earlier 
statutory regulations affecting tlie franchise, see 
Appendix A. — Ed. 











MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


796 


It was not the Union with Scotland that 
stopped the exercise of the prerogative. 
With the exception of Newark, there was 
no instance of its exertion for nearly seventy 
years before that date. We know that the 
Stuart Kings dreaded an increase of mem¬ 
bers in this House, as likely to bestow a 
more democratical character on its proceed¬ 
ings : but still the true cause of the extinc¬ 
tion of the prerogative, was the jealousy 
of a people become more enlightened,^md 
suspicious of a power which had already 
been abused, and which might be made the 
means of enslaving the kingdom. The dis¬ 
cussions in this House respecting the admis¬ 
sion of the members for Newark, though 
they ended favourably to the Crown in that 
instance, afforded such a specimen of the 
general sentiments and temper respecting 
the prerogative, that no man was bold 
enough to advise its subsequent exercise. 

The course of true wisdom would have 
been to regulate the employment of the pre¬ 
rogative by a law, which, acting quietly, 
calmly, but constantly, would have removed 
or prevented all gross inequality in the 
representation. It would have then been 
necessary only to enact that every town, 
which grew to a certain number of houses, 
should be summoned to send members to 
Parliament, and that every town which fell 
below a certain number, should cease to be 
so summoned. The consequence of this 
neglect became apparent as the want of 
some remedial power was felt. The regu¬ 
lator of the representation, which had been 
injuriously active in stationary times, was 
suffered to drop from the machine at a 
moment when it was much needed to adapt 
the elective system to the rapid and prodi¬ 
gious changes which have occurred in the 
state of society,—when vast cities have 
sprung up in every province, and the manu¬ 
facturing world may be said to have been 
created. There was no longer any reno¬ 
vating principle in the frame of the consti¬ 
tution. All the marvellous works of industry 
and science are unnoticed in our system of 
representation. The changes of a century 
and a half since the case of Newark, — the 


social revolution of the last sixty years, 
have altered the whole condition of mankind 
more than did the three centuries which 
passed before: — the representation alone 
has stood still. It is to this interruption of 
the vis medicatrix et conservatrix of the com¬ 
monwealth that we owe the necessity of now 
recurring to the extensive plan of Simul¬ 
taneous Reform, of which I do not dispute 
the inconveniences. We are now called on 
to pay the arrears of a hundred and sixty 
years of an unreformed representation. The 
immediate settlement of this constitutional 
balance is now difficult;—it may not be 
without danger : but it is become necessary 
that we may avoid ruin. It may soon be 
impossible to save us by that, or by any 
other means. 

But, Sir, we are here met by a serious 
question, which, being founded on a principle 
generally true, acquires a great effect by 
specious application. We are reminded by 
the Honourable and Learned Gentleman, 
that governments are to be valued for their 
beneficial effects, — not for their beauty as 
ingenious pieces of machinery. We are 
asked, what is the practical evil which we 
propose to remove, or even to lessen, by Re¬ 
form ? We are told, that the representative 
system “ works well,” and that the excel¬ 
lence of the English constitution is attested 
by the admirable fruits, which for at least a 
century and a half it has produced. I dare 
not take the high ground of denying the 
truth of the facts thus alleged. God forbid 
that I should ever derogate from the tran- 
scendant merits of the English constitution, 
which it has been the chief occupation of 
my life to study, and which I now seek, be¬ 
cause I love it, to reform! 

Much as I love and revere this constitu¬ 
tion, I must say, that, during the last cen¬ 
tury, the representative system has not 
worked well. I do not mean to undervalue 
its general results; but it has not worked 
well for one grand purpose, without which, 
no other benefit can be safe: — the means 
employed in elections, has worked all respect 
for the constitution out of the hearts of the 
people. The foulness and shamefulness, or 






SPEECH 0N THE REFORM BILL. 797 


the fraud and mockery of borough elections, 
have slowly weaned the people from their 
ancient attachments. With less competence, 
perhaps, than others, to draw up the general 
comparison between the good and evil re¬ 
sults, they were shocked by the barefaced 
corruption which the increasing frequency of 
contests constantly brought home to them. 
These disgusting scenes could not but uproot 
attachment to the government to which they 
seemed to pertain. The people could see 
nothing venerable in venality, — in bribery, 
— in the sale of some, and in the gift of other 
seats, — in nominal elections carried on by 
individuals, under the disguise of popular 
forms. 

It is true, that the vile machinery of 
openly marketable votes, was the most 
powerful cause which alienated them. But 
half the nomination-boroughs were so mar¬ 
ketable. Though I know one nomination- 
borough * where no seat was ever sold, — 
where no Member ever heard a whisper of 
the wishes of a patron, — where One Mem¬ 
ber at least was under no restraint beyond 
the ties of political opinion and friendship, 
which he voluntarily imposed upon himself. 
It does not become me to say how the Mem¬ 
ber to whom I advert would have acted in 
other circumstances; but I am firmly con¬ 
vinced that the generous nature of the other 
Party would as much recoil from imposing 
dependency, as any other could recoil from 
submitting to it. I do not pretend to say 
that this is a solitary instance : but I believe 
it to be too favourable a one to be a fair 
sample of the general practice. 

Even in the best cases, the pretended 
election was an eye-sore to all that witnessed 
it. A lie was solemnly acted before their 
eyes. While the popular principles of the 
constitution had taught them that popular 
elections belonged to the people, all the acts 
that the letter of the law had expressly for¬ 
bidden were now become the ordinary means 
of obtaining a Parliamentary seat. These 


* Knaresborough, the property of the Duke of 
Devonshire, which he had represented since 1818. 
— Ed. 


odious and loathsome means became more 
general as the country increased in wealth, 
and as the people grew better informed, — 
more jealous of encroachment on their rights, 
and more impatient of exclusion from power. 
In the times of the Stuarts and Tudors, the 
burgesses, as we see from the lists, had been 
very generally the sons of neighbouring 
gentlemen, chosen with little contest and 
noise, and so seldom open to the charge of 
bribery, that when it occurred, we find it 
mentioned as a singular event. It was not 
till after the Revolution that monied can¬ 
didates came from the Capital to invade a 
tranquillity very closely allied to blind sub¬ 
mission. At length, the worst of all prac¬ 
tical effects was produced: — the constitution 
sunk in popular estimation ; the mass of the 
people were estranged from the objects of 
their hereditary reverence. An election is 
the part of our constitution with which the 
multitude come into most frequent contact. 
Seeing in many of them nothing but de¬ 
bauchery,— riot, — the sale of a right to 
concur in making law, — the purchase in 
open market of a share in the choice of 
lawgivers, — absolute nomination under the 
forms of election, they were conscious that 
many immoral, many illegal practices became 
habitual, and were even justified. Was it 
not natural for the majority of honest men 
to form their judgments rather by means of 
their moral feelings, than as the results of 
refined arguments, founded on a calm com¬ 
parison of evils ? Such at least was the 
effect of this most mischievous practice, that 
when any misfortune of the country, any 
error of the Government, any commotion 
abroad, or any disorder at home arose, they 
were all ascribed, with exaggeration, but 
naturally, to the corruption, which the hum¬ 
blest of the people saw had tainted the vital 
organs of the commonwealth. 

My Honourable and Excellent Friend, the 
Member for the University of Oxford*, in¬ 
deed told the last Parliament, that the cla¬ 
mours about the state of the representation 
were only momentary cries, which, however 

* Sir Robert Harry Inglis, Bart. — Ed. 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


798 


magnified at the moment, always quickly 
yielded to a vigorous and politic government. 
He might have looked back somewhat far¬ 
ther. What were the Place Bills and Trien¬ 
nial Bills of Sir Robert Walpole’s time ? 
Were they not, in truth, demands of Parlia¬ 
mentary Reform ? The cry is therefore one 
of the symptoms of a distemper, which has 
lasted for a century. But to come to his 
more recent examples: — in 1770, Lord 
Chatham was the agitator ; Mr. Burke was 
the incendiary pamphleteer, who exaggerated 
the importance of a momentary delusion, 
which was to subside as quickly as it had 
risen. Unfortunately for this reasoning, 
though the delusion subsided after 1770, it 
revived again in 1780, under Sir George 
Saville; under Mr. Pitt in 1782, 1783, and 
1784 : it was felt at the time of Mr. Flood’s 
motion in 1790. Lord Grey’s motion in 1797 
was supported by respectable Tories, such as 
Sir William Dolben, Sir Rowland Hill, and 
by conscientious men, more friendly to Mr. 
Pitt than to his opponents, of whom it is 
enough to name Mr. Henry Thornton, then 
Member for Surrey. Instead of being the 
expressions of a transient delusion, these 
constantly recurring complaints are the 
symptoms of a deep-rooted malady, some¬ 
times breaking out, sometimes dying away, 
sometimes repelled, but always sure to return, 
— re-appearing with resistless force in the 
elections of 1830, and still more decisively 
in those of 1831. If we seek for proof of 
an occasional provocation, which roused the 
people to a louder declaration of their opin¬ 
ions, where shall we find a more unex¬ 
ceptionable witness, than in one of the ablest 
and most unsparing opponents of the Minis¬ 
ters and of their Bill. Mr. Henry Drum¬ 
mond, in his very able Address to the 
Freeholders of Surrey, explicitly ascribes 
the irritation which now prevails to the un¬ 
wise language of the late Ministers. The 
declaration of the late Ministers against Re¬ 
form, says he, “ proved their gross ignorance 
of the national feeling, and drove the people 
of England to despair.” 

Many allege, Sir, that the people have 
gained so much strength and influence 


through the press, that they need no formal 
privileges or legal franchises to reinforce it. 
If it be so, I consider it to be a decisive 
reason for a reformation of the scheme of 
the representation. A country in which the 
masses are become powerful by their intel¬ 
ligence and by their wealth, while they 
are exasperated by exclusion from political 
rights, never can be in a safe condition. I 
hold it to be one of the most invariable 
maxims of legislation, to bind to the con¬ 
stitution, by the participation of legal privi¬ 
lege, all persons who have risen in wealth,— 
in intelligence, — in any of the legitimate 
sources of ascendancy. I would do now 
what our forefathers, though rudely, aimed 
at doing, by calling into the national councils 
every rising element in the body politic. 

The grand objection to this Bill, Sir, is 
what ought to be fatal to any Bill, if the 
objection had any foundation but loud and 
bold assertion, — that it is unjust. This 
argument was never, indeed, urged by the 
Right Honourable Baronet, and it seems to 
be on the eve of being abandoned. But the 
walls of the House still seem to resound 
with the vociferations of my Honourable 
and Learned Friend, the Member for Bo- 
roughbridge *, against what he called “ cor¬ 
poration robbery.” Now, many of these 
boroughs have no corporations at all; while 
none who have will be deprived of tlieir 
corporate rights. But if all these corpora¬ 
tions had been about to be divested of their 
character, — divested of rights which have 
been, or are likely to be abused, the term 
“ robbery ” would have been ridiculously 
inapplicable. Examples are more striking 
than general reasonings. Was the disuse of 
issuing Writs of Summons, as a consequence 
of which near a hundred Members are ex¬ 
cluded from this House, an act of “ rob¬ 
bery ? ” Was the union witli Scotland, 
which reduced the borough representation 
from sixty-five to fifteen, an act of “ rob¬ 
bery ? ” Yes, surely, it was, if the term can 
be properly applied to this Bill. The Scotch 
boroughs were thrown into clusters of four 


* Sir Charles Wctherel!. — Ed. 







SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL. 799 


and five, each of which sent a burgess. But 
if it be “ robbery ” to take away the whole of 
a franchise, is it not in principle as violent an 
invasion of property to take away four-fifths 
or three-fourths of it. What will be said of 
the Union with Ireland ? Was it “ robbery” 
to reduce her representation from three 
hundred to one hundred members ? Was it 
“ robbery ” to disfranchise, as they did then, 
one hundred boroughs on the very principle 
of the present Bill,—because they were 
decayed, dependent, and so unfit to exercise 
the franchise? Was it “robbery” to de¬ 
prive the Peers of Scotland of their birth¬ 
right, and compel them to be contented with 
a bare possibility of being occasionally 
elected? Was it “robbery” to mutilate 
the legislative rights of the Irish Peerage ? 
No! because in all these cases, the powers 
taken away or limited were trusts resumable 
by Parliament for the general well-being. 

Further, I contend that if this be “ rob¬ 
bery,” every borough disfranchised for cor¬ 
ruption has been “ robbed ” of its rights. 
Talk not to me of the guilt of these boroughs: 
individuals are innocent or guilty, — bodies 
politic can be neither. If disfranchisement 
be considered as a punishment, where is the 
trial, — where are the witnesses on oath, — 
where are the precautions against partiality, 
where are the responsible judges ? Who, 
indeed, are the judges ? — men who have 
avowedly committed and have justified as 
constitutional the very offence. Why, in such 
cases, are the unborn punished for the 
offences of the present generation? Why 
should the innocent minority suffer for the 
sins of a venal majority ? If the rights of 
unoffending parties are reserved, of what 
importance is the reservation, if they are to 
be merged in those of hundreds or thousands 
of fellow voters ? Would not the opening 
of the suffrage in the city of Bath be as de¬ 
structive to the close Corporation as if they 
were to be by name disfranchised ? Viewed 
in that light, every Bill of Disfranchisement 
is a Bill of Pains and Penalties, and in the 
nature of a Bill of Attainder. How are 
these absurdities avoided? — only by the 
principle of this Bill, — that political trust 


may be justly resumed by the supreme 
power, whenever it is deemed injurious to 
the commonwealth. 

The test, Sir, which distinguishes pro¬ 
perty from trust is simple, and easily ap¬ 
plied:— property exists for the benefit of 
the proprietor; political power exists only 
for the service of the state. Property is, 
indeed, the most useful of all human in¬ 
stitutions : it is so, because the power of 
every man to do what he will with his own, 
is beneficial and even essential to the ex¬ 
istence of society. A trustee is legally an¬ 
swerable for the abuse of his power: a 
proprietor is not amenable to human law 
for any misuse of his property, unless it 
should involve a direct violation of the 
rights of others. It is said, that property 
is a trust; and so it may, in figurative 
language, be called: but it is a moral, not a 
legal one. In the present argument, we 
have to deal only with the latter. The con¬ 
fusion of the ideas misled the Stuarts so 
far, that they thought the kingdom their 
property, till they were undeceived by the 
Revolution, which taught us that man can¬ 
not have a property in his fellows. As all 
government is a trust, the share which each 
voter has in the nomination of lawgivers is 
one also. Otherwise, if the voter, as such, 
were a proprietor, he must have a property 
in his fellow citizens, who are governed by 
laws, of which he has a share in naming the 
makers. If the doctrine of the franchise 
being property be admitted, all Reform is 
for ever precluded. Even the enfranchise¬ 
ment of new boroughs, or districts, must be 
renounced; for every addition diminishes 
the value of the previous suffrage: and it 
is no more lawful to lessen the value of 
property, than to take it away. 

Of all doctrines which threaten the prin¬ 
ciple of property, none more dangerous was 
ever promulgated, than that which con¬ 
founds it with political privileges. None of 
the disciples of St. Simon, or of the followers 
of the ingenious and benevolent Owen, have 
struck so deadly a blow at it, as those who 
would reduce it to the level of the elective 
rights of Gatton and Old Sarum. Property, 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


800 


— the nourisher of mankind,—the incentive 
to industry,—the cement of human society, 
—will be in a perilous condition, if the 
people be taught to identify it with political 
abuse, and to deal with it as being involved 
in its impending fate. Let us not teach the 
spoilers of future times to represent our 
resumption of a right of suffrage as a 
precedent for their seizure of lands and 
possessions. 

Much is said in praise of the practice of 
nomination, which is now called “ the most 
unexceptionable part of our representation.” 
To nomination, it seems, we owe the talents 
of our young Members,—the prudence and 
experience of the more aged. It supplies 
the colonies and dependencies of this great 
empire with virtual representation in this 
House. By it commercial and funded pro¬ 
perty finds skilful advocates and intrepid 
defenders. All these happy consequences 
are ascribed to that flagrant system of 
breaches of the law, which is now called 
“ the practice of the English constitution.” 

Sir, I never had, and have not now, any 
objection to the admission of representatives 
of the colonies into this House, on fair and 
just conditions. But I cannot conceive that 
a Bill which is objected to, as raising the 
commercial interest at the expense of the 
landed, will also lessen the safeguards of 
their property. Considering the well-known 
and most remarkable subdivision of funded 
income, — the most minutely divided of any 
mass of property, — I do not believe that 
any representatives, or even any consti¬ 
tuents, could be ultimately disposed to do 
themselves so great an injury as to invade 
it. Men of genius, and men of experience, 
and men of opulence, have found their way 
into this House through nomination, or 
worse means, — through any channel that 
was open: the same classes of candidates 
will now direct their ambition and their 
efforts to the new channels opened by the 
present Bill; they will attain their end by 
only varying their means. 

A list has been read to us of illustrious 
men who found an introduction to Parlia¬ 
ment, or a refuge from unmerited loss of 


popularity, by means of decayed boroughs. 
What does such a catalogue prove, but that 
England, for the last sixty years, has been a 
country full of ability, — of knowledge, — 
of intellectual activity, — of honourable am¬ 
bition, and that a large portion of these 
qualities has flowed into the House of 
Commons ? Might not the same dazzling 
common-places have been opposed to the 
abolition of the court of the Star Chamber ? 
“ What,” it might have been said, “ will you, 
in your frantic rage of innovation, demolish 
the tribunal in which Sir Thomas More the 
best of men, and Lord Bacon, the greatest 
of philosophers, presided, — where Sir Ed¬ 
ward Coke, the oracle of law, —where Bur¬ 
leigh and Walsingham, the most revered of 
English statesmen, sat as judges,—which 
Bacon, enlightened by philosophy and ex¬ 
perience, called the peculiar glory of our 
legislation, as being ‘ a court of criminal 
equity ? ’ Will you, in your paroxysms of 
audacious frenzy, abolish this Praetorian 
tribunal, — this sole instrument for bridling 
popular incendiaries ? Will you dare to 
persevere in your wild purpose, at a moment 
when Scotland is agitated by a rebellious 
League and Covenant, — when Ireland is 
threatened with insurrection and massacre ? 
Will you surrender the shield of the Crown, 
— the only formidable arm of prerogative, — 
at a time when Ilis Majesty’s authority is 
openly defied in the capital where we are 
assembled ? ” 

I cannot, indeed, Sir, recollect a single 
instance in that long course of reformation, 
which constitutes the history of the English 
constitution, where the same plausible argu¬ 
ments, and the same exciting topics, might 
not have been employed as are now pointed 
against the present measure. The Honour¬ 
able and Learned Gentleman has alluded to 
Simon de Montfort, — the first and most 
extensive Parliamentary Reformer, — who 
placed the representatives of the burgesses 
in Parliament. The haughty and unlettered 
Barons disdained argument; but their mur¬ 
murs were doubtless loud and vehement. 
Even they could exclaim that the new con¬ 
stitution was an “untried scheme,” — that 






SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL. 801 


it was a “ daring experiment,” — that it 
“ would level all the distinctions of society,” 
—that it would throw the power of the state 
into the hands of traffickers and burgesses. 
Were men but yesterday slaves, now to be 
seated by the side of Plantagenets engaged 
in the arduous duty of making laws ? Are 
these not the topics which are substantially 
used against Parliamentary Reform ? They 
are now belied by experience, which has 
taught us that the adoption of the lower 
classes into the constitution, the concessions 
made to them, and the widening of the 
foundation of the legislature, have been the 
source of peace, of order, of harmony, — of 
all that is excellent in our government, and 
of all that secures the frame of our society. 
The Habeas Corpus Act, in the reign of 
Charles the Second, was obtained only by 
the repeated, persevering, unwearied ex¬ 
ertions of the Earl of Shaftesbury, after a 
meritorious struggle of many years. I men¬ 
tion the facts with pleasure in the presence 
of his descendant.* It is now well known, 
from the confidential correspondence of 
Charles and his brother James, that they 
both believed sincerely that a government 
without the power of arbitrary imprison¬ 
ment could not long exist; and that Shaftes¬ 
bury had forced this Act upon them, in order 
either to expose them unarmed to the popu¬ 
lace, or to drive them to have recourse to 
the odious and precarious protection of a 
standing army. The belief of the Royal 
Brothers was the more incorrigible, because 
it was sincere. It is the fatal effect of ab¬ 
solute power to corrupt the judgment of its 
possessors, and to insinuate into their minds 
the false and pernicious opinion, that power 
is always weakened by limitation. 

Shall I be told, that the sale of seats is 
not in itself an evil ? The same most in¬ 
genious person"}* who hazarded this paradox, 
quoted the example of the sale of the judi¬ 
cial office in Old France, with a near approach 
to approbation. That practice has been 


* Viscount Ashley. — Ed. 
f It would not seem easy to specify the person 
alluded to. — Ed. 


vindicated by French writers of great note; 
and it had, in fact, many guards and limit¬ 
ations not to be found in our system of 
marketable boroughs: but it has been 
swept away by the Revolution; and there 
is now no man disposed to palliate its shame¬ 
less enormity. The grossest abuses, as long 
as they prevail, never want advocates to 
find out specious mitigations of their effects: 
their downfall discovers their deformity to 
every eye. For my part, I do not see, why 
the sale of a power to make laws should not 
be as immoral as the sale of a power to ad¬ 
minister them. 

We have heard it said, Sir, that the Peer¬ 
age, and even the Monarchy, cannot survive 
the loss of these boroughs ; and we are re¬ 
ferred to the period that has elapsed since 
the Revolution, as that during which this 
influence has been their main guard against 
popular assault and dictation. I respect¬ 
fully lay aside the Crown in this debate; 
and in the few words that I am now about 
to utter, I am desirous to express myself 
in cautious and constitutional language. 
Since the Revolution, — since the defeat of 
the attempts to establish absolute monarchy, 
the English government has undoubtedly 
become parliamentary. But during that 
time, also, the hereditary elements of the 
constitution have been uniformly respected 
as wholesome temperaments of the rashness 
of popular assemblies. I can discover no¬ 
thing in this proposed change which will 
disable the Peers from usefully continuing 
to perform this duty. If some inconvenient 
diminution of the influence of great pro¬ 
perty should follow, we must encounter the 
risk; for nothing can, in my judgment, be 
more certain, than that the constitution can 
no longer bear the weight of the obloquy 
thrown upon it by our present mode of con¬ 
ducting elections. The community cannot 
afford to purchase any advantage at such 
an expense of private character. But so 
great is the natural influence of property, 
especially in a country where the various 
ranks of society have been so long bound 
together by friendly ties as in ours, that I 
can scarcely conceive any laws or institu- 


3 F 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


802 


tions which could much diminish the in¬ 
fluence of well-spent wealth, whether ho¬ 
nourably inherited, or honestly earned. 

The benefits of any reformation might 
indeed be hazarded, if the great proprietors 
were to set themselves in battle array against 
the permanent desires of the people. If 
they treat their countrymen as adversaries, 
they may, in their turn, excite a hostile 
spirit. Distrust will beget distrust: jea¬ 
lousy will awaken an adverse jealousy. I 
trust that these evil consequences may not 
arise. The Nobility of England, in former 
times, have led their countrymen in the 
battles of liberty: those among them who 
are most distinguished by ample possessions, 
by historical names, or by hereditary fame, 
interwoven with the glory of their country, 
have, on this occasion, been the foremost to 
show their confidence in the people, — their 
unsuspecting liberality in the enlargement 
of popular privilege, — their reliance on the 
sense and honesty of their fellow-citizens, as 
the best safeguard of property and of order, 
as well as of all other interests of society. 
Already, this measure has exhibited a disin¬ 
terestedness which has united all classes, 
from, the highest borough-holder to the 
humblest non-resident freeman, in the sa¬ 
crifice of their own exclusive advantages 
to what they think a great public good. 
There must be something good in what pro¬ 
duces so noble a sacrifice. 

This, Sir, is not solely a reformatory mea¬ 
sure ; it is also conciliatory. If it were pro¬ 
posed exclusively for the amendment of 
institutions, I might join in the prevalent 
cry “ that it goes too far,” or at least “ tra¬ 
vels too fast,” — farther and faster than the 
maxims of wise reformation would warrant. 
But as it is a means of regaining national 
confidence, it must be guided by other 
maxims. In that important view of the 
subject, I consider the terms of this plan as 
of less consequence than the temper which it 
breathes, and the spirit by which it is ani¬ 
mated. A conciliatory measure deserves the 
name only, when it is seen and felt by the 
simplest of men, to flow from the desire and 
determination to conciliate. At this mo¬ 


ment, when, amidst many causes of discord, 
there is a general sympathy in favour of 
reformation, the superior classes of society, 
by opening their arms to receive the people, 
— by giving to the people a signal and con¬ 
spicuous proof of confidence, — may reason¬ 
ably expect to be trusted in return. But to 
reach this end, they must not only be, but 
appear to be, liberally just and equitably 
generous. Confidence can be purchased by 
confidence alone. If the leading classes 
follow the example of many of their own 
number, — if they show, by gracious and 
cheerful concessions, — by striking acts, not 
merely by specious language or cold formal¬ 
ities of law, — that they are willing to rest 
on the fidelity and conscience of the people, 
I do not believe that they will lean on a 
broken reed. As for those wise saws which 
teach us that there is always danger in trust, 
and that policy and generosity are at per¬ 
petual variance, I hold them in little respect. 
Every unbending maxim of policy is hollow 
and unsafe. Base principles are often not 
the more prudent because they are pusil¬ 
lanimous. I rather agree with the beautiful 
peroration of Mr. Burke’s second speech on 
North America: — “ Magnanimity in politics 
is not seldom the truest wisdom: a great 
empire and little minds go ill together. If 
we are conscious of our situation, and glow 
with zeal to fill our place, as becomes our 
station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate 
our proceedings respecting America, with 
the old warning of the Church, — ‘ Sursnm 
Cor da' W e ought to elevate our minds to 
the dignity of that trust, to which the order 
of Providence has called us.” 

Whether we consider this measure, either 
as a scheme of reformation, or an attempt to 
form an alliance with the people, it must be 
always remembered, that it is a question of 
the comparative safety or danger of the only 
systems now before us for our option; — 
that of undistinguishing adherence to present 
institutions, — that of ample redress and 
bold reformation, — and that of niggardly, 
evasive, and unwilling Reform. Isay, “com¬ 
parative ” safety or danger; for not one of 
those who have argued this question seem to 







SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL. 803 


have remembered that it has two sides. They 
have thrown all the danger of the times upon 
the Reform. They load it with as much 
odium as if the age were otherwise altogether 
exempt from turbulence and agitation, and 
first provoked from its serene quiet by this 
wanton attempt. They make it answerable 
for mischiefs which it may not have the 
power to prevent, and which might have 
occurred if no such measure had ever been 
attempted. They, at least, tacitly assume 
that it must aggravate every evil arising 
from other sources. In short, they beg the 
whole question in dispute. They ask us, 
Whether there be not danger in Reform ? I 
answer by asking them, Is there no danger 
in not reforming ? To this question, to which 
they have never yet attempted to answer, I 
expect no answer now; because a negative 
one would seem to me impossible, while an 
affirmative would reduce the whole discus¬ 
sion to a cool computation and calm com¬ 
parison of the different degrees of danger 
opening upon us. 

A niggardly reform, Sir, seems to me the 
most unsafe step of all systems. It cannot 
conciliate ; for it is founded in distrust. It 
practically admits an evil, of which dissatis¬ 
faction is a large part: and yet it has been 
already proved by experience that it yet 
satisfied nobody. Other systems may be 
unsatisfactory: this scheme is so already. 
In the present temper of the people, and 
circumstances of the world, I can see no one 
good purpose to be answered by an evasive 
and delusive Reform. To what extent will 
they trust the determined enemies of the 
smallest step towards reformation,—who, to 
avoid the grant of the franchise to Birming¬ 
ham, have broken up one Administration, 
and who, if they be sincere, must try every 
expedient to render impotent a measure 
which they can no longer venture avowedly 
to oppose. 

On the other hand, Sir, the effect of the 
Bill before us has hitherto confirmed the 
opinion of those who thought that a measure 
of a conciliatory temper, and of large and 
liberal concession, would satisfy the people. 
The tone and scope of their petitions, which 


were at first extravagant, became moderate 
and pacific, as soon as the Bill was known. 
As soon as they saw so unexpected a project 
of substantial amendment, proceeding from 
sincere Reformers, they at once sacrificed 
all vague projects of indefinite perfection. 
Nothing can be more ludicrously absurd, 
than the supposition which has been hazarded 
among us, that several millions of men are 
such deep dissemblers, — such dark con¬ 
spirators, — as to be able to conceal ail their 
farther projects, till this Bill arms them with 
the means of carrying them into execution. 
The body of a people cannot fail to be 
sincere. I do not expect any measure of 
legislation to work miracles. Discontent 
may and will continue; but I believe that it 
will be by this measure permanently abated. 
Others there doubtless are, who foretell far 
other effects: it seems to me, that the 
favourers of the Bill rest their predictions 
on more probable foundations. 

Among the numerous assumptions of our 
opponents, there is none which appears to 
me more remarkable, than their taking for 
granted that concession is always, or even 
generally, more dangerous to the stability 
of government than resistance. As the 
Right Honourable Baronet introduced seve¬ 
ral happy quotations from Cicero on this 
subject, which he seemed to address more 
particularly to me, I hope I shall not be 
charged with pedantry, if I begin my 
proofs of the contrary, with the testimony of 
that great writer. In the third book of 
his work, “ De Legibus,” after having put 
an excellent aristocratical speech, against 
the tribunitian power, into the mouth of his 
brother Quintus, he proceeds to answer him 
as follows: — “Concessa Plebi a Patribus 
ista potestate, arma ceciderunt, restincta 
seditio est, inventum est temperamentum 
quo tenuiores cum principibus aequari se 
putarint; in quo uno fuit civitatis salus.” It 
will not be said, that Cicero was a radical or 
a demagogue, or that he had any personal 
cause to be favourable to the tribunitian 
power. It will not be said, that to grant to 
a few, a right to stop the progress of every 
public measure, was a slender, or likely to be 


3 F 2 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


804 


1 


a safe concession. The ancients had more 
experience of democracy, and a better know¬ 
ledge of the character of demagogues, than 
the frame of modern society allows us the 
means of attaining. This great man, in spite 
of his natural prejudices, and just resent¬ 
ments, ascribes to this apparently monstrous 
power, not merely the spirit and energy 
which may be expected even from the excess 
of popular institutions, but whatever safety 
and tranquillity the commonwealth enjoyed 
through a series of ages. He would not, 
therefore, have argued as has been argued on 
this occasion, that if the multitude appeal to 
violence, before legal privileges are conferred 
on them, they will be guilty of tenfold ex¬ 
cesses when they become sharers in legiti¬ 
mate authority. On the contrary, he lays it 
down in the context of the passage quoted, 
that their violence is abated, by allowing a 
legal vent to their feelings. 

But it appears, Sir, to be taken for 
granted, that concession to a people is 
always more dangerous to public quiet than 
resistance. Is there any pretence for such 
a doctrine ? I appeal to history, as a vast 
magazine of facts, all leading to the very 
opposite conclusion, — teaching that this 
fatal principle has overthrown more thrones 
and dismembered more empires than any 
other — proving that late reformation, — 
dilatory reformation, — reformation refused 
at the critical moment, — which may pass 
for ever, — in the twinkling of an eye, — 
has been the most frequent of all causes of 
the convulsions which have shaken states, 
and for a time burst asunder the bonds of 
society. Allow me very briefly to advert to 
the earliest revolution of modern times : — 
was it by concession that Philip II. lost the 
Netherlands ? Had he granted timely and 
equitable concessions, — had he not plotted 
the destruction of the ancient privileges of 
these flourishing provinces, under pretence 
that all popular privilege was repugnant to 
just authority, would he not have continued 
to his death the master of that fair portion of 
Europe? Did Charles I. lose his throne and 
his life by concession ? Is it not notorious, 
that if, before losing- the confidence of the 


Parliament and the people (after that loss all 
his expedients of policy were vain, as in such 
a case all policy is unavailing), he had ad¬ 
hered to the principles of the Petition of 
Bight, to which he had given his Royal As¬ 
sent, — if he had forborne from the persecu¬ 
tion of the Puritans, — if he had refrained 
from levying money without a grant from 
Parliament, he would, in all human pro¬ 
bability, have reigned prosperously to the 
last day of his life. If there be any man 
who doubts it, his doubts will be easily re¬ 
moved without pursuing his studies farther 
than the first volume of Lord Clarendon’s 
History. Did the British Parliament lose 
North America by concession? Is not the 
loss of that great empire solely to be as¬ 
cribed to the obstinate resistance of this 
House to every conciliatory proposition, 
although supported by their own greatest 
men, tendered in the loyal petitions of the 
Colonies, until they were driven into the 
arms of France, and the door was for ever 
closed against all hopes of reunion ? Had 
we yielded to the latest prayers of the Ame¬ 
ricans, it is hard to say how long the two 
British nations might have been held to¬ 
gether : the separation, at all events, if ab¬ 
solutely necessary, might have been effected 
on quiet and friendly terms. Whatever 
may be thought of recent events (of which 
it is yet too early to form a final judgment), 
the history of their origin and progress 
would of itself be enough to show the wisdom 
of those early reformations, which, as Mr. 
Burke says, “are accommodations with a 
friend in power.” 

I feel, Sir, some curiosity to know how 
many of the high-principled, consistent, in¬ 
flexible, and hitherto unyielding opponents 
of this Bill will continue to refuse to make 
a declaration in favour of any Reform, till 
the last moment of this discussion. Although 
I differ from them very widely in opinion, I 
know how to estimate their fidelity towards 
each other, and their general fairness to 
others, as well as their firmness under cir¬ 
cumstances of a discouraging and dishearten¬ 
ing nature, calculated to sow distrust and 
disunion in any political party. What I 








SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL. 


dread and deprecate in their system is, that 
they offer no option but Reform or coercion. 
Let any man seriously consider what is the 
full import of this last tremendous word. 
Restrictions will be first laid on the people, 
which will be assuredly productive of new 
discontents, provoking in turn an incensed 
Government to measures still more rigorous. 
Discontent will rankle into disaffection: dis¬ 
affection will break out into revolt; which, 
supposing the most favourable termination, 
will not be quelled without spilling the blood 
of our countrymen, and will leave them in 
the end full of hatred for their rulers, and 
watching for the favourable opportunity of 
renewing their attack. It is needless to con¬ 
sider the consequences of a still more dis¬ 
astrous and irreparable termination of the 
contest. It is enough for me to say, that 
the long continuance of such wretched 
scuffles between the Government and the 
people is absolutely incompatible with the 
very existence of the English constitution. 
But although a darkness hangs over the 
event, is there nothing in the present tem¬ 
per,—in the opinions,—in the circumstances 
of all European nations, which renders the 
success of popular principles probable ? The 
mode in which this matter has been argued, 
will excuse me for once more reminding the 
House that the question is one of compa¬ 
rative danger. I vote for the present Bill, 
not only because I approve of it as a mea¬ 
sure of Reform, but because I consider it as 
affording the greatest probability of pre¬ 
serving the integrity of our fundamental 
laws. Those who shut their eyes on the 
tempests which are abroad, — on the gloomy 
silence with which the extreme parties look 
at each other, may obstinately persist in 
ascribing the present agitation of mind in 
Great Britain to a new Cabinet in No¬ 
vember, or to a Reform Bill in March. 

Our opponents, Sir, deal much in pro¬ 
phecy : they foretell all the evils which will 
spring from Reform. They do right: such 
anticipations are not only legitimate argu¬ 
ments; but they form the hinge on which 
the whole case turns. But they have two 
sets of weights and measures: — they use 


-1 

805 

the probability of future evil resulting from 
Reform as their main stay; but when we 
employ the probability of future evil from 
No-Reform, in support of our opinion, 
they call it menace, and charge us with 
intimidation. 

In this, and indeed in every other branch 
of the case, the arguments of our opponents 
have so singular a resemblance to those em¬ 
ployed by them on the Catholic Question, 
that we might quote as answers to them 
their own language. Then, as now, Minis¬ 
ters were charged with yielding to clamour 
and menace, and with attempting to frighten 
other men from their independence. As a 
brief, but conclusive answer, I have only to 
say, that all policy consists in such con¬ 
siderations as to whether a measure be safe 
and beneficial, — that every statesman or 
lawgiver ought to fear what he considers as 
dangerous to the public, — and that I avow 
myself a coward at the prospect of the civil 
disorders which I think impending over my 
country. 

Then, Sir, we are told, — as we were told 
in the case of the Catholics, — that this mea¬ 
sure is not final, and that it is sought only 
as a vantage ground from which it will be 
more easy to effect other innovations. I 
denied the disposition to encroach, with 
which the Catholics were charged; and how¬ 
ever afflicting the condition of Ireland may 
now be, I appeal to every dispassionate man, 
whether the relief granted to them has not, 
on the whole, bettered the situation, and 
strengthened the security of the country. 

I was then taught by the Right Honourable 
Baronet *, that concession would divide loyal 
from disaffected opponents, and unite all 
friends of their country against those whose 
demands were manifestly insatiable. Is it 
not reasonable to expect some degree of the 
same benefits on the present occasion ? 

Nothing human is, in one sense of the 
word, final. Of a distant futurity I know 
nothing; and I am, therefore, altogether 
unfitted to make laws for it. Posterity may 
rightly measure their own wants, and their 


* Sir Robert Peel. — Ed. 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


806 


capacity, — we cannot; the utmost that we 
can aspire to, is to remove elements of dis¬ 
cord from their path. But within the very 
limited horizon to which the view of poli¬ 
ticians can reach, I have pointed out some 
reasons why I expect that a measure of con¬ 
cession, made in a spirit of unsuspecting 
confidence, may inspire the like sentiments, 
and why I believe that the people will ac¬ 
quiesce in a grant of these extensive privi¬ 
leges to those whose interests must be always 
the same as their own. After all, is it not 
obvious that the people already possess that 
power through their numbers, of which the 
exercise is dreaded ? It is ours, indeed, to 
decide, whether they are to exert their force 
in the market-place, in the street, in the 
field, or in discussion and debate in this 
House. If we somewhat increase their legal 
privileges, we must, also, in the same mea¬ 
sure, abate their supposed disposition to use 
it ill. 

On the great proprietors, much of the 
grace, — of the generous character, — of the 
conciliatory effect of this measure, must cer¬ 
tainly depend. But its success cannot ulti¬ 
mately depend upon a single class. If they be 
deluded or enraged by tales of intimidation 
and of riot,—if they can be brought to doubt 
that there is in the public mind on the ne¬ 
cessity of Reform any more doubt than is 
necessary to show the liberty of publishing 
opinion, — whenever or wherever they act 
on these great errors, they may abate the 
healing efficacy of a great measure of con¬ 
ciliation and improvement; but they cannot 
prevent its final adoption. Above all other 
considerations, I advise these great pro¬ 
prietors to cast from them those reasonings 
which would involve property in the ap¬ 
proaching downfall of political abuse. If 
they assent to the doctrine that political pri¬ 
vilege is property, they must be prepared for 
the inevitable consequence, — that it is no 
more unlawful to violate their possessions, 
than to resume a delegated trust. The sup¬ 
pression of dependent boroughs is at hand: 
it will be the truest wisdom of the natural 
guardians of the principle of property, to 
maintain, to inculcate, to enforce the essen¬ 


tial distinction between it and political trust, 
—if they be not desirous to arm the spoilers, 
whom they dread, with arguments which 
they can never consistently answer. 


APPENDIX. 

A. 

The first article in a wise plan of reformation, 
would, in our opinion, be the immediate addition 
of twenty Members to the House of Commons, to 
be chosen by the most opulent and populous of the 
communities which are at present without direct 
representation; with such varieties in the right of 
suffrage as the local circumstances of each commu¬ 
nity might suggest, but in all of them on the 
principle of a widely diffused franchise. In Scot¬ 
land, Glasgow ought to be included: in Ireland, 
we think there are no unrepresented communities 
to which the principle could be applied. 

In endeavouring to show that this proposal is 
strictly constitutional, according to the narrowest 
and most cautious use of that term, — that it re¬ 
quires only the exercise of an acknowledged right, 
and the revival of a practice observed for several 
ages, we shall abstain from those controverted 
questions which relate to the obscure and legendary 
part of our Parliamentary history. A very cur¬ 
sory review of the authentic annals of the House 
of Commons, is sufficient for the present purpose. 
In the writs of summons of the 11th of Edward I., 
the Sheriffs were directed (as they are by the pre¬ 
sent writ) to send two Members from each city and 
borough within their respective bailiwicks. The 
letter of this injunction appears, from the begin¬ 
ning, to have been disobeyed. The Crown was, 
indeed, desirous of a full attendance of citizens 
and burgesses, a class of men then subservient to 
the Royal pleasure, and who, it was expected, 
would reconcile their neighbours in the provinces to 
the burthen of Parliamentary grants; but to many 
boroughs, the wages of burgesses in Parliament were 
a heavy and sometimes an insupportable burthen: 
and this struggle between the policy of the Crown 
and the poverty of the boroughs, occasioned great 
fluctuations in the towns who sent Members to the 
House of Commons, in the course of the fourteenth 
century. Small boroughs were often excused by 
the Sheriff on account of their poverty, and at other 
times neglected or disobeyed his order. When he 
persisted, petitions were presented to the King in 
Parliament, and perpetual or temporary charters 










APPENDIX TO THE SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL. 807 


of exemption were obtained by the petitioning 
boroughs. In the 1st of Edward III. the county 
of Northumberland, and the town of Newcastle, 
were exempted, on account of the devastations of 
the Scotch war. The boroughs in Lancashire sent 
no members from the reign of Edward III. to that 
of Henry VI.; the Sheriff stating in his returns, 
that there was no borough in his bailiwick able to 
bear the expense. Of one hundred and eighty- 
four cities and boroughs, summoned to Parliament 
in the reigns of the three first Edwards, only 
ninety-one continued to send Members in the reign 
of Richard II. In the midst of this great irregu¬ 
larity in the composition of the House of Commons, 
we still see a manifest, though irregular, tendency 
to the establishment of a constitutional principle, 
— viz. that deputies from all the most important 
communities, with palpably distinct interests, 
should form part of a national assembly. The se¬ 
parate and sometimes clashing enterests,of the town 
and the country, were not entrusted to the same 
guardians. The Knights of the Shire were not con¬ 
sidered as sufficient representatives even of the 
rude industry and infant commerce of that age. 

The dangerous discretion of the Sheriffs was 
taken away by the statutes for the regulation of 
elections, passed under the princes of the House of 
Lancaster. A seat in the House of Commons had 
now begun to be an object of general ambition. 
Landed gentlemen, lawyers, even courtiers, served 
as burgesses, instead of those traders, — sometimes, 
if we may judge from their names, of humble 
occupation, — who filled that station in former 
times. Boroughs had already fallen under the 
influence of neighbouring proprietors: and, from a 
curious passage in the Paston Letters (vol. i. 
p. 96.), we find, that in the middle of the fifteenth 
century, the nomination of a young gentleman to 
serve for a borough, by the proprietor, or by a 
great man of the Court, was spoken of as not an 
unusual transaction. From this time the power of 
the Crown, of granting representation to new 
boroughs, formed a part of the regular practice of 
the government, and was exercised without inter¬ 
ruption for two hundred years. 

In the cases of Wales, Chester, and long after of 
Durham, representation was bestowed by statute, 
probably because it was thought that no inferior 
authority could have admitted Members from 
those territories, long subject to a distinct govern¬ 
ment, into the Parliament of England. In these 
ancient grants of representation, whether made by 
the King or by Parliament, we discover a great 
uniformity of principle, and an approach to the 
maxims of our present constitution. In Wales and 
Chester, as well as in England, the counties were 
distinguished from the towns; and the protection 
of their separate interests was committed to differ¬ 


ent representatives: the rights of election were 
diversified according to the local interests and 
municipal constitution of the several towns. In 
the preamble of the Chester Act, representation 
is stated to be the means of securing the county 
from the wrong which it had suffered while it was 
unrepresented. It was bestowed on Wales with 
the other parts of the laws of England, of which it 
was thought the necessary companion; and the 
exercise of popular privileges is distinctly held out 
as one of the means which were to quiet and 
civilise that principality. In the cases of Calais 
and Berwick, the frontier fortresses against France 
and Scotland, — where modern politicians would 
have been fearful of introducing the disorders of 
elections, — Henry tlieVIIIth granted the elective 
franchise, apparently for the purpose of strengthen¬ 
ing the attachment, and securing the fidelity of 
their inhabitants. The Knights of the Shire for 
Northumberland were not then thought to repre¬ 
sent Berwick sufficiently. 

While we thus find in these ancient examples 
so much solicitude for an adequate representation 
of the separate interests of classes and districts, it 
is particularly worthy of remark, that we find no 
trace in any of them of a representation founded 
merely on numbers. The statute that gave re¬ 
presentatives to Wales, was within a century 
of the act of Henry VI. for regulating the qua¬ 
lifications for the voters in counties; and on 
that subject, as well as others, may be regarded 
as no inconsiderable evidence on the ancient 
state of the constitution. Had universal suf¬ 
frage prevailed till the fifteenth century, it seems 
wholly incredible, that no trace of it should be 
found in the numerous Royal and Parliamentary 
grants of representation, which occur in the early 
part of the sixteenth. Mere accident must have 
revived it in some instances; for it certainly had 
not then become an argument of jealousy or appre¬ 
hension. 

In the reigns of Edward the Vlth, Mary, and 
Elizabeth, the struggles between the Catholic and 
Protestant parties occasioned a great and sudden 
increase of the House of Commons. Fourteen 
boroughs were thus privileged by the first of these 
Sovereigns, ten by the second, and twenty-four by 
Elizabeth. The choice, in the reign of Edward 
and Elizabeth, was chiefly in the western and 
southern counties, where the adherents of the Re¬ 
formation were most numerous, and the towns 
were most under the influence of the Crown. By 
this extraordinary exertion of prerogative, a per¬ 
manent addition of ninety-four Members was made 
to the House in little more than fifty years. James 
and Charles, perhaps, dreading the accession of 
strength which a more numerous House might 
give to the popular cause, made a more sparing 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


808 


use of this power. But the popular party in the 
House, imitating the policy of the ministers of 
Elizabeth, began to strengthen their Parliamentary 
influence by a similar expedient. That House had, 
indeed, no pretensions to the power of making new 
Parliamentary boroughs; but the same purpose 
was answered, by the revival of those which had 
long disused their privilege. Petitions were ob¬ 
tained from many towns well affected to the popu¬ 
lar cause, alleging that they had in ancient times 
sent Members to Parliament, and had not legally 
lost the right. These petitions were referred to 
the Committee of Privileges; and, on a favourable 
report, the Speaker was directed to issue his war¬ 
rant for new writs. Six towns (of which Mr. 
Hampden’s borough of Wendover was one) were 
in this manner empowered to send Members to 
Parliament in the reign of James. Two were 
added in 1628 by like means, and six more by the 
Long Parliament on the very eve of the civil war. 

No further addition was made to the represent¬ 
ation of England except the borough of Newark, 
on which Charles II., in 1672, bestowed the pri¬ 
vilege of sending burgesses to the House of Com¬ 
mons, as a reward for the fidelity of the inhabitants 
to his father. The right of the first burgesses re¬ 
turned by this borough in 1673 was questioned, — 
though on what ground our scanty and confused 
accounts of the Parliamentary transactions of that 
period do not enable us to determine. The ques¬ 
tion was suspended for about three years; and at 
last, on the 26th of March, 1676, it was determined 
by a- majority of one hundred and twenty-five 
against seventy-three, that the town had a right 
to send burgesses. But on a second division, it was 
resolved, by a majority of one, that the Members 
returned were not duly elected. And thus sud¬ 
denly, and somewhat unaccountably, ceased the 
exercise of a prerogative which for several cen¬ 
turies had continued to augment, and, in some 
measure, to regulate the English representation. 

Neither this, nor any other constitutional power, 
originated in foresight and contrivance. Occa¬ 
sional convenience gave rise to its first exercise: the 
course of time gave it a sanction of law. It was 
more often exercised for purposes of temporary 
policy, or of personal favour, than with any regard 
to the interest of the constitution. Its entire ces¬ 
sation is, however, to be considered as forming an 
epoch in the progress of our government. How¬ 
ever its exercise might have been abused, its ex¬ 
istence might be defended, on the ground that it 
was the constitutional means of remedying the 
defects of the representation. It was a tacit ac¬ 
knowledgment that a representative system must, 
from time to time, require amendment. Every 
constitutional reasoner must have admitted, that 
it was rightly exercised pnly in those cases where 


it contributed to the ends for the sake of which 
alone it could be justified. Its abuse consisted 
much more in granting the suffrage to insignifi¬ 
cant villages, than in withholding it from large 
towns. The cases of the latter sort are very few, 
and may be imputed to accident and negligence, 
which would probably have been corrected in pro¬ 
cess of time. No such instance occurs with respect 
to any town of the first or even of the second 
class. And, indeed, it cannot be supposed, that, 
before the disuse of that prerogative, four or five 
of the principal towns in the kingdom should have 
continued without representatives for more than a 
century. Whatever the motive might have been 
for granting representatives to Westminster by 
Edward VI., no reason could have been assigned 
for the grant, but the growing importance of that 
city. Lord Clarendon’s commendation of the con¬ 
stitution of Cromwell’s Parliament, to which Man¬ 
chester, Leeds, and Halifax, then towns of mode¬ 
rate size, sent representatives, may be considered 
as an indication of the general opinion on this 
subject. 

In confirmation of these remarks, we shall close 
this short review of the progress of the represent¬ 
ation before the Revolution by an appeal to two 
legislative declarations of the principles by which 
it ought to be governed. 

The first is the Chester Act (34 & 35 Hen. 8. 
c. 13.), the preamble of which is so well known as 
the basis of Mr. Burke’s plan for conciliation with 
America. It was used against him, to show that 
Parliament might legislate for unrepresented coun¬ 
ties ; but it was retorted by him, with much greater 
foree, as a proof from experience, and an acknow¬ 
ledgment from the Legislature, that counties in 
that situation had no security against misrule. 
The petition of the inhabitants of Cheshire, which 
was adopted as the preamble of the Act, com¬ 
plained that they had neither knight nor burgess 
in Parliament for the said county-palatine; and 
that the said inhabitants, “for lack thereof, have 
been oftentimes touched and grieved with acts 
and statutes made within the said court.” On this 
recital the Statute pi'oceeds: —“ For remedy there¬ 
of may it please your Highness, that it may be 
enacted, that, from the end of this present session, 
the said county-palatine shall have two knights 
for the said county-palatine, and likewise two citi¬ 
zens to be burgesses for the city of Chester.” 

The Statute enabling Durham to send knights 
and burgesses to Parliament, which has been less 
frequently quoted, is still more explicit on the pur¬ 
poses of the present argument: — 

“ Whereas the inhabitants of the said county- 
palatine of Durham have not hitherto had the 
liberty and privilege of electing and sending any 
knights and burgesses to the High Court of Par- 






APPENDIX TO THE SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL. 


liament, although the inhabitants of the said 
county-palatine are liable to all payments, rates, 
and subsidies granted by Parliament, equally with 
the inhabitants of other counties, cities, and bo¬ 
roughs in this kingdom, who have their knights 
and burgesses in the Parliament, and are therefore 
concerned equally with others the inhabitants of 
this kingdom to have knights and burgesses in 
the said High Court of Parliament, of their own 
election, to represent the condition of their county, 
as the inhabitants of other counties, cities, and 

boroughs of this kingdom have.Wherefore, 

be it enacted, that the said county-palatine of 
Durham may have two knights for the same 
county, and the city of Durham two citizens to be 
burgesses for the same city, for ever hereafter, to 

serve in the High Court of Parliament. 

The elections of the knights to serve for the said 
county, from time to time hereafter, to be made by 
the greater number of freeholders of the said 
county-palatine, which from time to time shall be 
present at such elections, accordingly as is used in 
other counties in this your Majesty’s kingdom; 
and the election of the said burgesses for the city 
of Durham, to be made from time to time by the 
major part of the mayor, aldermen, and freemen of 
the said city of Durham, which from time to time 
shall be present at such elections.” This Statute 
does not, like the Chester Act, allege that any 
specific evil had arisen from the previous want of 
representatives; but it recognises, as a general 
principle of the English constitution, that the in¬ 
terests of every unrepresented district are in danger 
of being overlooked or sacrificed, and that the in¬ 
habitants of such districts are therefore interested 
to have knights and burgesses in Parliament, “ of 
their own election, to represent the condition of 
their country.” 

The principle is, in effect, as applicable to towns 
as to counties. The town of Newcastle had then 
as evident an interest in the welfare of the county 
of Durham, as the county of Warwick can now 
have in the prosperity of the town of Bir¬ 
mingham ; but the members for Newcastle were 
not considered, by this statute, as sufficient guar¬ 
dians for the prosperity of the county of Durham. 
Even the knights who were to serve for the county, 
were not thought to dispense with the burgesses 
to serve for the city. As we have before observed, 
the distinct interests of country and town were 
always, on such occasions, provided for by our 
ancestors; and a principle was thereby established, 
that every great community, with distinct interest, 
ought to have separate representatives. 

It is also observable, that the right of suffrage is 
not given to all the inhabitants, nor even to all the 
taxable inhabitants, but to the freeholders of the 
county, and freemen of the city, — who have a 


809 


common interest and fellow-feeling with the whole. 
As these electors were likely to partake the senti¬ 
ments of the rest of the inhabitants, and as every 
public measure must affect both classes alike, the 
members chosen by such a part of the people -were 
considered as virtually representing all. The 
claim to representation is acknowledged as belong¬ 
ing to all districts and communities, to all classes 
and interests,—but not to all men. Some degree 
of actual election was held necessary to virtual re¬ 
presentation. The guardians of the interest of the 
country were to be, to use the language of the pre¬ 
amble, “ of their own election; ” though it evi¬ 
dently appears from the enactments, that these 
words imported only an election by a considerable 
portion of them. It is also to be observed, that 
there is no trace in this Act of a care to proportion 
the number of the new representatives to the popu¬ 
lation of the district, though a very gross devi¬ 
ation on either side would probably have been 
avoided. 

When we speak of principles on this subject, we 
are not to be understood as ascribing to them the 
character of rules of law, or of axioms of science. 
They were maxims of constitutional policy, to 
which there is a visible, though not a uniform, re¬ 
ference in the acts of our forefathers. They were 
more or less regarded, according to the character 
of those who directed the public councils: the 
wisest and most generous men made the nearest 
approaches to their observance. But in the appli¬ 
cation of these, as well as of all other political 
maxims, it was often necessary to yield to circum¬ 
stances, — to watch for opportunities, — to consult 
the temper of the people, the condition of the 
country, and the dispositions of powerful leaders. 
It is from want of due regard to considerations like 
these, that the theory of the English represent¬ 
ation has, of late years, 'been disfigured by various 
and opposite kinds of reasoners. Some refuse to 
acknowdedge any principles on this subject, but 
those most general considerations of expediency 
and abstract justice, which are applicable to all 
governments, and to every situation of mankind. 
But these remote principles shed too faint a light 
to guide us on our path; and can seldom be di¬ 
rectly applied with any advantage to human 
affairs. Others represent the whole constitution, 
as contained in the written laws; and treat every 
principle as vague or visionary, which is not 
sanctioned by some legal authority. A third class, 
considering (rightly) the representation as origin¬ 
ating only in usage, and incessantly though insen¬ 
sibly altered in the course of time, erroneously 
infer, that it is altogether a matter of coarse and 
confused practice, incapable of being reduced to 
any theory. The truth is, however, that out of 
the best parts of that practice have gradually 








MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


810 


arisen a body of maxims, which guide our judg¬ 
ment in each particular case; and which, though 
beyond the letter of the law, are better defined, 
and more near the course of business, than 
general notions of expediency or justice. Often 
disregarded, and never rigorously adhered to, they 
have no support but a general conviction, growing 
with experience, of their fitness and value. The 
mere speculator disdains them as beggarly details: 
the mere lawyer asks for the statute or case on 
which they rest: the mere practical politician 
scorns them as airy visions. But these inter¬ 
mediate maxims constitute the principles of the 
British constitution, as distinguished, on the one 
hand, from abstract notions of government, and, on 
the other, from the provisions of law, or the course 
of practice. “ Civil knowledge,” says Lord Bacon, 
“ is of all others the most immersed in matter, and 
the hardliest reduced to axioms.” Politics, there¬ 
fore, if they should ever be reduced to a science, 
will require the greatest number of intermediate 
laws, to connect its most general principles with 
the variety and intricacy of the public concerns. 
But in every branch of knowledge, we are told by 
the same great Master (Novum Organum), “ that 
while generalities are barren, and the multiplicity 
of single facts present nothing but confusion, the 
middle principles alone are solid, orderly, and 
fruitful.” 

The nature of virtual representation may be 
illustrated by the original controversy between 
Great Britain and America. The Americans al¬ 
leged, perhaps untruly, that being unrepresented 
they could not legally be taxed. They added, 
with truth, that being unrepresented, they ought 
not constitutionally to be taxed. But they de¬ 
fended this true position, on a ground untenable in 
argument. They sought for the constitution in 
the works of abstract reasoners, instead of search¬ 
ing for it in its own ancient and uniform practice. 
They were told, that virtual, not actual, represent¬ 
ation, was the principle of the constitution; and 
that they were as much virtually represented as 
the majority of the people of England. In answer 
to this, they denied that virtual representation was 
a constitutional principle, instead of denying the 
fact, that they were virtually represented. Had 
they chosen the latter ground, their case would 
have been unanswerable. The unrepresented part 
of England could not be taxed, without taxing the 
represented: the laws affected alike the members 
who passed them, their constituents, and the rest 
of the people. On the contrary, separate laws 
might be, and were, made for America: separate 
taxes might be, and were, laid on her. The case 
of that country, therefore, was the very reverse of 
virtual representation. Instead of identity, there 
was a contrariety of apparent interest. The English 


landholder was to be relieved by an American 
revenue. The prosperity of the English manu¬ 
facturer was supposed to depend on a monopoly 
of the American market. Such a system of go¬ 
verning a great nation was repugnant to the 
principles of a constitution which had solemnly 
pronounced, that the people of the small territo¬ 
ries of Chester and Durham could not be virtually 
represented without some share of actual repre¬ 
sentation.— Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxiv. p. 477. 


B. 

The principle of short Parliaments was solemnly 
declared at the Devolution. On the 29th of 
January, 1689, seven days after the Convention 
was assembled, the following resolution was 
adopted by the House of Commons: — “ That a 
Committee be appointed to bring in general heads 
of such things as are absolutely necessary to be 
considered, for the better securing our Religion, 
Laws, and Liberties.” Of this Committee, Mr. 
Somers was one. On the 2nd of February, Sir 
George Treby, from the Committee thus appointed, 
reported the general heads on which they had 
agreed. The 11th article of these general heads 
was as follows: —“That the too long continuance 
of the same Parliament be prevented.” On the 
4th of February it w T as ordered, “ That it be re¬ 
ferred to the Committee to distinguish such gene¬ 
ral heads as are introductive of new laws, from 
those that are declaratory of ancient rights.” On 
the 71 h of the same month, the Committee made 
their Second Report; and after going through the 
declaratory part, which constitutes the Bill of 
Rights as it now stands, proposed the following 
among other clauses, relating to the introduction 
of new laws: — “ And towards the making a more 
firm and perfect settlement of the said Religion, 
Laws, and Liberties, and for remedying several 
defects and inconveniences, it is proposed and ad¬ 
vised by [blank left for ‘Lords’] and Commons, 
that there be provision, by new laws, made in such 
manner, and with such limitations, as by the 
wisdom and justice of Parliament shall be consi¬ 
dered and ordained in the particulars; and in par¬ 
ticular, and to the purposes following, viz. for 
preventing the too long continuance of the same 
Parliament.” The articles which required new 
laws being thus distinguished, it was resolved on 
the following day, on the motion of Mr. Somers, 
“ that it be an instruction to the said Committee, 
to connect, to the vote of the Lords, such part of 
the heads passed this House yesterday as are de¬ 
claratory of ancient rights; leaving out such parts 
as are introductory of new laws.” The declaratory 
articles were accordingly formed into the Declara 






APPENDIX TO THE SPEECH ON THE KEFOPM BILL. 


tion of Rights; and in that state were, by both 
Houses, presented to the Prince and Princess of 
Orange, and accepted by them, with the Crown of 
England. But the articles introductive of new 
laws, though necessarily omitted in a Declaration 
of Rights, had been adopted without a division by 
the House of Commons; who thus, at the very 
moment of the Revolution, determined, “that a 
firm and perfect settlement of the Religion, Laws, 
and Liberties ” required provision by a new law, 
“for preventing the too long continuance of the 
same Parliament.” 

But though the principle of short Parliaments 
was thus solemnly recognised at the Revolution, 
the time of introducing the new law, the means 
by which its object was to be attained, and the 
precise term to be fixed for their duration, were 
reserved for subsequent deliberation. Attempts 
were made to give effect to the principle in 1692 
and 1693 by a Triennial Bill. In the former year, 
it passed both Houses, but did not receive the 
Royal Assent: in the latter, it was rejected by the 
House of Commons. In 1694, after Sir John 
Somers was raised to the office of Lord Keeper, the 
Triennial Bill passed into a law. It was not con¬ 
fined, like the bills under the same title, in the 
reigns of Charles I. and Charles II. (and with 
which it is too frequently confounded), to provi¬ 
sions for securing the frequent sitting of Parlia¬ 
ment: it for the first time limited its duration. 
Till the passing of this bill, Parliament, unless 
dissolved by the King, might legally have con¬ 
tinued till the demise of the Crown, — its only 
natural and necessary termination. 

The Preamble is deserving of serious consider¬ 
ation : — “ Whereas, by the ancient laws and 
statutes of this kingdom, frequent Parliaments 
ought to be held; and whereas frequent and new 
Parliaments tend very much to the happy union 
and good agreement of the King and People.” 
The Act then proceeds, in the first section, to pro¬ 
vide for the frequent holding of Parliaments, ac¬ 
cording to the former laws *, and in the second and 
third sections, by enactments which were before 
unknown to our laws, to direct, that there shall be 
a new parliament every three years, and that no Par¬ 
liament shall have continuance longer than three 
years at the farthest. Here, as at the time of 
the Declaration of Rights, the holding of Par¬ 
liaments is carefully distinguished from their elec¬ 
tion. The two parts of the Preamble refer se¬ 
parately to each of these objects: the frequent 
holding of Parliaments is declared to be conform¬ 
able to the ancient laws; but the frequent election 
of Parliament is considered only as a measure 


* 6 W. & M. c. 2. 


811 


highly expedient on account of its tendency to 
preserve harmony between the Government and 
the People. 

The principle of the Triennial Act, therefore, 
seems to be of as high constitutional authority as 
if it had been inserted in the Bill of Rights itself, 
from which it was separated only that it might be 
afterwards carried into effect in a more convenient 
manner. The particular term of three years is an 
arrangement of expediency, to which it would be 
folly to ascribe any great importance. This Act 
continued in force only for twenty years. Its 
opponents have often expatiated on the corruption 
and disorder in elections, and the instability in the 
national councils which prevailed during that 
period: but the country was then so much dis¬ 
turbed by the weakness of a new government, and 
the agitation of a disputed succession, that it-is 
impossible to ascertain whether more frequent 
elections had any share in augmenting the dis¬ 
orders At the accession of George I., the duration 
of Parliament was extended to seven years, by 
the famous statute called the “Septennial Act,” 
1 Geo. I. st. 2. c. 38., the preamble of which asserts, 
that the last provision of the Triennial Act, “if 
it should continue, may probably at this juncture, 
when a restless and Popish faction are designing 
and endeavouring to renew the rebellion within 
this kingdom, and an invasion from abroad, be 
destructive to the peace and security of the govern¬ 
ment.” This allegation is now ascertained to have 
been perfectly true. There is the most complete 
historical evidence that all the Tories of the king¬ 
dom were then engaged in a conspiracy to effect a 
counter-revolution, — to wrest from the people all 
the securities which they had obtained for liberty, 
— to brand them as rebels, and to stigmatise their 
rulers as usurpers, — and to re-establish the prin¬ 
ciples of slavery, by the restoration of a family, 
whose claim to power was founded on their pre¬ 
tended authority. It is beyond all doubt that a 
general election at that period would have en¬ 
dangered all these objects. In these circumstances 
the Septennial Act was passed, because it was ne¬ 
cessary to secure liberty. But it was undoubtedly 
one of the highest exertions of the legislative 
authority. It was a deviation from the course of 
the constitution too extensive in its effects, and 
too dangerous in its example to be warranted by 
motives of political expediency: it could be jus¬ 
tified only by the necessity of preserving liberty. 
The Revolution itself was a breach of the laws; 
and it was as great a deviation from the principles 
of monarchy, as the Septennial Act could be from 
the constitution of the House of Commons: — and 
the latter can only be justified by the same ground 
of necessity, with that glorious Revolution of 
which it probably contributed to preserve — would 







MACKINTOSH’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 


812 


to God we could say to perpetuate—tlie inestimable 
blessings. 

It has been said by some, that as the danger 
was temporary, the law ought to have been passed 
only for a time, and that it should have been de¬ 
layed till the approach of a general election should 
ascertain, whether a change in the temper of the 
people had not rendered it unnecessary. But it 
was necessary, at the instant, to confound the 
hopes of conspirators, who were then supported 
and animated by the prospect of a general election: 
and if any period had been fixed for its duration, 
it might have weakened its effects, as a declaration 
of the determined resolution of Parliament to stand 
or fall with the Revolution. 

It is now certain, that the conspiracy of the 
Tories against the House of Hanover continued 
till the last years of the reign of George II. The 
Whigs, who had preserved the fruits of the Re¬ 
volution, and upheld the tottering throne of the 
Hanoverian Family during half a century, were, 
in this state of things, unwilling to repeal a law, 
for, which the reasons had not entirely ceased. 
The hostility of the Tories to the Protestant suc¬ 
cession was not extinguished, till the appearance 
of their leaders at the court of King George III. 
proclaimed to the world their hope, that Jacobite 
principles might re-ascend the throne of England 
with a monarch of the House of Brunswick. 

The effects of the Septennial Act on the consti¬ 
tution were materially altered in the late reign, 
by an innovation in the exercise of the preroga¬ 
tive of dissolution. This important prerogative is 
the buckler of the monarchy: it is intended for 
great emergencies, when its exercise may be the 
only means of averting immediate danger from 
the throne: it is strictly a defensive right. As no 
necessity arose under the two first Georges for its 
defensive exercise, it lay, during that period, in a 
state of almost total inactivity. Only one Parlia¬ 
ment, under these two Princes, was dissolved till 
its seventh year. The same inoffensive maxims 
were pursued during the early part of the reign of 
George III. In the year 1784, the power of dis¬ 
solution, hitherto reserved for the defence of the 
monarchy, was, for the first time, employed to 
support the power of an Administration. The 
majority of the House of Commons had, in 1782, 
driven one Administration from office, and com¬ 
pelled another to retire. Its right to interpose, 
with decisive weight, in the choice of ministers, 
as well as the adoption of measures, seemed by 


these vigorous exertions to be finally established. 
George II. had, indeed, often been compelled to 
receive ministers whom he hated: but his succes¬ 
sor, more tenacious of his prerogative, and more 
inflexible in his resentment, did not so easily brook 
the subjection to which he thought himself about 
to be reduced. When the latter, in 1784, again 
saw his Ministers threatened with expulsion by a 
majority of the House of Commons, he found a 
Prime Minister who, trusting to his popularity, 
ventured to make common cause with him, and to 
hrave that Parliamentary disapprobation to which 
the prudence or principle of both his predecessors 
had induced them to yield. Not content with this 
great victory, he proceeded, by a dissolution of 
Parliament, to inflict such an exemplary punish¬ 
ment on the majority, as might deter all future 
ones from following their dangerous example. 

The ministers of 180G gave some countenance to 
Mr. Pitt’s precedent, by a very reprehensible dis¬ 
solution; and, in 1807, its full consequences were 
unfolded. The House of Commons was then openly 
threatened with a dissolution, if a majority should 
vote against Ministers; and, in pursuance of this 
threat, the Parliament was actually dissolved. 
From that moment, the new prerogative of penal 
dissolution was added to all the other means of 
ministerial influence. 

Of all the silent revolutions which have mate¬ 
rially changed the English government, without 
any alteration in the letter of the law, there is, 
perhaps, none more fatal to the constitution than 
the power thus introduced by Mr. Pitt, and 
strengthened by his followers. And it is the more 
dangerous, because it is hardly capable of being 
counteracted by direct laws. The prerogative of 
dissolution, being a means of defence on sudden 
emergencies, is scarcely to be limited by law. 
There is, however, an indirect, but effectual mode 
of meeting its abuse: —by shortening the duration 
of Parliaments, the punishment of dissolution will 
be divested of its terrors. While its defensive 
power will be unimpaired, its efficacy, as a means 
of influence, will be nearly destroyed. The at¬ 
tempt to reduce Parliament to a greater degree of 
dependence will thus be defeated; due reparation 
be made to the constitution ; and future ministers, 
taught by a useful example of just retaliation, 
that the Crown is not likely to be finally the 
gainer, in struggles to convert a necessary prero¬ 
gative into a means of unconstitutional influence. 
— Ibid. p. 494. 















INDEX. 




A. 

Abbot, Mr., state prosecutor, 663. 

Abergavenny, Lady, intercedes for Mrs. Lisle, 285. 

Academy of Physics, foundation of, at Edinburgh, 109. 

Act, Black, felonies under the, 720; the Mutiny, 735. 

Acts. See Habeas Corpus, Test, Settlement, Conscience, 
Triennial, Septennial. 

Adams, Mr. S., election of, 655. n. 

Addison as a writer, 511, 512. 

Advocates, French provincial, 573. 

Albemarle, Duke of, removal of, 295. 

Alfonso, King, conquers the Moors, 482. 

Allemagne, De P, Madame de Stael’s, 526, 527. 530. 

Alliance, the Holy, 750. n. 767; Spain in the, 757. 

Allibone, Judge, and the bishops, 414. 418. 

Allies, policy of the, against France, 628. 

Alsop, Rev. Mr., tool of James, 364. 

Alva, Duke of, in Netherlands, 751. 

America, vote by ballot in, 653—655 ; elective system of, 
653; degraded by slavery, 655; government of under 
England, 810. 

America, Spanish, advantage of recognising, 749,750. 763. 
768; extent and produce of, 760 ; value of English 
trade with, 763, 764. ; Capt. Basil Hall on, 765 ; free 
trade of, ib. ; Ferdinand’s decree for, 766. 

American freedom, how purchased, 581; revolution, 
effect of, 613 ; president, election of, 655 ; war, France 
in the, 753. 

Amiens, peace of, 656. n. 699. 

Anglesea, Lord, against Papists, 298. 

“ Animal Mechanics,” Mr. Charles Bell’s notice of, 86, 
and n. 

Anne, Princess, a firm Protestant, 316; and the Pope’s 
nuncio, 368 ; political dexterity of, 373 ; her husband, 
ib. ; disbelieves the Queen’s pregnancy, 382. 423. 

Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, the Augustinian doc¬ 
trines revived by him, 18. 

Antisthenes, 8. 

Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, 14. 

Aquinas, 18; observations on his doctrine concerning 
faith and the human will, 18, 19 ; examination of his 
opinions as to the relative powers of the Church and 
the State, 19. 135 ; his reputation mainly dependent on 
his ethical works, 22 ; his Calvinism proved by extracts 
from his writings, 133. 

Argyle, Marquis, prosecution of, 391. 

Aristippus, 8. 

Aristocracies, French, 558, 559. 567 ; and liberty, 598. n.; 
on creation of, 773. 

Aristotle, genius and character of his writings contrasted 
with those of Plato, 10 ; his Aixa.iciiuoc.Ta. raiv croXi/ucev, 


165, and n. ; considered poetry as of a more excellent 
nature than history, 184. 

Armies, pay of, 556, 557. See Soldiers. 

Army, defect of French, 555, 556 ; of James II., 314. n.; 
against Popery, 316. 318. 

Artois, Compte d’, project of, 546 ; against the Assembly, 
554. 

Arundel, Lord, privy councillor, 311. 

Asiatic Society, origin of, 536. 

Assemblies, French, number of, 594 ; arguments against, 
ib. ; functions of the, 596 ; use of numerous, 652. 

Assembly, National. See States General. Tiers Etat 
constitute themselves a, 554 ; scene in Tennis Court, 
ib. ; disobey royal commands, 555; the soldiery adhere 
to, 556; power and legislation of, 557; the public 
organ, 558 ; question on their proceedings, ib. ; outcry 
against, on abolition of titles, 561 ; declaration of 
rights, 564.ra.; eradicate abuses, 568; accusations against, 
569 ; their use of experience, ib. ; and philosophic re¬ 
search, 570; character of, 572; lawyers in the, ib. ; a 
litigious constitution ? 573 ; philosophic atheists ? 574; 
Jansenist party in, 576; behaviour of Paris populace 
to, 584 ; eloquence in, 587; on general rights, 592; 
not democratic, ib. ; on adopting English as model, 
599 ; on executive magistracy, 601. 605 ; on declaring 
war and peace, 602. 

Assembly of Notables, 549. 551 ; against despotism, 549. 

Assignats, account of, 577; objects gained by, 577, 578; 
and national lands, 578; circulation of, ib. 

Association, effects of, considered, 77 ; the true doctrine 
stated and illustrated, 78, &c.; importance of the prin¬ 
ciple of association to philosophy, 83; ancients’ state¬ 
ments concerning, 144. 

Atheism and religious zeal, 576. 

Athens, government of, 592. 

Athol, Marquis, cruelty of, 326. 

Atkyns, Judge, and Test Act, 305. 

Attica, soil of, 588. 

Atticus, the true representative of the school of Epicurus, 
14. 

Auckland, Lord, character of, 550. n. 

Augsburg, League of, 272. 

Augustin, founder of the scholastic theology, 17, 18 ; ge¬ 
neral review of the doctrines taught by him, ib. 

Austin, Rev. Mr., in Demerara insurrection, 728; his 
evidence against Mr. Smith, 728, 729. 

Austria, invasion of, by the Turks, 269. 

Austria, intolerance of, 276 ; favours Poland, 440; in¬ 
fluenced by Russia, 444—446 ; artifice of, 446. See The¬ 
resa. Agrees to the partition, 447. n. 451 ; claims on 
Lombardy and Venice, 707 ; its relation to Europe, 
710. 






INDEX. 


814 


Autun, Bishop, address of, 568. n .; on French revolution, 
581. n. 

Averroes and Avicenna, two famous Mahometans in the 
middle age, 17. 


B. 

Bacon, Lord, 3; considerations on the philosophical 
genius of, 147—152 ; his relative estimation of poetry 
and history, 184 ; great increase of Chancery business 
in his time, 216; his history of Heury VII., 502 ; on 
Queen Elizabeth, 677. 

Bailey, Old, perjury at, 784. 

Bailly, M., Spartan energy of, 555. 

Balance of power, 447. 459. 625. 699. 708, 709. 

Ballot and Universal Suffrage, 648. 650; as ensuring 
secrecy, 650.; argument for, 653; in America, 653. 
655. 

Bank notes, effects of superabundance of, 718. 

Bankes, Mr., on Reform, 793. 

Baptists, account of, 362. 

Bar, confederation of, 439. 441. 

Barclay, Quaker, boast of, 394. 

Barillon, envoy of France, 308. 

Baring & Co., high commercial character of, 748. 

Barras, character of, 664. 

Barrere, employment of, 635. 

Bastile, new definition of the, 583 ; attack on the, ib. 

Bath, Earl of, styled Prince Elector,-276. n. 

Bathurst’s, Earl, defence of ministers, 690. 

Baxter, Richard, account of, 358, 359 ; and the bishops, 
407. 

Beaufort, Due de, general of Louis, 341. 

Beauty, examination into the pleasure derived from, 7. 

Behn, Mrs., poetastress, 382. 

Bellarmine, Cardinal, Jesuit, 313. 398. 

Bellasis, Lord, privy councillor, 311 ; in office, 325. 

“ Beneficial tendency,” the standard of morality, the 
theory investigated, 116; comparison of, with the doc¬ 
trine of Utility, ib. 

Bennet, Hon. H. G., on criminal law, 713. 

Bentham, Mr. Jeremy, his definition of the term “ moral 
sense,” 6; general observations upon the genius of his 
writings, and strictures on his philosophical system, 89 
—100; extract from the Westminster Review on his 
“ principle of Utility,” 145, 146 ; strictures on its state¬ 
ments, 146 ; on vote by ballot, 650. 

Bentinck, Lord Wiiliam, occupies Genoa, 689. n. ; his 
address to the Italians, 695. 699, 700.; his march to 
Genoa, 696; Italian negotiations of, 697,698. 

Berkeley, notice of his “ Theory of Vision,” 61.; his de¬ 
sign of reclaiming and converting the natives of North 
America, ib. ; remarks on his “ Querist,” 62; state¬ 
ment of his ethical principles, 62, 63. 

Bernstorff, administration of, 462. 

Berwick, Duke, lieutenant of Ireland, 339. 

Bible against Popery, 327. 

Biography and history, difference between, 184. 

Birkbeck, Mr., character of, 631. 

Bishops. See Cartwright Compton, Crew, Dunkeld, 
Glasgow, Hall, Kew, Lloyd, Mew, Morley, Ross, San- 
croft, Sprat, Tenison, Tillotson, Trelawney, Wood. 
Against standing army, 298 ; five, betray the Church,367; 
petition the King, 404—406 ; examination of the, 409 ; 
committed to the Tower, ib. ; scene thereon, 410; 
brought to King’s Bench, 412, 413 ; enlargement of the, 
413; trial of the, 414—419 ; acquitted, 419. 

Blackstone, Sir W., on penal laws, 723. 

Blair, Dr., as an author, 498. 

Blathwaite, clerk of Privy Council, 415. 


Boethius, 16. 

Boileau, mind of, 547. 

Boleyn, Anne, commencement of proceedings towards her 
marriage with Henry VIII., 208; alleged part taken by 
her in the case of Sir Thomas More, 230. 

Bolingbroke, work of, 575. n. 

Bolivar in Peru, 761. 

Bombay, European force at, 687. 

Bonrepos, policy of, 317. 341. 

Boroughs, franchise in, 793; on reform of, 793, 794 ; power 
of Crown to create new, 795, 796 ; fraud, &c., in elec¬ 
tions for, 797 ; corporate rights of, 798; argument for 
nomination, 800; argument for retaining corrupt, ib. 

Bossuet, contrast between him and Fenelon, 45, 46 ; their 
controversy concerning the doctrines of the Mystics, 46; 
spirit of, 547. 

Bouille, memoirs of Marquis de, 753. 

Bradwardine, Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, 18. 

Braganza, house of, 482 ; on Portuguese throne, 752. 

Bragg, Attorney, executed, 286. n. 

Braminical philosophers, the, 8. 

Brand, Hon. T., on game laws, 717. 

Brandenburg, Frederick William of, 265. 

Brandon, Lord, case of, 293. 

Brandt, minister of Charles VII., 461 ; an infidel, 462 ; 
imprisoned, 464 ; beheaded, ib. 

Brazil, a separate kingdom, 474; independence of, 475. 
477. See Pedro, Don. 

Breda, the peace of, 260; declaration of Charles II. from, 
351. 

Bretagne, contest in, 551. 

Breze, Marquis de, master of ceremonies, 555. 

Bridgewater, cruelties at, 281. 

Bridgman, Sir Orlando, Great Seal, 352. n. 

Brienne, M. de, violence of, 549. 

Brissot, character of, 664. 

Bristol, Jeffreys at, 289. 

Brown, Dr. Thomas, notices of his early life, 109 ; his 
character and manners, 110; his style, 110, 111 ; his 
poetry, 111 ; observations upon his philosophical sys¬ 
tem, 112 ; his theory of the social affections, 113 ; his 
theory of conscience, 114. 

Bruce. See Dunkeld, Bishop. 

Brutus, Marcus, act of, 672. 

Brutuses and brutes of French Republic, 668. 

Buchanan, character of, 609. 

Buenos Ayres, independence of, 758 ; account of, 761. 

Buffier, character of his philosophical writings, 52; his 
ethical doctrine stated, ib. 

Bunyan, John, account and sufferings of, 359, 360. 

Burke, Hon. Edward, his opinions as to a mixed govern¬ 
ment, 177 ; history by, 470 ; opinions of, 543 ; “ Reflec¬ 
tions ” on French revolutionists, 544 ; vituperations on 
English revolutions, 545 ; arrangement of his “ Reflec¬ 
tions,” ib. ; reputation of his work, 546 ; on the French 
soldiery, 555 ; opinion of States General, 557 ; on spolia¬ 
tion of the Church, 562 ; on representatives in National 
Assembly, 572. 574 ; and French clergy, 575 ; on French 
finance, 577; on monastic institutions, 578 ; and the 
Bastile, 583 ; on French revolution excesses, 584. n., 618; 
on barbarism of National Assembly, 587 ; and rights of 
man, 588. 608 ; fallacy of his logic, 590. 595; French 
oracles of, 599 ; municipal army of, 604 ; and revolution 
societies, 605 ; on English monarchy, 606; dissimula¬ 
tion of, 607 ; former opinions of, 615; and Franklin, 615. 
n. ; on liberty, 618; advice to, 627 ; on the French war, 
629; on America and Ireland, 692 ; anecdote by, on 
creating capital felonies, 718; his speech at Bristol, 
791. 

Burnet, Bishop, extracts from his “ History of the Re¬ 
formation,” 211; good information of 304. n. ; letter 








INDEX 


815 


of warning by, 365 ; threat against, 389; his tract burnt> 
606. 

Burnet, Thomas, master of Charter House, 345. 

Burton, baseness of, 291. 

Bute, policy of Lord, 468. 

Butler, Bishop, notice of his “ Analogy of Religion to the 
Course of Nature,” 54; his sermons, ib. ; his philo¬ 
sophy, 55 ; observation on the defects of his system, 56 ; 
his notion concerning Conscience and Will, 57. 

Bynkershoek, President, notice of, 737. 

C. 

Cabinet Council, when instituted, 277. 

Caesar, Julius, his unexampled ascendancy over the Ro¬ 
man aristocracy, 13. 

Caleb Williams, 506, 507. 

Calonne, M. de, an exiled robber, 546. 549 ; character of 
his work, 546. and n. ; propositions to notables, 549; 
flight of, ib. ; opinion of M. Neckar, 551 ; on French 
national property, 578. 

Calvin, 18. 

Cameronian. See Renwick. 

Campbells, the, to be exterminated, 326. 

Camus, M., a Jansenist, 576. 

Canada, petition of Lower, 768, 769 ; policy of England 
towards, 769; importance of, 770; grievances of, 770. 
772, 773 ; House of Assembly in, 772, 773 ; English in, 
773; appeal in behalf of, ib. ; Papists in Upper, 774 ; 
on union of Upper and Lower, ib. 

Candolle, M. de, character of, 631. 

Canning, Hon. George, family and character of, 491 ; 
manners of, ib. ; generosity of, 492 ; as a speaker, 492— 
494 ; as a writer, 494, 495; on slavery, 733 ; spirit of his 
government, 749. n. ; delivers Portugal, 510; death of, 
512. 

Capital punishments. See Punishment. 

Capito, his character of the Stoics, 14. 

Caraman, M., governor of Provence, 551. 

Carlingford, Lord, favoured by James II., 312. 

Carneades, 12. 

Caroline Matilda. See Denmark, Queen. ] 

Carrier, massacre at Lyons by, 683. 

Cartwright, dean of Ripon, conduct of, 311; made bishop 
of Chester, 349 ; drunkard and liar, 385; reviled by 
populace, 419. 

Casal, base surrender of, by the Duke of Mantua, 267. 

Casanova, anecdote of, 143. 

Castlemaine, Earl, ambassador, 312; his incapacity, 313, 
314 ; on persecutions, 360 ; in privy council, 383. 

Catharine, Queen, 208. 

Catharine, Czarina, and Poland, 437. 455 ; policy of, 440— 
444; “ that woman,” 442 ; her lovers, 437. 444 ; her share 
in partition of Poland, 448. 

Cato, Marcus Portius, 14. 

Cato, remarks of Cicero on the Stoicism of, 132. 

Caucusing, origin of the term, 655. n. 

Celibacy, clerical, its origin traced, 20 ; its disadvantages, ib. 

“ Chambers of Union,” institution of, by Louis, 267. 

Chancellor, origin of the office, 214 ; growing importance 
of. in France, and in England, ib. ; progressive increase 
of the business in his court from the time of Sir Thomas 
More, 216. 

Charitas, its signification as employed by the ancient di¬ 
vines, 131. 

Charles I. and Papists, 585.; policy of, 561. 

Charles II., uncertainty as to the precise period of his 
conversion to Catholicism, 249 ; his political intrigues 
with Louis XIV., 260. 270; his death, 272; his friends 
and ministers, 279; his declaration from Breda, 351— 
353. 


Charles VII. of Denmark, physician of, 461; scene in his 
bed-chamber, 463, 464; parade of, 464 ; beaten by 
Brandt ? 466 ; incapacity and death of, 471. 

Charles XII. defeats Russians, 436. 

Charlton, Sir Job, and Test Act, 304. 

Charter House, James II. attacks, 344. 

Chatham, Lord. See Pitt, Mr. 

Chaumont, treaty of, 699. 

Chauvelin, M., French ambassador, 624. 

Chenier, ode ascribed to, 664. 670. 

Child-murder in India, 688. n. 

Chili, state of, 761. 

China, insulation of, 622, 

Chivalry, age of, 586; use of, 587; and literature, ib. 

Choiseul, Due de, policy of, 440, 441. 753. 

Christie, Mr., on French Revolution, 588. n. 

Chrysippus, 12. 

Church of England attacked by James, 295, 296 ; with¬ 
stands James, 402—404. See Ecclesiastical. During 
French Revolution, 562—565; lands, national pro¬ 
perty ? 563, 564; compensation to, 565; power destined 
to perish, 566. n. See Monastic. In danger from 
French Revolution, 623. 

Churchill, Lord and Lady, Protestants, 317, 318. 

Cicero, 2 ; his remarks on the stoicism of Cato, 132 ; his 
description of “ Old Cato ” applicable to Sir Thomas 
More, 195. 

Clarendon, Earl, part taken by him in the case of Bishop 
Gauden’s claim to the authorship of Elxuv Baea-/X/xij, 
242. 244—246; his total silence as to this book in his 
History, 247 ; inference to be deduced from it, 248; 
his “Short View of the State of Ireland,” 255; his 
daughter, 333. n. 

Clarendon, Earl, son of. See Rochester. Intercedes for 
Mrs. Lisle, 285; lord lieutenant of Ireland, 323 ; cha¬ 
racter of, 333. 336. 338 ; and Mr. Somers, 611 ; History 
by, 658. 

Clarges, Sir T., offended, 295. 

Clarke, Dr. Samuel, remarks on his work, “ On the Being 
and Attributes of God,” 37 ; summary of his moral doc¬ 
trine, 38. 

Cleanthes, anecdote of, 12. 

Clergy unfit for free government, 559 ; Mirabeau on the, 
563. n. ; character of the, 566 ; David Hume’s opinion 
of the, 575. 

Clermont-Tonnerre, M. de, secedes to Commons, 555. 

Cleveland, Duchess, 312. 

Clifford, Sir T., 352. 

Clinton, Mr. Fynes, speech by, 535. n. 

Cloots, Anacharsis, republic of, 627. 

Coimbra, revolt at, 785. 

Coke, Sir Edward, on Petition of Rights, 306; oracle 
of law, 553. 

Coleridge, Mr., reply to observations in his “ Biographia 
Literaria,” 144. 

Coligny, Louise de, 257. 

Collard, M. Royer, notices of his works, 102, and n. ; 
effects of his writings in restoring speculative philo¬ 
sophy in France, ib. 

Collins’s tract on Liberty, 575. n. 

Colonial possessions, value of, 603. 

Columbia, independence of, 758 ; account of republic of, 
761. 

Columbus, as a poetical subject, 518, 519. 

Commerce and chivalry, 586; effects of war on, 661 ; value 
of, 766. 

Commercial interest. See Landed. 

Commons, the, their growing strength in the time of Sir 
Thomas More, 206. French — see States General. 
Constituents of English House of, 617; Irish House of, 
645; House of, power of, 693 ; right of, to counsel the 






816 INDEX. 


Crown, ib. ; rise and progress cf, 712 ; additional mem¬ 
bers to, 512—544 ; early history of, 5G9—572; mode of 
increasing their number, 571 ; reasons for resorting to 
dissolution of, 579, 580. 

Community of goods, Sir Thomas More’s objections to, 
198. 

Compass, invention of, 16. 

Compton, bishop of London, account of, 298; removed 
from privy council, 303; acts conscientiously against 
James II., 310. 404 ; suspended, 310, 311. 315; and 
Charter House, 344. See Bishops. 

Condillac, notice of his philosophical works and doc¬ 
trines, 75, and n. 

Conduct, rules of. See Rules of Conduct. 

Conference to convert Earl Rochester, 324, 325. 

Congregationalists, account of the, 361. 

Conquerors, policy of, 711. 

Conquest, right of, 704. 

Conscience and Will, examination of, 57. 

Conscience considered as the seat of perception of right 
and wrong,,81 ; its province defined, in contradistinction 
from that of the understanding, ib. ; outline of the 
theory of, on the hypothesis of “ association,” 119.126.; 
act for liberty of, 350—353. 390, 400. 

Conscriptions of Napoleon, 637. 

Constant, M. Benjamin, character and pamphlets of, 636. 

“ Constitution of a State,” definition of, 178. 

Constitution of England, 179. 

Constitution, French and English, 598. See Govern¬ 
ment. 

Consul, power of a commercial, 758. 

Conway, Lord, ignorance of, 277. 

Cooke, M.P., John, committed to Tower, 297. 

Corneille, fervour of, 547. 

Cornish, Mr., case of, 290. 

Cornwallis, Marquis, character of, 486, 487. n. ; in Ame¬ 
rican war, 486 ; in India, 487 ; in Ireland, 488; re¬ 
appointed to India, ib. ; death of, 489. 

Cotton, Rev. J., independent, 361. n. 

Council, cabinet and privy, 277. 

County courts, their importance in England in the reign 
of Henry VIII., 193. 

Cousin, notice of his “ Cours de Philosophic,” 17. 

Covenanters, misapplication of the term, 546. n. 

Cowley, unmerited neglect of, 149 ; discourse on Crom¬ 
well by, 658. 

Cranmer, his sentence annulling the marriage of Henry 
with Catharine of Arragon, 223. 

Crew, bishop of Durham, against the church, 311; after 
the Revolution, 316; papist visit, 317. n. 

Crime, causes of, 717 ; cause of increase of, ib. ; effects of 
war on, 719. 

Criminal law, the, 181; code of nations, 590. Law— see 
Law, Punishment. 

Cromarty, Lord. See Mackenzie, Sir George. 

Cromwell, in Ireland, 335 ; government of, 361 ; and 
death of Charles I., 635; reform of, 643 ; Cowley’s 
discourse on, 658 ; and Lilburne, 684 ; recognised by 
European powers, 752 ; extension of franchise under, 
572. 

Crusades, origin of the, 620. 

Cudworth, Dr., one of the opponents of the system of 
philosophy published by Hobbes; observations on his 
character and writings, 34—37. 

Cullen, Dr., his letter to Dr. Hunter on the illness of 
Mr.Hume, 142. 

Cumberland, Dr. Richard, bishop of Peterborough, re¬ 
marks on his works in answer to the philosophical 
writings of Hobbes, 33, 34. 

Cuvier, M., character of, 631. 

Czartorinski, Polish house of, 438. 


D. 

D’Abbeville, Marquis, ambassador, 311. 

D’Adda, the Pope’s agent in London, 299; openly re 
ceived by James II., 312. 368; feasted by corporation 
of London, 369 ; craftiness of, 377 ; on acquittal of 
bishops, 4)9. 

D’Alembert, anecdote of, 118. 

Dalrymple, Sir John, invective against, 711. 

Dalton, Count, Austrian commander, 555. n. 

Danby, Lord, thwarts James’s projects, 295. 

Danes, character of the, 471. 

Danton, character of, 664. 

Dark ages, the, a period of important discoveries in 
science and government, 16. 

Dartmouth, Lord, true to the church, <517. 378; friend of 
Rochester, 324. 

Dauphine, proceedings of states of, 551. 

Death, punishment of, inflicted on Pagans, by a law of 
Constantius, 16. n. See Punishment. 

Debt. See National. 

Declaration for Conscience, by James II., 350—353. 

De Foe, Daniel, in Monmouth’s army, 288. 

Delamere, Lord, trial of, 293. 

Demerara, rising of slaves in, 726. n. ; Whites killed in, 
727 ; evidence of slaves on, 730; origin of, 739. 

Democracies, nature of, 596 ; military, 604; proprietors 
against, 647. 

Democratic ascendancy, 653. 

Demosthenes, his war policy compared with that of 
Phocion, 259. 

Denmark, Queen, character of, 461,462. See Charles VII., 
Struensee. Her connexion with Struensee, 465 ; ac¬ 
count and death of, 466, 467. 

“ Deontology” and “ Eudemonism,” 146. * 

Descartes, his doctrine of “ innate ideas,” 156, and n. 

Despotism and French revolution, 620; and English 
character, 629. 

De Thou, composes Edict of Nantes, 319. 

Devonshire, Lord, remark by, 298 ; Duke, and the Cor¬ 
sicans, 468. 

De Witt, John, his influence in the affairs of Holland, 
258 ; murder of, 259 ; and of Cornelius, ib. 

Diplomatic and conventional law of Europe, 182. 

Dispensing power, used by James II., 304—308 ; Curate 
of Putney’s case, 344. 

Dissenters. See Nonconformists. 

Dorchester, wholesale executions at, 236; Countess, see 
Sedley. 

Doria, Andrew, delivers Genoa, 7C0. 

Dorset, Lord, verses by, 302. 

Dover, Lord, privy councillor, 311 ; in office, 325. 

“ Dragonnades,” punishment of Protestants, 321. 

Drewitz, Col., cruelties of, 440. 

Drummond, General, persecutes the Scots, 364. n. 

Dryden, on Charles II., 279; and Lord Halifax, 279. 
Papist, 317. n. 

Duncombe, Mr., and James II., 364. 

Dunkeld, Bishop, removed, 330. 

Dunkirk, negotiations for the sale of, 260. 

Duras, Madame de, Protestant, 320. n. 

E. 

Ecclesiastical rights of kings of England, 308. 310. 
Courts, 309 ; in Compton’s trial, 311 ; and Fellows of 
Oxford, 349 ; decay of, 424. 

Eclectic philosophy, the, its origin, 15. 

Economy, discussion of public, 570. 

Edinburgh Review, extract from, on the subjects of 










INDEX. 817 


“ Liberty” and “ Necessity,” 138; account of the, 495, 
496. 

Education, improved state of, in the time of Sir Thomas 
More, 200. 

Edwards, Dr. Jonathan, his philosophical opinions ex¬ 
amined, 51 ; remarks on his “ Dissertation on the Na¬ 
ture of True Virtue.” ib. 

’EIKfi'N BA2IAIKH , refutation of Charles the First’s 
claim to the authorship of, 239—255. See Gauden, 
Bishop. 

Elections, mode of corrupting, 332. 371,372; mode of 
French, 596, 597. 643 ; sorts of, 606. 

Elective system, nature of, 641 ; qualifications in French, 
643. See Suffrage, Franchise. 

Elizabeth, Queen, reign of, 676 ; assists Henry the Great, 
ib. ; character of, ib. ; and publication of Gazettes, 
677. 

Ellenborough, Lord, on trial of J. Peltier, 678. 

Ell wood, Thomas (Quaker), in prison, 357. 

Emotion and perception, their distinction stated, 40. 

England, rights of kings of, 306 ; law for Catholic kings 
of, 307 ; in 1687, 386 ; compared with 1640, 386, 387; 
to arm against James II., 428; hostility of France to, 
440 ; in partition of Poland, 448 ; in Queen of Den¬ 
mark’s case, 468, 469 ; alliance with Portugal, 473. 

England, form of government in, 605, 606. 662. 671.679. 
801 ; Tory interest in, 609; influence of French revolu¬ 
tion on, 622; in the French war, 624 ; protects French 
refugees, 658; freedom of press in, 658. 660 ; and conti¬ 
nental aggrandisement, 661 ; relation of, to Europe, 
662 ; recognises Holland, 752 ; relation of, to Portugal, 
777 ; policy of, in Don Miguel’s usurpation, 520. 522. 

English law, state of, at the time Sir Thomas More com¬ 
menced his lectures upon it, 189. 308 ; poetry, 525 ; na¬ 
tion, Teutonic, ib. ; character, 536. 629; legislature, 
600; militia, 604 ; statute book, 616 ; nobility, opulence 
of, 641 ; preference of the, for country, 642 ; bar, cha¬ 
racter of the, 657 ; juries, constitution of, 660 ; com¬ 
merce, how advanced, 661 ; public spirit, 6G2; institu¬ 
tions, general adoption of, 776. 

Enthusiasm, definition of, 731. 

Epic poetry, 518, 519. 

Epictetus, 12. 

Epicurus, his theory of the origin of “ virtue,” 11 ; his no¬ 
tion of friendship, ib. ; testimony to the morality of his 
character, ib. ; his advocacy of humanity towards 
slaves, ib. n. ; extremes of opinion held by him and 
Zeno on the subject of “ virtue,” 12; deteriorating influ¬ 
ence of his philosophy, 14 ; reasons assigned for his 
steady adherence to the doctrines propounded by 
him, ib. 

Equity, proper notion of, as administered in the English 
Court of Chancery, 216. 

Erasmus, his account of the first marriage of Sir Thomas 
More, 190; his character of Sir Thomas’s second wife, 
191 ; his description of the routine of More’s domestic 
life, ib. ; of his eloquence, 194 ; prospect of improved 
education and diffusal of knowledge in his time, 200; 
difference of temperament between him and More, 201. 

Error, involuntary character of, 134. 

Espremenil, M. de, seized, 550. 

Estate, third, demands of the, 551 ; how composed, 572- 
See States General. 

Este, Mary of. See Queen. Prince Finaldo of, 313. 

Ethical controversy, reasons assigned for its compara¬ 
tively modern rise, 8. 

Ethical philosophy, dissertation on the progress of, 1— 
146. 

Ethics, ancient, retrospect of, 8; ethics a source of con¬ 
test between the schools of Epicurus and Zeno, 11 ; 
scholastic, retrospect of, 16; modern, 25 ; foundation 


for a more just theory of, 53; the science of, existed 
antecedent to revealed religion, 87 ; the first and most 
simple part of, 174. 

“ Eudemonism” and “ Deontology,” 146. 

Europe, powers of, 694. 

European nations, origin of, 524,525. 

Evidence, hearsay, value of, 729 ; manuscript, when legal, 
732. 

Exclusion Bill, nature of the, 296. 

Excommunication, popish, 397, 398. 

Executioners, demand for, 287. 

Exeter College, James II. attacks, 346, 

Exhaustive analysis of human knowledge, practicability 
of forming it, 3. 

Experience, as model or principle, 569. 


F. 

Fagel, pensionary, secret correspondence of, 332. 

Fairfax, fellow of Magdalen College, 348. 

Falkenskiold, General, account of, 461. n., 462. 

Falkland, Lord, dying thoughts of, 277. 

Family Compact, the, 472. 

Fanaticism, forms of, 671. 

Farmer, Anthony, at Oxford, 347, 348. 

Fellows, of Oxford, expelled, 349 ; collections for, 350. 

Felonies, number of capital, 718. 720 ; M. P.’s creating, 
718; backwardness of prosecutors in, 722. See Punish¬ 
ment, capital. Evasions by juries in, 724. 

Fenelon, archbishop of Cambray, contrast between him 
and Bossuet, 45; their controversy, 46; certain pro¬ 
positions of his condemned by Pope Innocent XII., 47 
his submission, ib. ; purity of, 547. 

Ferdinand VII., government of, 759. 

Ferguson, Rev. Mr., intriguer, 288. 

Fernley, Mr., executed, 291. 

Feversham, Lord, character of, 281. 378 ; bribed for Mrs. 
Lisle, 285; origin of, 320. n.; friend of Rochester, 324. 

Fielding, Henry, on capital punishment, 722. 

Finance, under French revolution, 576, 577. 

Finch, solicitor-general, offended, 295. 

Firmin, Unitarian, 403. 

First principles, universal consent of mankind in, and 
endless variety in their application, 170. 

First Truths, Buffier’s Treatise on, noticed, 52. 

Fisher, bishop of Rochester, his writings against the 
Lutherans, 208 ; neglected by ecclesiastical historians, 
ib. ; act of attainder passed against him under Henry 
VIII., 230. 

Fitten, Chancellor, account of, 339. 

Fletcher, Andrew, on liberty, G09. 

Fleuri, Cardinal, on universal peace, 627. 

Forgery, increase of, 717. 

Foster, Justice, on MSS. evidence, 732. 

Fouche, M., character of, 635. 674.; at Lyons, ib. ; letter 
of, ib. 

Fowler, Dr. Edward, virtue of, 403. 

Fox, his opinions concerning a mixed government, 177. n.\ 
on America and Ireland, 692 ; on ancient institutions, 
707 ; on criminal committee, 715. 723. 

Fox, George, in prison, 358.; account of, 362. 

Fox, the Martyrologist, his statements not always to be 
relied on, 210. 

France, declaration of war against, by the Spanish go ¬ 
vernor of the Low Countries, 266; early constitution 
of 547.; debt of, under Louis XV., 548, 549.; judica¬ 
tures and parliaments in, 573; reduction of national 
debt of, 678 ; new constitution of, 593 ; executive 
power of king of, 602; Protestants in, in 1815, 634 ; 
cessions to, after revolution, 702. 


3 G 









818 INDEX. 


Franchise, see Boroughs, Reform; resumption of the, 
795; towns which should enjoy the, 796. 806 ; is it 
property ? 799. 

Francis, Alban, monk, 346. 

Fraternity, decree of, 624. 

Frederick II., position |of, 437 ; and Poland, 439; policy 
of, 441,442 ; at partition of Poland, 448. 450. 453, 454 ; 
breach of faith of, 454. 456. 

Freethinking, its prevalence under Louis XIII., 26. n. 

French, army in Holland, 264 ; literature, 523. 525 ; 
genius of the, 525; Revolution, see Revolution; 
Aristocracies, see Aristocracies, Nobility ; Assemblies, 
see Assemblies; national property, 577 ; elections, 
process of, 596 ; and English nobility, 599 ; war, its 
effects on Britain, 624 ; reason of the, 625; divisions 
of the question, ib. ; why unjust, 626; requisites for 
success of, 626, 627 ; objects of the, 627, 628 ; safety of 
engaging in the, 628 ; consequences of failure in the, 
629.; farmers in, 1815, 631, 632 ; middle classes in 1815, 
632, 633 ; national character, 633, 634 ; Protestants in 
the revolution, 634 ; Royalists, flight of, 657 ; spirit of 
the, in revolution, 666, 667. 

Friendship, strictures on the doctrine of Epicurus con¬ 
cerning, 11. 


G. 

Galitzin, Prince, negotiations of, 446. 

Game laws, 717. 

Gaols. See Prisons. 

Garter, foundation of order of the, 664. 

Gassendi, 15. 

Gauden, Bishop, investigation of the question of his 
authorship of Eixav BottriXixii, 239 — 255. ; his sermon 
before the House of Commons, 240 ; his protest against 
the trial of the king, ib. ; his position at the restoration 
of Charles II., 241 ; his preferment, ib. ; complains of 
the inadequacy of his rewards for his services to the 
late king, ib. ; his direct claim to the authorship of the 
Icon, 243 ; his claim to the authorship acknowledged 
at court, 215; doubts of Charles II. on the subject, 
246 ; argument as to the copy alleged to have been 
taken from the king at Naseby, 249, &c.; evidence of 
Major Huntingdon, Sir Thomas Herbert, and others, 
250; of Mrs. Gauden, and the bishop’s curate, 251, 
252; arguments deduced from the internal evidences of 
the book, 252. 

Gaunt, Mrs., courageous conduct of, 291. 

Gazettes, first appearance of, 677. 

Genoa, policy of transfer of, 690. 702; see Bentinck, Lord 
William; co-operates with English, 695, 696. 699 ; 
defended by Massena, 696 ; revolts from French 
army, 696, 697; given up to Sardinia, C98; delivered 
by A. Doria, 700 ; M. Pareto for independence of, 701; 
state of, from 1797, 703 ; right of, to liberty, 703. 705 ; 
state of, in 1815, 711, 712. 

Gentz, Mr., on balance of power, 699. 

George I. and 11., Tory conspiracies under, 811, 812. 

German, philosophy, general review of the principles of, 
127, &c.; States, state of the, 276; literature in 
eighteenth century, 521, 522 ; metaphysical, 522 ; trans¬ 
lations, 523 ; nation, genius of the, 525. 

Gerson, John, his opposition to the spiritual monarchy of 
the Pope, 19. 

Gibbs, Sir Vicary, on capital punishment, 722. 

Giffard, Dr., Papist, 324. 

Glanville, Serjeant, on Petition of Right, 306. 

Glasgow, Archbishop of, motion by, 329 ; dismissed, 332. 

Glen, Mr., and the Bible, 327. 

Glynn, Mr. Serjeant, on criminal committee, 715, 716. 


Godden, Dr. See Fielden. 

Godden, Mr., a tool in Test Act, 305. 

Godolphin, Lord, neutral character of, 280. 

Godwin, Mr., as a novelist, 505—507 j as a writer, 508. 

Goesland, M., seized, 550. 

Goethe, works of, 529. 

Goldsmith’s poetry, 517. 

Gourville’s opinion of James II., 384. 

Government, general principles of, considered, 175,176; 
French, how formed, 558, 559; free, members of a, 
559 ; nature of, 570. 709 ; of art, value of, 570. 707 ; 
where slavery exists, 591 ; best form of? 600.; influence, 
601; utility of free, 608, 609. 791 ; Roman, 621 ; English, 
see England; German, Swiss, and Italian, 695 ; error 
in that of the French revolution, 709; safest in con¬ 
cessions, 803, 804. 

Grafton, Duke of, and Pope’s Nuncio, 368. 

Grant, Sir William, eulogium on, 719; on penal laws, 
723. 

Grecian literature, a third age of, under the Macedonian 
kings of Egypt, 15. 

Grecian philosophy, its condition during the decline of 
(liberty, 15. 

Greece, legislation of, 621 ; conquest of, 626. 

Greek morals, retrospect of the, 15. 

Grenville, Lord, on criminal committee, 715. 723. 

Grey, Lord, case of, 292. 378 ; witness against Lord 
Brandon, 293. 

Grodno, Polish assembly at, 456. 

Grotius, 25; general view of the doctrines held by him, 
ib .; extract from his ** History of the Netherlands,” 
133 ; the law of nature reduced to a system by him, 
166 ; eulogium on his character, ib. ; his frequent re¬ 
ference to authorities vindicated, 167 ; faults of method 
attributable to him, 168. 

Guildford, lord-keeper, his reply to Earl Rochester, 278 ; 
death of, 283. 

Guldberg, Danish prime-minister, 464. 

Gunpowder, influence of the discovery of, upon the state 
of society, 16. 

Guyon, Madame, her zealous attachment to the doctrines 
of the ancient Mystics, 46.; her imprisonment in the 
Bastile, ib. 


H. 

Habeas Corpus Act, the country mainly indebted to Lord 
Shaftesbury for, 42. 801 ; nature of the, 300. 

Hale, Sir Matthew, and R. Baxter, 358 ; and Bunyan, 
360 ; on martial law, 734. 

Hales, Sir Edward, and Test Act, 304. 

Halifax, Marquis, character and proceedings of, 278, 279. 
388.; balancer of factions, 279 ; intercedes for Lord 
Russell, 279, 280 ; clings to office, 279. n. ; his removal 
resolved on, 294 ; effect of his removal, ib .; remark 
by, 298 ; excellent pamphlet by, 366. 

Hall, Bishop, account of, 406, 407. 

Hall, Captain Basil, on Spanish America, 765. 

Hamilton, Duke of, commissioner to James, 328 ; dis¬ 
graced, 333. 

Hamilton, Mr., in Demcrara, slave rising, 740. 

Hampden, Mr., case of, 292 ; Whig, 296. 

Hampden, Mr., M.P. for Wendover, 808. 

Hanover, succession of House of, 606, 607; Tories con¬ 
spire against, 811, 812. 

Happiness, definition of, by Plato and Socrates, 10. 

Hardwicke, Lord, amount of Chancery business in his 
time, 216 ; on capital punishment, 715. 

Harrington, views of, 609. 

Harte, Rev. Mr., intercession of, 288. 






INDEX. 


Hartley, Daniel, notice of his “ Observations on Man,” 
74; observations on his philosophical theory, 75.; 
faults of his system, 76. ; great difference between him 
and Condillac, 76; his ingenuousness, ib. ; character 
and style of his writings, 77 ; defects of his doctrine 
of association of ideas, 78 ; his doctrine of the theo- 
pathetic affection, 82; remarks on his theory of the 
“ Rule of Life,” ib. 

Henry IV. passes Edict of Nantes, 319. 

Henry VIII., ministerial responsibility not clearly defined 
during his reign, 208.; his real object in raising Sir 
Thomas More to the chancellorship, 221 ; proceedings 
of the Court of Rome in the case of his divorce, 222 ; 
his importunity to obtain Sir Thomas More’s consent, 
224 ; his violence on the failure of his attempts, 229 ; 
Act of 1533-4, relating to his marriage with Anne 
Boleyn, ib. ; indignation excited against him through¬ 
out Europe, by the execution of Sir Thomas More, 
236. 

Henry of Prussia, Prince, and Catharine, 443, 444. 

Herbert, Admiral, character of, 355. 

Herbert, Sir Edward, character of, 305 ; defence of, 307 ; 
in Compton’s case, 311 ; culpable conduct of, 315. 

Herbois, Collet d’, speech to the Jacobins, 674. 

Hereditary titles, on, 562. 

Hickes, Rev. Mr., a fugitive, 284; executed, 289. 

History of the Netherlands, extract from Grotius’s, 133. 

History, Lord Bacon’s observations on, 147. 

History and biography, difference between, 184 ; state of 
feelings necessary to the advantageous reading of his¬ 
tory, 239; what it is, 569 ; and libel, 663. 

Hoare, Roger, case of, 292. 

Hobbes, modern ethical disputes attributable to his 
writings, 8 ; his confidence in his own opinions noticed, 
15; defectiveness of his early education, 26; causes of 
his influence, ib. ; his extreme dogmatism one of the 
sources of his fame, 27 ; perfection of his style, ib. ; ob¬ 
servations on his “ Treatise of Human Nature,” 28 ; 
on his translation of Thucydides, 29; persecuting ten¬ 
dency of his opinions, ib. ; fundamental errors of his 
ethical system, 29. 33 ; great number of treatises called 
forth by his writings, ib. 

Holland, memoir on the affairs of, 255 ; indications of a 
strong desire for the revival of monarchy, 256 ; Holland 
the main strength of the confederacy of Utrecht, ib. ; 
divisions in the States at the period of the birth of 
William III., 257 ; administration of De Witt, 258; 
general revolt against the magistrates, and repeal of 
the “ Perpetual Edict,” 259 ; murder of John and Cor¬ 
nelius De Witt, 259; project for the dismemberment of, 
262, 263; march of the French army into, 263 ; partial 
conquests of the French in, 265; deliverance of, ib. ; 
effect of the death of Charles II. upon the affairs of, 
272 ; a refuge for Protestants, 313. 340 ; relation of, to 
England, 433; in French revolution, 658; Queen Eliza¬ 
beth assists, 677; invaded by Louis, 264. 678. 

Holmes, Col., dies bravely, 289, 290. 

Holmes, Mr., whipper in, 741. n. 

Holstein, dispute’concerning, 462. 

Holt, Lord, his view of the intimate connexion of the 
Roman and the English code of laws, 181. ». 

Holt, Sir John, recorder of London, 315. 

Honour, the point of, in what it consists, 88 ; maids of, 
present to, 292 ; legion of, 633 ; natural, defended, 775. 

Hooke, Rev. Mr., intriguer, 288. 

Hooker, his sublime description of law, 164. 

Horner, Mr. Francis, notices respecting, 100. n. 

Hough, president of Magdalen College, 347—349. 

Howard of Escrick, notice of, 378. 

Howard, Sir Robert, in Revolution of 1688, 611. 

Hudibras, Butler’s, 665. 


819 


Human conduct, influence of opinion upon, 13. 

Hume, Mr., remarks of, on the universal agreement of 
mankind in the general rules of conduct, 5; observa¬ 
tions upon his character, 63; notice of his “ Treatise 
on Human Nature,” 64 ; strictures on his doctrine of 
universal scepticism, 65; general remarks upon the 
character and genius of his writings, 66 ; his low esti¬ 
mate of moral obligations, 67 ; strictures on his ethical 
theory, 68; letter of Dr. Cullen to Dr. Hunter, on his 
last illness, 142; his opinion as to the authorship of 
Eizwv BoctriXtxi}, 239; Dr. Hurd’s opinion of, 579. n .; 
on the priesthood, 575 ; Toryism of, 588; on Rousseau, 
589. n. ; on man, 620 ; on Cromwell, 635. 

Hungary in revolt, 276. 

Iluskisson, Mr., on Lower Canada, 769. n. 

Hutcheson, coincidence between him and Bishop Butler, 
59 ; general remarks on his philosophical theory, ib. 

Hyde, Lawrence. See Rochester. 


I. 

“ Ideas,” the doctrine of, according to Locke and Des¬ 
cartes, 155, 156. 

Imprisonment, arbitrary, 300; nature of, 357. 

Independence, value of, 449, 450; of states, when estab¬ 
lished, 759. 762, 763. 

Independents, account of the, 361. 

India, learning in, 537 ; discoveries to be made in, 538— 
540; physicians in, 539 ; political economy, 540—542 ; 
English in, 540. n., 541. n. ; law of insolvency in, 686 ; 
criminal code in, 687, 688 ; vices of natives of, 688. n. 

Indulgence, James’s declaration of, 353. 

Inglis, Sir R. H., on Reform, 797. 

Innocent XI., inimical to Louis XIV., 299. 313; policy 
of, 301 ; and edict of Nantes, 313. n. ; refuses to lend 
money to James II., 383. 

“ Inns of Court,” origin of, 189. 

Insanity, mode adopted for its cure in the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, 210, and n. 

Insurrections, cause of, 727. 

“ Intellectual System, the,” of Dr. Cudworth, remarks 
upon, 35. 

Italians, independence promised to the, 695. 697, 698. 701, 
702. 

Italy, state of, 711. 

Ireland, why attached to James II., 276 ; state of, 333. 
426; summary of state of, 334—337; a fief of Rome, 
335 ; forfeiture of lands in, 335, 336. See Settlement. 
Number of each sect in, 336, 337; to be a refuge for 
Papists, 342 ; effect of universal suffrage in, 645 ; 
French occupation of, 673. 

Irish House of Commons, 645. 


J. 

Jacobins, the, in 1793, 634; in France, 665—667. 674. 

Jacobites in England, 761 ; under George III., 579. 

James I. leads his family to destruction, 751. 

James II., various fortunes of, 275 ; his power established, 
and character, ib. ; his revenue and resources, 276; 
why guided by Louis XIV., 276. 383 ; his influence on 
European affairs, 276 ; sanctions the atrocities of 
Kirke, 282, 283 ; deliberate cruelty of, 285, 286 ; sanc¬ 
tions the murders of Jeffreys, 286. 289 ; on Jeffreys’ 
campaign, 289; at Winchester races, ib. ; his concern 
for Jeffreys, ib. ; his guides, 292 ; his policy in remov¬ 
ing Halifax, 294 ; design against Habeas Corpus, ib. ; 
speech to parliament, 295 ; begs money from France, 


3 G 2 






820 INDEX. 


297 ; menaces parliament, ib. ; defeated in parliament, 

298 ; expense of his army, 299. n ; opinion of Habeas 
Corpus and Test Acts, 300. n .; a popish army his reli¬ 
ance, 301 ; mistaken policy of, ib. ; his queen, see 
Queen ; and Mrs. Sedley, 302, 303 ; manoeuvres to abo¬ 
lish Test Act, 304 ; see Dispensing Power ; on judges 
and lawyers, ib. ; advances Papists, 308 ; betrays the 
Protestant establishment, 309 ; and the Bishop of Lon¬ 
don, 310; on Prince of Orange, 311; receives the 
Pope’s nuncio, 312. 368; the Pope refuses his requests, 
313; his army on Hounslow Heath, 314; his mode of 
legalising his conduct, 315 ; his mode of proselytising, 
316—318 ; his policy in removing Rochester, 322—324 ; 
his designs against Scotland, 327, 328 ; corrupt practices 
of, 332.413 ; see Ireland; rupture with the Church, 342— 
344, Sec .; fluctuates, 343 ; advice to his son, 344 ; attacks 
Oxford University, 345. 347—350; Cambridge, 346 ; 
royal progress, 350. 380; his declaration for conscience, 
350—352; delusions of, 354, 355. 384 ; and William 
Penn, 363. 378 ; addresses to, on indulgence, 366 ; how 
supported by bishops and lawyers, 367; final breach 
with Church and Parliament, 370. 371 ; his closetings, 
371 ; his Popish measures defeated, 374 ; patronage of, 
374, 375 ; receives monkish envoy, 383 ; his great work, 
ib. ; begs money from the Pope, ib. ; Gourville’s opinion 
of, 384 ; grand crisis in his affairs, 386, 387 ; incon¬ 
sistency of, 391 ; a Jesuit, 395. n. ; his declaration to be 
read publicly, 400 ; the clergy disobey, 402—404. 406 ; 
scene on the bishops’ petition, 405 ; examination of the 
bishops, 409 ; mistaken in his army, 426 ; his affairs 
desperate, 428. 433; deposition of, 572; forfeiture of, 
610 ; his son recognised by Louis XIV., 752. 

Jane, Dr., defends Protestantism, 324. 

Jansenist party in National Assembly, 576. 

Jardine, Rev. Mr., as an author, 498,499. 

Jeffreys, Sir George (Chief Justice)', origin and character 
of, 280, 281 ; vulgarity and buffoonery of, 280 ; inso¬ 
lence and profaneness of, 281 ; bestiality and drunken¬ 
ness of, 281. n. ; begins the western circuit, 284 ; com¬ 
mander-in-chief? 284. n. ; frightens witnesses, ib .; 
overawes the jury, 285; is Great Seal; suffers from 
stone, 286; makes England an Aceldama, 287. n. ; at 
Bristol, 289 ; his campaign, ib. ; dying declaration of, 
290 ; liberality to his buffoon, 292 ; meanness and de¬ 
feat of, 298 ; in Compton’s case, 311; his brother passed 
by, ib. ; and Charter House, 344 ; on ecclesiastical 
commission, 348 ; would become moderate, 407; advises 
to impeach the bishops, 408 ; memorials of, 612. 

Jenkins, William, case of, 390. 

Jennings, Mr., agent for pardons, 293. 

Jesuits, the Pope’s opinion of, 313. See Bellarmine. In 
Scotland, 333; vow of, 346. See Petre, Father. Ac¬ 
count of origin of the, 395—399 ; learning of the, 396 ; 
perseverance of the, ib. ; prosperity of the, 397 ; objec¬ 
tions against the, 397, 398; destruction of property of 
the, 565. 

John VI. of Portugal, 474, 475 ; flight of, 476. See Por¬ 
tugal. Death of, 479. 

Johnson, Dr., on Milton, 508; as a critic, 513, 514; 
against slavery, 734. 

Johnson, Rev. Samuel, against James IJ., 315; cruelty to, 
315, 316. 

Johnstone, Mr., corresponds with Prince of Orange, 364. 
n. 423 ; on Queen’s pregnancy. 423, 424. 

Jones, Sir John, and Test Act, 304. 

Jones, Sir William, character of, 536, 537. 

Joseph II., character of, 450. 

Jourdan, M. Camille, conspiracy against, 673. 675. 

Julian the apostate, 315. 

Jury, the, on the bishops’ case, 413. 418, 419. 

‘‘Jus naturae” and “ Jus gentium,” their import very 


different as used by the Roman lawyers and in modern 
times, 163. 

Justice and expediency, 591. 


K. 

K oeXos, most probable etymology of the term, 9. n. 

Kant, review of his philosophical system, 128 ; philosophy 
of, 531. 

Kaunitz, character of, 445. 

Keith, executed in Scotland, 327. 

Keith, Sir Robert M., and Queen of Denmark, 469. 

Ken, bishop of Bath, intercession of, 281; loyalty of, 288 ; 
in bishops’ petition, 405. See Bishops. 

Kendal, Captain, declines to vote, 296. n. 

Kent, Holy Maid of, proceedings and execution of, 227. 

Kent, Earl, reversal of attainder of, 734. 

Kettlewell, Rev. Mr., character of, 354. n. 

Keyserling, character of, 438. 

Kiffin, Mr., dissenter, 291 ; account of, 364. 

Kirke, Col., outrages of, 281. 283 ; his “lambs,” 282; 
sells pardons, ib. ; James II. sanctions his atrocities, 
283 ; promoted at Whitehall, 283. n. ; to be a Mahome¬ 
tan, 318 ; Mary and Diana, 283. n. 

Klopstock, poetry of, 528. 

Kluber on international law, 750. n. 

Knowledge, human, practicability of forming an exhaus¬ 
tive analysis of, 3; early inquiries into the first prin¬ 
ciples of, 8 ; value of superficial, 571. 


L. 

Labouring classes, interests of, 645. 

La Fayette, M. de, character of, 636. 

Lally, M., secedes to Commons, 555. n., 574. 

Lamb, Sir F., and Don Miguel, 784. 

L’Ambigu paper, account of, 657. 675. 

Lamego, Cortes of, 482. 

Lammenais, the Abbe, notice of his “ Treatise on Reli¬ 
gious Indifference,” 143. 

Landed and commercial interest, 574. 

Langley, Sir Robert, on bishops’ jury, 419. 

Language, ordinary, inadequacy of the terms composing it 
for the purposes of philosophy, 1 ; the almost imper¬ 
ceptible differences which mark the various stages of, 
207. 

Las Casas, 24 ; notice of his death, 136. 

Lauderdale’s authority in Scotland, 339. 

Law, criminal, reformation of, 713. n. See Punishment, 
capital. 

Law, Hooker’s sublime description of, 164. 

Law, international, 750. n. See Libel. 

Law, martial, when tolerated, 734 ; in case of rebels, 735 ; 
law of England and Holland on, 737. 

“ Law of Honour,” strictures on Dr. Paley’s chapter con¬ 
cerning, 87. 

“ Law of Nature,” remarks on the, 164. 

Law of Nature and Nations, a Discourse on the, 161—184; 
what is comprehended in the science, 162 ; no Greek 
or Roman treatise existing on the law of nations, 165 ; 
general plan of the author, 172. 

Laws, civil and criminal, principles of, 180, 181; Lord 
Holt’s view of the connexion of the Roman and English 
codes of, 181; use of, 559 ; good, how made, 640; penal, 
and public feeling, 723. 

Lawyers, the, anc\, James II., 367. 

Lecrinski, S., king of Poland, 436. 

-- 






INDEX. 


Legislators, new route for, 570. 

Legislature, competence of a, 557. obligations of the, 
569; English, 600; on declaring war and peace, 603. 
See Government. 

Leibnitz, extract from his philosophical works, on the 
agreement of mankind in the “ rule of life,” 5. n. ; 
remarkable contrast between the character of his 
writings and of his mind, 48; his definition of the 
terms “right” and “justice,” ib. ; remarks on his 
doctrine of disinterested affection, ib. ; on his definition 
of “ wisdom,” 49. 

Lenthall, speaker of the House of Commons, his answer 
to Charles I., 206. 

Leopold I., banishment of the Protestant clergy by, 269. 

L’Estrange, Roger, a noted writer, 317. 

Letters, the channel of communication between ethical 
science and general feeling, 20. 

Lettres de cachet, 550. 

“ Leviathan ” of Hobbes, extract from, on the immutabi¬ 
lity and eternity of the laws of nature, 28. n. 

Levison, Judge, with Jeffreys, 384. n. 

Leyburn, priest, at St. James’s, 317. 

Libel and History, 660; law of, 660, 661 ; effects of pu¬ 
nishment of, 661 ; crime of, 663. 

Liberty and necessity, the question of, not known to the 
ancient schoolmen, 21 ; the doctrines of, may be ren¬ 
dered less perplexing, by considering the relation of 
conscience to the will, 130. 

Liberty, the primary object of all government, 176 ; “ per¬ 
petual edict for the maintenance of, in Holland,” 258 ; 
its repeal, 259. 

Liberty, of conscience, see Conscience, Vane; and aris¬ 
tocracies, 567. 598. n. ; political and civil, 590. n. ; 
definition of, 641. 

Lisle, Mr., a judge of Charles I., 285. 

Lisle, Mrs. Alicia, trial of, 284 ; her defence, ib. ; her 
jury overawed by Jeffreys, 285 ; condemned to be 
burnt, ib. ; intercessions for her, ib. ; beheaded, ib. 

Literature and chivalry, 586; and French revolution, 
587. 

Littleton, his treatise on English law, 189. 

Lloyd, Bishop, acts against James II., 404 ; bravery of, 
405. 411. See Bishops. Scene on leaving King’s Bench, 
413. 

Lobb, Rev. Mr., tool of James II., 364 ; the “Jacobite 
Independent,” 410. 

Locke, remarks upon his philosophical system, 75; the 
style of his writings contrasted with that of Adam 
Smith, 144 ; considerations on his philosophical genius, 
152. 161 ; notices of his early life, 152; his political 
writings, 153; his general principles of government, 
ib. ; observations on his “ Essay on the Understanding,” 
154 ; his doctrine of “ ideas,” 156 ; of “ practical prin¬ 
ciples,” 158; contrariety between his philosophical 
writings and those of Hobbes, 159, 160; great practi¬ 
cal value of his “Essay,” 160; birthplace of, 287; 
refuses pardon, 363 ; character of, 609. 

Lockhart, Sir George, sent to James II., 328. 

Lollards, persecution of the, under Henry VIII.,209. 

Lombardy, belonging to Austria, 698. 

London, monks swarming in, 383 ; in universal suffrage, 
617 ; relative population of, 717. 

Lords, behaviour on James’s speech, 298; number of, 
298. n. ; averse to James’s policy, 299 ; state of House 
of, 377. 

Lorn, Lord, papist, 385. 

Louis XIV., his conquests in Holland, 265 ; in the 
Netherlands, 267; corruption of public men in his 
reign, 270 ; his power over James II., 276 ; policy of, in 
England, 299; persecutes Protestants, 318—322; cha¬ 
racter of, 320. 388; his design on Ireland, 341 ; the 


8*21 


“French tyrant,” 384 ; a Jesuit, 395. n .; reign of 
547. 677 ; despotism of, 548. 

Louis XV., France under, 548, 549. 

Louis XVI., ministers of, 548. n .; incapacity of, 554 ; 
menacing speech of, ib .; fall of his power, 555 ; flight 
of, 585 ; titles and power of, 595; execution of, 635; 
memory of, 669. 

Louis XVIII., short reign of, 633. 

Lowther, Sir John, Whig, 296. 

Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, 395. 

Lucretius, 2. 

Luther, moral effects of his proceedings against the 
power of Rome, 17; a Nominalist, 22; Bible of, 528 ; 
character of, 531. 

Lutherans, excesses of the, 212; attributed, by Sir 
Thomas More, to the doctrine of predestination, ib. 

Lutwych, Judge, and Test Act, 305. 

Luxembourg, Due de, president of nobility, 555. 

Lyons, massacre at, 674. 

I-yttleton, Mr., on criminal committee, 715. 


. M. 

Macdonald, Sir A., on capital punishment, 723. 

Machiavel, Nicholas, pursuits of, 501 ; his great work, 
501. 503; his powerful genius, 501; disappointed hopes 
of, 502 ; intellect of, 568. 

Mackenzie, Sir George, account of, 330. n., 332 ; perse¬ 
cutor of Protestants, 428 ; character of, 610. 

Madalinski, gallantry of Poles under, 457. 

Maimon, Moses Ben, a teacher of philosophy in the 
middle age, 17. 

Maintenon, Madame de, and Fenelon, 46; and Louis 
XIV., 320. 

Majesty of the people, 644. 

Malebranche, examination into his theory of morals, 50. 

Malesherbes, M., character of, 548. 

Malthus, Mr., on corn supply, 631. 

Manchester, Earl, ambassador to France, 753. n. 

Marat, character of, 664. 683. 

Marcus Brutus, a disciple of Plato, 14. 

Maret, agent of French government, 625. 

Maria, Donna, succession of, 480. 482. 485 ; exile of, 777 ; 
acknowledged by England, 778 ; affianced to Don Mi¬ 
guel, 779 ; proclaimed at Terceira, 788. 

Marriage and property, great importance of the institu¬ 
tions of, on the general state of society, 175. 

Marseilles, popularity of Mirabeau at, 551. 

Martial Law. See Law. 

Massena, and his title, 633. 

Massey (papist), dean of Christ Church, 345. 

Mathematical forms and terms, prevalent use of, in the 
eighteenth century, 38 ; their inapplicability to moral 
questions, 39. 

Maurice, Prince, ability of, 751. 

Maury, Abbe, on church property, 562. n. 

Maynard, Serjeant, speech by, 296. 414 ; character of, 
611 ; in revolution, 1688, ib. 

Mazarin, Madame, failures of, 303. 

Members of Parliament, qualifications of, 639, 640. See 
Commons, House of. 

Merlin, character of, 664. 

Metaphysic rights, 591. 

Metaphysics, origin of the use of the term, 2 ; great un¬ 
certainty of its meaning as used by different nations, 
ib. ; use of, 570. 

Metternich, Prince, conference with Don Miguel, 781, 
782. 

Mew, Bishop, turncoat, 288. 

Mexico, extent of state of, 760, 761. 
















1 


822 INDEX. 


Middleton, Earl, secretary of state, 29G. 303; profane jest 
of, 318 ; friend of Rochester, 324. 

Miguel, Don, against the constitution, 475 ; against his 
father, 476 ; ineligible, 480 ; situation of, 482. 486; bad 
character of, 777. 787 ; pretended claim to Portuguese 
crown, 778; affianced to Donna Maria, 779 ; perjuries 
of, 780. 784 ; lieutenant of Portugal, 780 ; and Prince 
Metternich, 781, 782 ; afraid of England, 782 ; detained 
at Vienna, 782, 783 ; lands at Lisbon, 784 ; assumes 
title of king, 785 ; inhumanity of, 790. 

Military democracies, 604 ; in France, 633. 

Milton, Judge Christopher, 304. 

Milton, John, last days of, 317; histories of, 508, 509 ; 
descendants of, 510, 511; his “ Paradise Lost,” 520. 609. 

Mind, early inquiries into the nature of, 8. 

Miomandre, M., Queen’s sentinel, 584. 

Mirabeau, Count de, popularity of, 551; on priesthood, 
563. n. ; declamation against, 584 ; scheme of, ib. ; ac¬ 
cusations against, 585 ; on suffrage, 593. 

Misprision, crime of, 740. 

Missionary Society, the London, in Mr. Smith’s case, 
726. 

Molinos, revival of the maxims of the ancient Mystics, 
by, 46 ; his imprisonment, ib. 

Molyneux, lord lieutenant, 374. 

Molyneux, Mr., his work burned 609. 

Monastic institutions, value of, 578 ; inutility of, 579. 

Monks as landholders, 579. 

Monmouth, Duke of, confession of. 280 ; judicial proceed¬ 
ings after defeat of, 284—293 ; Presbyterians engaged 
' with, 284 ; scene at Taunton, 292. 

Montague, Judge, with Jeffreys, 284. n. ; and Test Act, 
304. 

Montesquieu, his undistinguishing adoption of the nar¬ 
ratives of modern travellers condemned, 170 ; merits 
and defects of his “ Spirit of Laws,” 171 ; on European 
armies, 556 ; on restricting the press, 637. 

Montfort, Simon de, first reformer, 800. 

Montrnorencies in National Assembly, 574. 

Montrose, Marquis, verses by, 658. 

Moral and physical sciences, considerations on, 4 ; great 
importance of distinguishing them, ib. 

Moral evil, extravagant doctrine of Ockham concerning, 
134. 

Moral faculties and social affections, controversies con¬ 
cerning, 33; abused extension of the term “reason” 
to the, 41. 

Moral faculty, the, its unity, 80. 

“ Moral sense,” Dr. Paley’s definition of, examined, 6; 
doctrine concerning, maintained by Dugald Stewart, 
105. 

“ Moral sentiments, theory of,” 6. 

Moral forces in politics, 570. 

Morality and religion, their mutual relation, 45. 

Morality in action, criterion of, 6; foundation of, 591; 
maxims of, ib. 

“ Morals, Inquiry concerning the Principles of,” remarks 
on Mr. Hume’s, 66. 

Moray, Earl, papist, 328.; proceedings of, 332. 

Mordaunt, Lord. See Peterborough. 

More, Sir Thomas, Life of, 184 ; circumstances of his 
early years, 185; his proceedings at college, 186; his 
friendship with Erasmus, 187; his poetry, 188; his 
studies for the law r , 189; his lectures on law and 
morals, ib. ; his predilection for the monastic life, 190 ; 
his marriage with Jane Colt, ib. ; death of his first 
wife, and second marriage, 191 ; routine of his domestic 
life, ib. ; extent of his professional practice, 192 , nature 
of his legal office -in the city of London, 193, and n. ; 
his faculty of public speaking, ib. ; he falls under the 
royal displeasure, ib. ; he becomes one of the earliest ' 


parliamentary champions of liberty, 194 ; the first 
waiter of English history in its present language, ib. ; 
remarks on his prose style, 195; on his “ History of 
Richard III.,” ib. ; his Latin epigrams, 196 ; his “ Uto¬ 
pia,” ib. ; his arguments against a community of goods, 
198 ; difference of his temperament from that of Eras¬ 
mus, 201 ; his entrance on public life, ib. ; is made a 
privy councillor, ib. ; his favour with the king, 202 ; his 
suspicion of the king’s sincerity, ib. ; he is knighted, 
and raised to the office of treasurer of the exchequer, 
203 ; his repeated missions, and weight in the council, 
203, 204 ; honourable part taken by him in the parlia¬ 
ment held at Westminster in 1523, 204 ; his speech ad¬ 
dressed to the king, 204 ; his remarkable answer to 
Cardinal Wolsey, 206; his pecuniary independence of 
the king, 207 ; his appointment to the chancellorship of 
the duchy of Lancaster, 208 ; his part against the Lu¬ 
therans, 209 ; extent of his responsibility for the mea¬ 
sures taken against the Lollards, ib. ; his vindication of 
himself, 210 ; arguments in favour of the humanity of 
his character, 211 ; his estimate of the moral tendency 
of the doctrine of predestination, 212 ; visits the court at 
Woodstock, on his return from Cambray, 213 ; charac¬ 
teristic letter from, to his wife, ib. ; he is appointed 
lord chancellor, 214 ; amount of chancery business in 
his time, 215 ; nature of the duties of chancellor at that 
period widely different from those of the present, 217 ; 
particulars of his instalment, ib. ; address of the Duke 
of Norfolk to the people on the occasion, ib. ; Sir 
Thomas More’s reply, 218; anecdote illustrative of his 
filial piety, 219 ; his mode of administering the business 
of his court, 219, 220; his inflexible integrity, 220 ; his 
embarrassing situation during the proceedings in the 
case of Henry’s divorce, 223; his prudence, ib. ; con¬ 
versations with Mr. Roper, his son-in-law r , 224 ; his 
resignation of the Great Seal, 225; impoverished state 
of his fortune, ib. ; consults with his family as to future 
domestic arrangements, ib. ; his impending dangers, 
226 ; his conduct in the matter of Elizabeth Barton, the 
holy maid of Kent, ib. ; further attempts to bring him 
over to the king’s wishes, 227 ; violence of the king on 
their failure, 228 ; act of 1533-4, relating to the king’s 
marriage, 229 ; More is summoned to appear before the 
commissioners at Lambeth, ib. ; particulars of the 
examination, ib. ; liis committal to the Tower, 230 ; 
interview with his w'ife, ib. ; visit of his daughter, Mar¬ 
garet Roper, 231 ; further attempts of the lords com¬ 
missioners, ib. ; difficulties of reconciling the destruc¬ 
tion of More with the principles of law, ib. ; further 
examined by Cranmer and others, 232 ; circumstances 
of his trial at Westminster, 232 ; his further examin¬ 
ation in the Tow r er, 234 ; his execution, 235; vindica¬ 
tion of his cheerful demeanour from the charge of 
levity, ib ; his posterity, 236; effect of his death upon 
the Catholic states of Europe, ib. ; general summary of 
his character, ib. ; some particulars concerning him 
from the records of the Privy Council, and of the city 
of London, 237, 238. 

Morgarten, Swiss bravery at, 682. 

Morley, Dr., part taken by him relative to the claim of 
Bishop Gauden, 242, 243; advice to James II., 351. 

Morton, Cardinal, archbishop of Canterbury, notices of, 
136. 

Mounier, M., pamphlets of, 584 ; and Mr. Burke, 599. 

Mulgrave, Earl, character of. 311. 318. n. ; profane jest 
of, 318 ; lord chamberlain, 368. 

Municipalities, French, 594, 595. 

Munster, treaty of, 751. 

Munter, Dr., and Struensee, 465. 

Murders, disguised, 582. 

Mystics, the, their origin and causes, 20. 













INDEX. 


N. 

Nagle, Sir Richard, papist, 339. 

Nantes, nature of edict of, 319, 320; edict of, revoked, 
322. 

Napoleon, and the Poles, 459; and his nobility, 632 ; 
his new dynasty, 637 ; and the English journalists, 
656. n. ; accession of, 666; European combination 
against, 706. 

Nassau, the house of, its prominent position at the dawn 
of modern history, 256. 

National Assembly. See Assembly. 

Necker, M., recall and character of, 550, 551 ; decline of, 
554 ; banishment of, 555. 

Negatives of French kings, 593. See Veto. 

Netherlands, revolt of, from Spain, 750. 

Neutrality, definition of strict, 780. 

Newark borough, franchise in, 795, 796. 808. 

Newspapers, effects of increase of, 679. 

Newton, Isaac, delegate from Cambridge, 347. 

Newtonian hypothesis, the, differences of Hartley and 
Condillac concerning, 75. n. 

Nimeguen, peace of, its results, 266. 320. 

Noailles in National Assembly, 574. 

Nobility, French, part secede to Commons, 555 ; devoted 
to King, 560. See Nobles. Destruction of, 560, 561 ; 
of France and England, 599 ; Napoleon’s, 632 ; English 
opulence of, 641; French, number of, 641. n. 

Nobles, French, proceedings of order of, 553. See Orders. 
And order of nobility, distinction between, 560. 

Noel, agent of French government, 625. 

Nominalists and Realists, controversy between, 21; the 
Nominalists a free-thinking sect, 22 ; expiration of the 
scholastic doctrine, ib. 

Non-resistance, doctrine of, 354. 

Norfolk, Duke of. his address to the people on the instal¬ 
ment of Sir Thomas More as lord high chancellor of 
England, 217. 

North, Roger, tool of James JI., 291. 

North, Lord, policy of, 468. 

Norway annexed to Sweden, 705. 

Notables. See Assembly. 

Nottingham, Lord, offended, 295; against James II., 388 ; 
opinion of, 392; in Revolution, 1688, 611. 

Nottingham, Lord Chancellor, suits in Chancery, 216. 

Nye, Rev. Philip, 364. 


O. 

* 

Obedience, doctrine of passive, 429—433. 

Ockham, William of, extravagance of his doctrines, 19 ; 
founder of the sect of Nominalists, ib .; his doctrine 
concerning the human mind, 21 ; on election and 
reprobation, 134; on the distinction of right and 
wrong, ib. 

Odeschalchi, Cardinal, account of, 399. 

Oliva, treaty of, 439. 

Olivenza ceded to Spain, 473. 

Opinions, influence of, upon human actions, 13 ; splendid 
instance of, in the Roman patriciate, ib. 

Oporto, executions at, 790. 

Orange, house of, and Holland, 603. 

Orange, Prince of, birth and prospects of, 257 ; measures 
with reference to him in connexion with the “ Per¬ 
petual Edict for the maintenance of liberty,” 258 ; re¬ 
peal of the edict, 259 ; the prince appointed stadt- 
holder, and the office made hereditary to his descend¬ 
ants, ib. ; his character and government, 259, 260 ; in¬ 
stances of his magnanimity, 263, 264 ; difficulty of his 


823 


situation, 264 ; his march to the attack of Charleroi, 
265; his conquests, and their consequences, 266 ; criti¬ 
cal situation of affairs, 270 ; his relations with England, 
271 ; his conduct with reference to the Bill of Exclu¬ 
sion, and the Rye House Plot, ib. ; his renewed efforts 
on the death of Charles II., to enlist the aid of England 
in the European cause, 272 ; his position, 276 ; boast of 
James II. to, 289. 314 ; marriage with Princess Mary, 
295; and Judge Street, 305. n. ; Protestants favour, 
311 ; hated by James II., 317.; secret correspondents 
of, 332. 364. n., 384. n., 394. n., 411. 421; Tyrconnel 
against, 336. 342 ; Scotch lords against, 342 ; interfer¬ 
ence of, 346 ; advice of, 389 ; and the English bishops, 
411; and English Revolution, 434 ; elected king of 
England, 606. 612; character of, 628 ; rise and progress 
of, 678 ; assassinated, 751. 

Orange, Princess, intercedes for her preceptor, 310; de¬ 
signs against, 323 ; a determined Protestant, 350. 

Orders (ranks), definition of, 559; question on union of 
the, 552, 553. 559 ; Louis XVI. submits to union of the, 
555; contrast of the, 560. See Nobles. 

Orleans, Duchess of, 260. 

Orleans, M., pamphlets of, 584 ; accusations against, 585. 

Ormonde, Duke, friend of Rochester, 324 ; in Ireland, 
333. 336 ; to be assassinated, 334 ; a governor of Charter 
House, 344. 

Ormonde, Duke, chancellor of Oxford, 425. 

Ottomans. See Turks. 

Oxford, Earl, married to Diana Kirke, 283. n. 

Oxford University, attacked by James II., 345—350. 


P. 

Paley, Dr., strictures on his definition of the term “ moral 
sense,” 6; did not derive his system from Hume, 85; 
remarks on the constitution of his mind, and the style 
of his writings, ib. ; consideration of his general account 
of virtue, 86 ; his system of ethics examined, 87, &c.; 
his political opinions, 88; his laxity as a moralist, ib .; 
on capital punishment, 722. 

Palmella, Count, president of Portugal, 475. 

Pamphlets. See Halifax, Orleans, Revolutionary Tracts. 

Paper, invention of, 16. 

Papists, speeches in parliament against, 296; incapacity 
of, 297; their policy, 301; in favour under James II., 
308 ; judges in Ireland, 338 ; in office, 339. 374 ; state of, 
in England, 376 ; for blood, 388. n. ; divisions amongst 
English, 393. 

Paris, blockade and revolt of, 555. 583 ; populace attack 
Versailles, 585; character of populace of, 633, 634 ; 
treaty of, 694. 701. 

Parker, bishop of Oxford, buffoon, 317. 348 ; at Magdalen 
College, 349 ; account of, 385. 

Parliament, of James II., how composed, 276. 371,372; 
adverse to tyranny, 295 ; speeches against Popery, &c., 
296 ; defeats ministers of James II., ib.; prorogued 
298 ; See Scotland ; Commons, house of. Effects of 
dissolution of, 370, 371 ; of Paris, use of, 550 ; banished, 
ib. ; resists lettres de cachet, ib. 

Parliaments, French, character of, 567.573; control of, 
615 ; progress of their influence, 206. 

Parma, Prince of, in Netherlands, 751. 

Patronage, church, 498, 499. 

Paul, Czar, character of, 458. 

Peachell, vice-chancellor of Cambridge, 347. 

Pedro, Don, in Brazil, 475. 477 ; emperor of Brazil and 
heir of Portugal, 477, 478 ; position of, on father’s death, 
479. 482; alleged disqualification of, 482 ; question of 
his rights, 484, 485 ; abdicates for his daughter, 778— 
780 ; policy of, 787. 






INDEX. 


824 


Peel, Sir Robert, on Catholic emancipation, 805. 

Peerage Bill, rejection of, 601. n. 

Peers, use of, 379. 

Pelham, Mr., on criminal committee, 714. 

Peltier, Jean, account and sentence of, 656, 657; publica¬ 
tions of, 66' ! , 664. 

Pemberton, Chief Justice, 413. 415. 

Penn, William, Quaker, at burning of Mrs. Gaunt, 291 ; 
culpable conduct of, 292 ; on imprisonment, 358; ac¬ 
count of, 363, 364 . 408; his advice to James II., 377. 
389. 

Pennsylvania, vote by ballot in, 654. 

Perception and emotion, true doctrine concerning, 40. 

Perceval, Hon. Spencer, attorney-general, 656. n. 

Perfection, pursuit of, 569. 

Peripatetics, their doctrine concerning happiness, 10. 

Perth, Earl, proceedings of, 326, 327. 427. n. ; in Scotch 
parliament, 329. 

Peru, state of 761. 

Peterborough, Earl, against standing army, 298. 

Peters, Hugh, memorials of, 612. 

Petion, Mr., on suffrage, 593. 

Petition of right, 300 ; to parliament, nature of a, 748. 

Petre, Father, guide of James II., 292. 313. 339; to be 
archbishop of York, 346; of privy council, 383; to be 
secretary of state, 393 ; high in favour, 394, 395. 

Petre family, 346. 

Philip II. aims at universal dominion, 676. 

Philips, John and Edward, account of, 509. 

Philo, his endeavour to reconcile the Platonic philosophy 
with the Mosaic law, 15. 

Philosophers, ancient, and printing 572 ; influence of, on 
French Revolution, 575. 

Philosophy, consideration of the disadvantages under 
which it labours from the vague use of ordinary lan¬ 
guage, 1 ; progress of, 571 ; and infidelity of French 
leaders, 575. 

Phrenology, fatal objections to the science of, 108. n. 

Physical and Moral Sciences, considerations on, 4 ; great 
importance of distinguishing them, ib. 

Pickering’s American Vocabulary, 655. n. 

Pilgrim’s Progress, popularity of, 360. 

Pitt, Mr., elevation of, 615. 715; on penal laws, 723; on 
reform, 793 ; policy of, 812. 

Pitts, Thomas. See Tutchin. 

Place, M. de le, on French Revolution, 631. 

Plato, observations on the character of his writings, 8, 9 ; 
his observations on the treatment of slaves, 10. n. ; 
considered as the fountain of ancient morals, ib. 

Plot, Gunpowder, James II. and, 369. See Popish, 
Rye House. 

Poachers, increase of, 717. 

Poetry, progress of, in England, 513, 514; subjects for, 
515. 

Poland, account of, 434 ; situation of, 435 ; succession to 
crown of, 435, 436; constitution of, 437 ; guarantee of 
Russia to, 438 ; Russia tyrannises over, ib. ; cause of 
destruction of, 441 ; first proposal of dismembering, 
443. 447; Catharine’s share in partition of, 444. 448 ; 
military system of, 449 ; pusillanimity of king of, 455 ; 
second partition of, 457; final partition of, 458 ; foreign 
factions in, 603 ; policy of England in case of, 681. 

Poles, their language and customs, 435 ; “ liberum veto ” 
of the, 437 ; duped by Russia, 439; resist the Russians, 
440; barbarous treatment of the, ib. ; capture Cracow, 
447 ; resist the partition, 448; virtuous conduct of diet 
of the, 451. 453; resist, under Kosciusko, &c., 457, 458 ; 
Napoleon’s promise to the, 459. 

Policy, maxims of colonial, 769. 

“ Political economy,” the modern use of the term liable 
to misconception, 3. 


Political Tract, model of a, 366 ; economy, 540. 542 ; in¬ 
novations, when necessary, 569; science of Europe, 
571 ; and civil liberty, 590. n. ; principles, 591. 

Politics, bearing of, 570 ; moral forces in, ib. ; maxims 
in, 591 ; how reduced to science, 810. 

Pollexfen, state prosecutor, 290. 411. 413. 

Poniatowski, S., king of Poland, 437, 438. 

Poor Laws, nursery of crime, 715. 

Pope, the power of, in relation to the Church, 19. 135.; 
his jurisdiction renounced by the kingdom of England, 
223. See Innocent XI. His nuncio to England — see 
D’Adda ; and French Revolution, 622. 

Pope, poetry of, 517. 

Popham, Andrew, case of, 544. 

Popish plot communicated to Commons, 295. 

Portsmouth, Duchess, supports Earl Sunderland, 277; 
on Lord Russell’s death, 279. n. ; present to, 327. 

Portsmouth fortified, 388. 

Portugal, relations of, 472 ; alliance with England, 472. 
474; at war, from its situation, 473 ; dependent on 
Spain, ib. ; king of, at Brazil, 474 ; revolution in, ib. ; 
charter of, 475, 476 ; cedes Brazil to Don Pedro, 477. 
See John VI., Pedro, Brazil. Cortes of Lamego, 482, 
483 ; revolts from Spain, 752; recognised by England 
and Spain, ib. ; relation of, to England, 777 ; usurped 
by Don Miguel, ib. ; proceeding in 1820—1826, 778, 779 ; 
Absolutists and Constitutionalists in, 779 ; proceedings 
in 1827, 780. 

Posidonius, 14. 

Potemkin, character of, 450. 

Potocki, apostate Pole, 454. 457. 

Powell, Judge, and Test Act, 305 ; on the bishops, 414. 

Powis, Lord, privy councillor, 311 ; to be lieutenant of 
Ireland, 339. 

Powis, Sir Thomas, attorney-general, 385. 

“ Practical principles,” strictures on Mr. Locke’s doc¬ 
trine concerning, 158. 

Practical reason and theoretical reason, separate pro- 
vinces of, 128. 

Practice and theory, 571. n. 

Praga, assault of, 458. 

Precedents, in Test Act, 366. 

Predestination, considerations upon the doctrine of, in 
connexion with the human will, 138. 

Prerogative, royal, 332. 388. 

Presbyterians engaged with Monmouth, 284; James II. 
persecutes, 328, 329 ; account of the, 360. 

Prescription, right of, in church property, 564. 

Press, freedom of the, in England, 658—66 >; control of 
the, 659. 663; English, in case of Poland, 680 ; a means 
of popular influence, ib. 

Preston, Lord, secretary of state, 296. 378. 

Price, Richard, observations and strictures on his philo¬ 
sophical writings and doctrines, 73. 

Price, Dr., and Revolution Society, 605 ; on Hanover 
succession, 606 ; arguments of, 606, 607. 611. 

Prideaux, Mr., rigour against, 293. 

Priesthood. See Clergy. 

Priestley, Dr., his house demolished, 623. 

Primi, the Abbate, his “ History of the Dutch War,” 
262. 

Printing, invention of, 16; use of, 571 ; and philosophers, 
572. 

Prisoners, cruelty to, after defeat of Monmouth, 281. 
286 ; distribution of, 288. 

Prisons and Gaols, committee on, 713,714 ; their effect on 
crime, 718. 

“ Privilege,” meaning of, in Roman jurisprudence, 178. 

Privy and Cabinet Councils, 277. 

Property and marriage, great importance of the institu¬ 
tions of, upon the interests of society, 174 ; private and 







INDEX. 


825 


public, 563, 564. n. ; distinguished from trust, 799 ; and 
political privileges, ib., influence of, 802. 

Protestant, clergy, persecution and banishment of, by the 
Emperor Leopold I., 269 ; establishment, Earl Roches¬ 
ter for, 278 ; betrayed, 309 ; Tories, policy of, 301 ; faith, 
firm in England, 318 ; persecuted in France, 318. 322 ; 
colleges in France, 321 ; children ensnared, ib. 

Protestants, mode of punishing in France, 321; in Ire¬ 
land, 340. 

Protocol, definition of a, 583. 

Prussia. See Frederic II. Its relation to Europe, 710. 

PufFendorff, merits and defects of his attempt to restore 
natural law to its proper position, 168 ; his doctrine of 
“moral entities,” 169. 

Punishment, capital, in India, 687, 688 ; on abolition of, 
209 . 688; Lord Hardwicke on, 715 ; Lords Camden and 
Mansfield on, ib. ; right of inflicting, 716. Sec Crime, 
Felonies, Fielding, Gibbs, Grant, Macdonald. Lord 
Rosslyn against, 720 ; three classes of crime subject to, 
ib. ; in frauds, &c., ib. ; Dr. Paley on, 722 ; effect of 
abrogating, in felonies, ib. ; substitute for, in felonies, 
723 ; Basil Montague on, 723. n. ; London petition 
against, 724 ; Quakers’ petition against, 725. 

Puritans, imprisoned, 357 ; account of the, 360. 500. n. 

Putney, case of curate of, 344. 

Pyrenees, no longer, 622. 

Pyrrho, extravagant scepticism attributed to him, 143. 


Q. 

Quakers, account of the, 362, 363 ; encomium on the, 
725. 

Qualification for electors, nature of, 643, 644. 

Queen. See Catharine, Elizabeth, Denmark. 

Queen of James II. (Mary d’Este), account of, 301 — 303; 
her gross ignorance and superstition, 302 ; jealousy of, 
ib. ; horrified, 314 ; ascendancy over him, 323 ; bribed 
by Tyrconnel, 340; pregnancy of, 381, 382 ; ridiculed, 
ib. ; effects of, 389; delivered of a son, 422 ; suppo¬ 
sititious ? 422. 424. 

Queen of France, her chamber broken into ? 584. 

Queensberry, Duke, episcopalian, 327 ; decline of, ib. ; 
downfall of, 332. 


R. 

Radom, confederation of, 439. 

Radzivil, Prince, account of, 438, 439. 

Rantzau, Danish minister, 461. 464. 

Rapin, M., character of, 424. 

Realists and Nominalists, the, controversy between, 21 ; 
the scholastic doctrine expires with these disputes, 22. 

Reason, emancipation of, 17; its influence on the will 
indirect, 40, 41 ; improper application of the term “ rea¬ 
son” to the moral faculties, ib. 

Recognition (of independence), meaning of the term, 749. 

Redings, the defenders of Switzerland, 682. 

Reform (Parliamentary), partial and effectual, 567, 568; 
enemies to, 623 ; Mr. Pitt on, 793. See Boroughs. 
Bill, principle of the, 793 ; simultaneous and progres¬ 
sive, 795 ; simultaneous, necessity of, 796 —798; agita¬ 
tors for, 798; and corporation robbery, ib. ; arguments 
against, 800; a conciliatory measure, 802 ; niggardly, 
evils of, 802, 803. 

Reformation, consequences of the, 620. 

Reformers, Sir Thomas More’s account of the excesses 
of the, 212. 

Refugees, French, proceedings of, 582. 

Regulators of corporations, 372. 


Regulus, his case considered in illustration of the doc¬ 
trine of disinterested affection, 49. 

Reid, Dr., notice of his “ Inquiry into the Human Mind,” 
101 ; his philosophy taught at Paris, 102. 

Religion, its relation to morality, according to Lord 
Shaftesbury, 45. 

Religious liberty, the principles of, first disclosed to the 
world by the Independent divines, 152. 

Renwick, Cameronian preacher, executed, 427. 

Repnin, character of, 438—440. 

Representation, object of popular, 639 — 641 ; composition 
of, 639; and landed proprietors, 640 ; if depending on 
numbers, 646. See Suffrage, Qualification. Value of, 
647. 649 ; Mr. Fox, on best, 649 ; of Ireland and Scot¬ 
land after the union, 798, 799 ; principle of, 809 ; vir¬ 
tual, case of, 810. 

Representatives, proportion of, 594. 615. 

Republicans, bias against, 295 ; in France, 668. 

Resistance, doctrine of non-, 429—432. 

Responsibility, legal and moral, of advisers of the crown, 
their respective limits defined, 208; of kings, 607.613,614. 

Review. See Edinburgh. 

Revolt. See War. 

Revolution, good effects of the, 294. 

Revolution, French, Mr. Burke’s speech against the, 541, 
544 ; his insinuations against the favourers of the, 545 ; 
an equivocal term, ib. ; French, meaning of the, 547 ; 
cause of the, ib. ; effect of union of orders on, 553, 554 ; 
soldiery joins the, 555, 556. See States General. And 
English, contrasted, 558 ; its effects on the Church, 
562—565 ; fruits of, 568 ; French, ultimate fate of, 572 ; 
a, without leaders, ib .; French, influence of philo¬ 
sophers on, 575 ; atheistical? ib. ; state of finance in, 
577; factious and general, 580 ; French, evils of the, 
580 ; English, price of the, 581 ; French, exaggeration 
of evils of, 582 ; effect on commerce, ib. ; lives lost in, 
ib. ; effect of, on provinces, 583; first excesses of the, 
583, 584 ; use of the king to, 585; crisis of the, 586 ; 
French, and literature, 587 ; union of provinces in, 
595 ; societies, Mr. Burke on, 605 ; 1688, effects of, 605. 
614; conference in the, 610—612; French, conduct of 
leaders of, 606; society and monarchy, 613; American, 
effect of, ib. ; admirers and wishers of, 617, 618; 
French, effects of the, 619, 620. 622. 672; perma¬ 
nence of the, 619; denounced in pulpits, 623 ; its 
effects on French people, 630, 631 ; on agricul¬ 
ture, ib. ; peasants averse to, 633; lesson from, 638 ; 
progress of the, 666 ; reason of combination against, 
707 ; error in government, 709. 

Revolutionary pamphlets, French, 552. 

Ricardo, Mr., eulogium on, 748. 

Rich, Sir Robin, solicitor-general under Henry VIII., 
his unprincipled attempt to entrap Sir Thomas More, 
232 ; More’s exposure of him on his trial, 233. 

Richard the Third, notice of Sir Thomas More’s His¬ 
tory of, 195. 

Richelieu, Cardinal, discourages Protestants, 319; arro¬ 
gance of, 572. 

Richclieus in National Assembly, 574. 

Right and wrong, universality of the principle of, 4 ; Dr. 
Cudworth’s doctrine concerning, 36; Dr. Samuel 
Clarke’s, 39 ; conscience the seat of their perception, 
81 ; a perception of right and wrong must have pre¬ 
ceded revealed religion, 86 ; dangerous opinion of Scotus 
concerning, 134. 

Right, see Petition of. To freedom, 608; petition of, 
on martial law, 734. 

Rights, of man, 588—591 ; metaphysic, 591 ; national, ib.-, 
from expediency, ib. ; general, 592 ; bill of, on frequent 
parliaments, 810. 

Ripon, Dean of. See Cartwright. 







826 INDEX. 


Robertson, Dr., writings of, 497. 

Robespierre, character of, 6G4; failure of, G6G ; reign of, 
G82 ; on trial of king, G83. 

Rouchefoucault, M., on finance, 577. 

Rouchefoucaults in National Assembly, 574. 

Rochelle treacherously abandoned, 320. 

Rochester, Earl, his station and character, 278 ; his idea 
of business, ib. ; indecency of, 281 ; his policy, 302, 
303; on the decline, 303 ; in Compton’s case, 311; 
averse to Popery, 322, 323; his friends, 324 ; confer¬ 
ence to convert, ib. j removed and pensioned, 325. 

Rogers’ poems, 517 ; poetical rank, 520, 521. 

Rohan, Prince de, sagacity of, 446, 447. n. 

Roman Patriciate, the, a striking instance of the influ¬ 
ence of opinion on human conduct, 13. 

Rome, proceedings of the court of, in the case of Henry 
the Eighth’s divorce, 222 ; divisions in see of, 299. 

Romilly, Sir Samuel, character of, 688 ; and Mr. Wilber- 
force, 721. 

Roper, his account of Sir Thomas More’s domestic life, 
191 ; conversations with Sir Thomas on the state of 
religion and the kingdom, 224. 

Ross, Bishop, prosecuted, 331. 

Rosslyn, Earl. See Wedderburne. 

Rousseau, his influence on French Revolution, 575; Mr. 
Hume on, 589. n. 

“ Rule of life,” the, inquiry into the causes of the gene¬ 
ral agreement of men concerning, 5 ; some of the early 
Romans distinguished by a desire to discover a solid 
foundation for, 13; remarks on Hartley’s theory con¬ 
cerning, 82. 

Rules of conduct, general coincidence of all ages and na¬ 
tions on the subject of, 4 ; Mr. Hume’s theory, 5 ; pro¬ 
secution of the inquiry. Whence arises this agreement 
as to the “rule of life?” ib. ; extract from Hartley’s 
“ Observations on Man,” 5. n. 

Rumbold, Richard, quartered, 291. 

Rumsey, Col., perjury of, 290. 

Rupert’s bequest to his mistress, 340. 

Russell, Lord, uncompromising, 280 ; perjury at trial of, 
290; of unspotted virtue, 291. 

Russia, uncivilised state of, 276 ; interferes with Poland, 
43G; tyrannises over Poland, 438, 439. See Catharine. 
Has no word for “ honour,” 440. 

Russians, origin of the, 4G9. 

Ryder, Sir Dudley, on criminal committee, 715, 716. 

Rye-house Plot, 469. 

Ryswick, peace of, 679. 

Rzewuski, apostate Pole, 454. 457. 


S. 

Sacrilege, an indefinite term, 565. 

Sailors, the, ridicule the monks, 425. 

St. John, Lady, intercedes for Mrs. Lisle, 285. 

St. Nicholas Island, use of, 290. 

St. Pierre, Abbe, scheme of, 627. 

Saldern, character of, 438. 

Salisbury, Lord, papist, 419. 

Sancroft, primate, wavering conduct of, 310; recom¬ 
mends Jeffreys’s brother, 311 ; defends the church, 404. 
Sardinia, king of, occupies Genoa, 695; possessions of, 
702. 

Sarmatian race, 435 ; slaves, 469. 

Satire, remarks on, 14, and n. 

Savile, Sir George. See Halifax. 

Savoy, marriage of Duke of, 607 ; house of, guardians of 
Alps, 702. 

Sawyer, attorney general 385. 412. 

Saxony, Elector of, and Poland, 436. 


Scarsdale, Lord, dismissed, 373. 

Scepticism, universal, the absurdity of, demonstrated, 
65 ; mischievous consequences of, ib. 

Sceptics, their baneful influence on philosophy, 15; ex¬ 
travagant notions attributed to some of them, 143. 

Scheldt, opening of the, 624. 

Schiller’s works, 528, 529. 

Scholastic ethics, retrospect of, 16. 

Scholastic philosophy, its origin traced, 17, 18. 

Schoolmen, the, their character defined, 17 ; general ex¬ 
cellence of their ethical system, 22. 

Schools, Stoical and Epicurean, rise of the, 8. 

Sciences, the, difficulties in the way of forming a new 
nomenclature of, 3 ; instanced in the case of Lord 
Bacon, ib. ; importance of distinguishing between phy¬ 
sical and moral, 4. 

Scotch, the, their passion for dialectical subtilties, 60; 
character given of them by Servetus, 60. n. 

Scotland, power of James 11. in, 276; persecution in, 326, 
327; laws of, against Papists, 327; Parliament of, opened, 
328 ; debates in, 328—332; adjourned, 332 ; proclama¬ 
tion by James in, 353 ; state of, under James II., 427, 
428 ; tenure of lands in, 564. 

Scottish nobles, reply to the Pope, 620. n. 

Scotus, inquiry into the place of his birth, 18. n. ; his ac¬ 
quiescence in the Augustinian doctrine, 133. 

Scrofuia, royal cure of, 3G9. 

Sebastiani, Col., publication of, 664. 

Scbastiani, Don, son of Don Pedro, 480. 

Sedgemoor battle, cruelties after, 281, 282. 

Sedley, Catherine (Countess Dorchester), account of, 
302, 303 ; leader of the Protestant party, 302 ; loses her 
lover, James II., 303; return of, 323; reason of her 
dismissal, 323. n. 

Selden, his opinion of the equity of the Court of Chan¬ 
cery, 216. 

Self-interest and Self-love, observations concerning, 146. 

Self-love, erroneousness of the general notion of its 
being the most powerful of human motives, 41; remarks 
upon, 78. 146. 

“ Sense of justice,” what constitutes it, 80. 

Septennial Act, account of the, 811. 

Sepulveda, advocate of the Spanish colonists, 23 ; notices, 
of, 136. 

Seton, Judge, removed, 330. 

Settlement Act for Ireland, 336. 340. 

Settlement Act, arraigned, 607. 

Seymour, Sir Edward, favours James II., 295.; and fel¬ 
lows of Magdalen College, 350. 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, singular fortune of his “ Character¬ 
istics,” 42; notices of his early life, ib. ; general ob¬ 
servations on the character of his writings,43; stric¬ 
tures on his system of morals, ib. ; for religious free¬ 
dom, 300. 352. 

Sharpe, dean of Norwich, against popery, 310. 

Shaw, Mr., chairman of Lloyds, 748. 

Sheridan and Tyrconnel, 339. n., 340 ; Mr., as a speaker, 
493. 

Ship-money as a precedent, 306. 

Shorter, Sir John, mayor of London, 369. 

Siberia, dread of, 439. 

Sidney, Algernon, trial of, 613 ; lines by, 617. n. ; manu¬ 
script evidence against, 732 ; reversal of attainder 
against, ib. ; death of, 280; Lady Dorothy, Waller’s 
Sacharissa, 277 ; Henry, and Prince of Orange, 421. 

Sierakowski, Count, opposes the Russians, 458. 

Sieyes, M., on religious liberty, 57G. n. 

Skelton, ambassador at Paris, 394. 

Slave trade, African, first condemned by Dominic Soto, 
24. 

Slavery, on abolition of, 744. 













INDEX. 


Smith, Dr. Adam, effects produced by his “ Inquiry into 
the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” 69 ; 
observations on his philosophical theory, 70 ; first to 
draw the attention of philosophers to the workings of 
“ sympathy,” 71 ; defects of his theory, 72; his style 
contrasted with that of Locke, 144.' 

Smith, Dr. Adam, writings of, 497 ; opinion of Necker 
and Lord Auckland, 550. n. 

Smith, ltev. John, account of, 726. n. See Austin, Rev. 
Mr. Evidence against, 729. 738. 743 ; illegal condemn¬ 
ation of, 731. 737 ; his journal, 732, 733; prejudices 
against, 736 ; vindication of, 739, 740; imprisonment 
and death, 745, 746. 

Smith, Sir Sidney, in Syria, 664. 

Smugglers, increase of, 717. 

Sobieski, John, king of Poland, 436 ; his son a pri¬ 
soner, ib. 

Social affections, Brown’s theory of the, 114. 

Society, interests of, 601. 

Socrates, 8—10, and n. ; definition of happiness, according 
to his doctrine, 10. 

Soldiers, their relation to rest of nation, 556 ; suffrage 
of, 604. 

Somers, John, to be M.P., 373 ; defends the bishops, 
411; purity of, 572. 611. 

Somerset, Duke, reply to James II., 368, 369. 

Somersetshire, state of, after Monmouth’s defeat, 286. 

Soto, Dominic, confessor of Charles, notice of his Treatise 
on Justice and Law, 23 ; part taken by him on behalf 
of the natives of Africa and America, against the 
Spaniards, ib. ; the African slave-trade first condemned 
by him, 24. 

Southampton, Lord, on liberty, 356. 

Southwold Bay, battle of, 265. n. 

Spain, cultivation of speculative theology by, in the middle 
age, 23 ; feeble condition of, 276 ; and French Revo¬ 
lution, 622 ; revolt of Netherlands from, 750, 751 ; of 
Portugal from, 752; endeavours to retain her colonies, 
756. 760 ; state of, 762. 

Spanish America, see Amefica. Strength in America, 
760. 

Spencer, Robert. See Sunderland. 

Spinoza, his agreement with Hobbes in first principles, 
29. n ; his doctrine concerning the will, 30. 

Spirit, use of public, 663. 

Sprat, bishop of Rochester, in Compton’s case, 311; papist 
intercourse of, 317. n. ; on ecclesiastical commission, 349. 

Stael, Madame de, as a writer, 524. 526. 530. 533, 534. See 
Allemagne. 

Star Chamber, nature of the, 309. 

State corruption, 604 ; trials, nature of. 615. 

States, safety of great and small, 659. 708; sovereign, 
meaning of, 702. 

“ States General,” assumption of the name by the Seven 
United Provinces, 255 ; French, 549 ; convocated, 552 ; 
on union of the orders, 552—555; decisive measures of 
the, 553—555. See Assembly, National. 

Statesmen by trade, 569; requisites of, 639. 

Statute Book, English, 616. 

Stuart, Dugald, notices of his early life, 100; influence 
of his lectures on his pupils, ib. ; notices of Francis 
Ilorner, his favourite pupil, 100. n. ; observations on 
the style of his writings, 103, &c. ; his philosophical 
theory, 104, 105 ; his doctrine concerning the moral 
sense, 105; notice of his “ Philosophical Essays,” and 
other works, 106. 

Stoics, the, 11 ; our information concerning the most 
celebrated among them very scanty, 12 ; modification 
of their doctrines according to the fluctuation of 
events, 12, 13; their doctrine as put into the mouth of 
Cato by Cicero, 53. w. 


827 


Stolk, favourite of Charles VII., 461. 

Strafford, Earl, in Ireland, 335. 

Street, Judge, and Test Act, 305. 

Struensee, Dr., origin of, 461; a cabinet minister and 
earl, ib. ; character of, 462 ; policy and vices of, 462, 
463 ; abolishes the torture, 463 ; conspiracy against, ib.; 
imprisoned, 464 ; beheaded, ib. ; defence of, 465, 466. 

Stuart, Sir Charles, Portuguese ambassador, 477. 

Stuart, General, accusation against, 664. 

Sublapsarian and Supralapsarian systems, consideration 
of, in connexion with predestination and the human 
will, 137, 138. 

Succession, effects of disputed, 581 ; Protestant, 610. n. 

Suffrage, National Assembly on, 593 ; on parliamentary, 
639 ; use of universal, 640. 644 ; effects of, 642 ; mode 
of exercising, 642, 643. See Franchise, Ballot, Re¬ 
presentation. Amongst slaves, 645; and ballot, 648 ; 
in France, 649. 

“ Suggestion,” remarks on the unsuitablcness of the 
term in ethical philosophy, 115; contrasted with “ asso¬ 
ciation,” ib. 

Sully, Due de, pride of, 572 ; opinion of Philip II., 676. 

Sunderland, Earl (prime minister), account of, 277, 278 
301 ; pleads in vain, 290 ; his policy, 303. 323. 376. 379. 
392, 393 ; his religion, 303 ; lord president of council, 
ib. ; in Compton’s case, 311 ; and Tyrconnel, 338, 339 ; 
his means of ruling the king, 339; bribed by Tyrcon¬ 
nel, 340; on Church of England, 355 ; on dissolution of 
parliament, 370, 371 ; bribed by France, 392, 395; de¬ 
cline of, 395; and the bishops’ petition, 405; becomes 
moderate, 407 ; apostatises, 421. 

Supremacy, Scotch A ct of, 330. 

Suwarrow, cruelty of, 458. 

Sweden, foreign factions in, 603. 

Swift, pamphlets of, 575 ; irony of, 665; on discretion, 
738. 

Switzerland and French Revolution, 622. 658, 659 ; inva¬ 
sion of, 681, 682. 

Sympathy, Adam Smith the first to draw the attention of 
philosophers to the operation of, 71. 


T. 

Talbot. See Tyrconnel. 

“ Tale of a Tub,” probable origin of the phrase, 237. 

Talent, latent, 573. 

Talleyrand and his title, 633. 

Tallien, employment of, 635. 

Target, M., and suffrage, 593. 

Targowitz, confederation of, 454, 455. 

Taunton, convictions at, 287 ; scene at, 292 ; extortions 
from women of, ib. 

Taylor, Dr. Jeremy, his doctrine of virtue, 45. n. 

Temple, Sir William, his negotiations with Holland, 260. 
269. 271. n. ; character of, 277. 

Temple, Sir Richard, Whig, 296 ; speech by, ib .; in Re¬ 
volution, 1688, 142. 

Tenison, Bishop, disobeys James II., 404. 

Tenterden, Lord. See Abbot, Mr. 

Terceira, Donna Maria proclaimed at, 788 ; affair at, 
790. 

Terrorists, the, join Napoleon, 635. 

Test Act, obnoxious to James II., 294; nature of the, 
296. 299, 300. 305.310. 

“ Theopathetic affection,” the, of Hartley, 82. 

Theoretical reason, its province distinguished from that 
of practical reason. 128. 

“Theory” of morals not identical with “theory” in 
other sciences, 5, 6. 














823 INDEX. 


Theory of “ moral sentiments,” consideration of what con¬ 
stitutes it, 6 ; explanation of the term, 570 ; and prac¬ 
tice, 571. n. 

Theresa, Maria, character of, 438. 447, 448 ; and Poland, 
441; her opinion of Catharine, 442; occupies part of 
Poland, 443 ; austerity of, 445. 

Third Estate. See Estate. 

Thucydides, observations on Hobhouse’s translation of, 
29. 

Tiers Etat. See Estate. 

Tilden, Dr., papist, 324. n. 

Tillotson. against James’s designs, 404. 

Titles, abolition of, 562. 

Titus, Colonel, and James II., 385 ; a privy councillor, 
425. 

Toleration, on religious, 330. 

Tollendai, M. Lally, on union of the orders, 553. n. 

Tooke, Horne, and universal suffrage, 649. 

Tories, in Parliament of James II., 276; leader of the, 
278 ; rallying point of the, 295, 296; alienated from 
James II., 342; conspiracies of the, under George I., 
811, 812. 

Toryism, see Whiggism; in England, 609 ; support of, 
622. 

Town and country, universal suffrage in, 646. 

Townshend, Mr. Charles, on criminal committee, 715. 

“ Tractatus Tractatuum,” the, publication of, at Venice, 
23. n. 

Tracts, political, on designs of James II., 389. 

Treaty of Nimeguen, associations to maintain the, 272. 

Treaty. See Alliance, Holy ; Amiens, Augsburg, Chau- 
mont. Family Compact, Frankfort, Munster, Nime¬ 
guen, Oliva, Paris, Triple Alliance, Westphalia, Rys- 
wick, Vienna. 

Trelawney, Col., succeeds Kirke, 283. 

Trelawney, Bishop, in bishops’ petition, 405. 411. 

Trent, Council of, debate in the, between the Dominicans 
and the Franciscans, 136. 

Triennial Act, 389 ; bill, history of the, 811, 812. 

Triple Alliance, the, 260; the essential stipulation of the 
compact, 261. 

Trumbull, Sir William, motion by, 297. 

Tucker, Abraham, observations on his character and 
writings, 83 ; his superiority in mixed philosophy, 84 ; 
his plagiarism from Hartley, ib .; defects of his philo¬ 
sophical system, ib. 

Tunstall, master of Rolls (afterwards bishop of Dur¬ 
ham), 201. 

Turgot, M., character of, 548. n .; on church lands, 563. 

Turkey, guarantee to, 776. 

Turks, invasion of Austria by the, 269. 

Turks, the, besiege Vienna, 276. 

Tutchin, John, case of, 288. 

Tyrconnel, Earl, privy councillor, 311 ; account of, 333. 
«., 334 ; boisterous conduct of, 337; tries to be lieu¬ 
tenant of Ireland, 338, 339 ; policy of, 341, 342. 


u. 

Under-sheriff, importance attached to the office of, in the 
time of Henry VIII., 203. 

Uniformity, Act of, 352. 

United States, recognise Spanish America, 755,756. See 
America. Reason of revolt of, 804. 

Utility, remarks on Dr. Paley’s use of the term, 6. ; 
on Mr. Bentham’s, 6. 92. &c.; the doctrine of, com¬ 
pared with that of “ beneficial tendency,” 116. 

“ Utopia,” the, of Sir Thomas More, critique upon, 196, 
&c.; specimen of Utopian etymologies, 197. n. 

Utrecht, origin of the confederacy of, 256. 


V. 

Vane, Sir Henry, on religious liberty, 361; his son, 425. 
Varennes, flight of Louis XVI. to, 585. 

Vattel on Law of Nations, 703. 

Vergennes, ambassador to Turkey, 441, and n .; ambition 
of, 549. 

Verona, conspiracy at, 757. 

Versailles, excesses at, 584, 585. 

Veto of French king, 600. «., 602. See Negative. 
Victoria, Francis, 23 ; his exertions in behalf of the 
natives of Africa and America against the rapacity of 
the Spaniards, ib. 

Vienna, Congress at, 691. 694 ; effects of, 692.694, 695. 
709. 

Villa Flor, Count, policy of, 783. 

Virieu, M., secedes to Commons, 555. 

Virtue, its source and properties, according to Epicurus ; 
11 ; extremes of opinion held by him and Zeno, 12; 
Dr. Samuel Clarke’s notions concerning virtue and 
vice, 39 ; theory of virtue laid down by Malebranche, 
51 ; remarks on Dr. Edward’s dissertation on, ib. ; on 
Dr. Paley’s general account of, 86. 

Voltaire, his influence on the French Revolution, 575. 


W. 

Wagstaffe, his defence, 247. n. ; his vindication, 249. n. 

Waithman, Alderman, on prison committee, 714. 

Waldegrave, lord lieutenant, 374. 

Walker, Obadiah, papist convert, 304. 317. 

Waller (poet), Sacharissa of, 277 ; supports liberty, 295. 

Walpole on Peerage Bill, 601. n. 

War, considerations on, 430—433; and independence, 625; 
effects of long, 638 ; and commerce, 661. 

Warburton, Dr., his eulogium on the Earl of Shaftes¬ 
bury, 42; his opinion as to the authorship of Eixa/v 
¥,ce.<ri\txYi, 239 ; on Church and State, 576. 

Warfare, the present mode of, contrasted with that ad¬ 
vocated by the system of Grotius, 171. 

Warmestre, Count Hamilton’s, 283. n. 

Warner, Jesuit, confessor to James II., 313. 

Warsaw occupied by Russians, 458 ; grand duchy of, 
459. 

Washington, George, character of, 628. n. 

Watkins, Judge, with Jeffreys, 284. n. 

Wedderburne, Alexander, writings of, 497, 498. 

Wellesley, Lord, character of, 697. 

Wellington, Duke of, on Catholic Bill, 776. n. 

Wells, convictions at, 287. 

Westminster Abbey, scene in, 406. 

Westphalia, treaty of, 694. 

Wharton, M.P., committed to Tower, 297. 

Wharton, Lord, against James II., 328. 

Whig testimony, insult to, 291; leaders, join Church 
Tories, 296. 

Whiggism and Toryism, 574; in Revolution, 1688, 610. 

Whigs, concessions of the, 610. See Tories. 

Whitbread, Mr., on Lord Castlereagh’s mission, 690, 
691. 

Wilberforce, Mr., see Romilly, Sir S.; presents Qua¬ 
kers’ petition, 725. n. 

Will, the, its relation to conscience considered, 130. 

William I. of Holland, delineation of his character, 256, 
257; his religious toleration, 257 ; his descendants, ib. 

William II., his reign and death, 257. 

William III., divided state of the kingdom at the period 
of his birth, 257. See “ Orange, Prince of.” 

Williams, Sir William, proceedings of, 385. 420; reriled 
by populace, 419. 








INDEX. 


Winchester, Jeffreys at, 284. 

Winchester, Earl, notorious conduct of, 379. 

Wollaston, Mr., notice of his moral system, 42. n. 

Wolsey, Sir Thomas More’s memorable answer to, in the 
Parliament, 206; his disposition towards Sir Thomas, 
207; his embassy to France, 208; his ascendant over 
the bishops, ib. 

Woman first raised to her proper position among the 
Romans, 16. 

Wordsworth, Dr., strictures on his attempt to fix the 
authorship of E Ixuv B aiXixvi, 240. 

Wright, Judge, with Jeffreys, 284. n. 

Wrington, birthplace of Mr. Locke, 287. 

Writs in Chancery, 214. 


829 


Y. 

York, Duke of, attempt to exclude, 277; favours Earl 
Sunderland, 277. n .; his opinion of Lord Halifax, 278. 
n. ; his first wife, 333. n. See James II. 

Ypres, subtleties of Bishop of, 576 


Z. 

Zeno, difference of his opinions and those of Epicurus, or 
the subject of virtue, 12. 


THE END. 






London: 

Spottiswoodes and Shaw, 

N e w-street- Square. 













* 















. 






























Bfin ■ 

















, 

♦ 



■ 





' * , 

























s 






















. 
























































y* 






























■ 




































* 




















- 





















































4 
















, 












• - 






/ 




p p . \ 

■ * ■ ■ £ 

























































♦ 








1 















































♦ 























* 

\ 

. 



























; 

























. 

































































- 








•* 






■ r 


































« - 








* * . 








■ 

- I . ♦ *r r ’li IT > 





/ 


/ \ 

,, 
























































